Compare offers from startup and FAANG

There is no apples to apples comparison, FAANG just gives a ridiculous guaranteed amount of money... no matter how many different ways you fudge the numbers.

TC doesn't mean jack in startup world. You're always taking an outsized risk by joining a startup that may/may not IPO. By default, all non-public company shares are inflated, since there's no liquidity in them. Cash salary is the only part of TC you can depend on there.

Think of it this way: joining FAANG is like investing in the S&P 500, you'll get a decent return for the effort/time you put in.

Joining a startup is like investing in Gamestop. It could go to the moon or go boom.

It's impossible to do an apple-to-apples comparison between a startup and a Big Tech company 99.9% of the time. The rare exception is when a startup is so mature and so guaranteed to go IPO that it's already giving RSUs (this is what Robinhood did when I joined pre-IPO).

For startups, you need to do the math to figure out what the value of the option is on paper. Ideally your recruiter/hiring manager are nice and just tell it to you (but this is rare). I recommend this playlist (we really need to refactor this into a course) to learn more about the math (find the lessons about equity): [Masterclass] Understanding And Optimizing Your Pay In Tech

I looked up Snorkel AI, and it seems like a hot AI unicorn. I generally prefer unicorns to Big Tech (especially if you have worked in Big Tech already like yourself) as you still have good financial upside (with some risk of course), but you don't need to deal with all the crappiness of FAANG (politics, lack of scope, red tape).

At the end of the day, it really comes down to your priorities. If you need consistently high TC, it's hard to turn down Meta which pays well even among FAANG. But if you want to learn more and have more excitement in your life, unicorn is obviously the way to go.

Last and certainly not least, team quality matters a ton as well. If one manager came across as far better and more supportive than the other, just join them. It's hard to go wrong following a truly stellar manager.