It’s all relative. Founders that actually make it to series A levels have options to take money off the table (usually) and often what most Americans would consider a great salary, but if you do the math vs getting a massively overpaid FAANG job and include the odds of the startup imploding founder is actually a tougher gig.

I refer to dilemmas like this as "zeroeth world problems."

Of course like I said… relative. It is nowhere near as tough a gig as schoolteacher or service industry worker, at least financially, though there can be a lot of stress and some mental health risks.