> Also consider opportunity cost. The chef could have opened a restaurant instead and perhaps also earn a lot of money that way.

Would he have profited millions, on top of his salary? I read routinely about hugely popular top-rated restaurants going under (eg. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/dining/27zakarian.html?re...) or nearly going bankrupt (http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/gordon-ramsay-...). When we're considering risk, let's remember the upside to an option on a restaurant is small, and the risk is practically startup levels.

I thought most restaurants basically hemorrhaged money? A job at a tech startup + stock options might have been quite low risk by comparison.

According to BusinessWeek, new restaurants are not quite as risky as people perceive. Only 60% of new restaurants fail or are sold in three years[1], which is a bit higher but similar rate to any new business.[2]

I can't find any good numbers on tech startups with some Googling other than the oft-quoted 90%. This is hard to compare, because you might earn some sort of salary while the startup is in operation, but it closes down because it fails to meet growth targets.

But on balance it seems to me the startup is still riskier.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2007/sb20070...

[2] http://www.newventurelab.com/resources/blog.php?id=261

Sure, but if he is a really good chef? Just saying that chefs can make a lot of money, it is not a given that chefs have to be poor.