Do whatever you want. Life is short, and even if you are making the wrong decision, you will learn a lot from the experience. The saying, “don’t go counting other people’s money” comes to mind here. If the OP is young (probably is if recently graduated), they have more opportunity (time) to rebound from the experience if it turns out to be the wrong path. Make your financial mistakes when young if you’re going to make them.
Of course. Having said that you have to take a look around and decide if the conditions are remotely in your favor, right now, and when/if things don't pane out in 6-12 months. The economy (not the stock market) isn't great, finding another job without much experience in the current state of the tech industry might look even more bleak. I graduated right after the dot com bubble burst. I took the calls from recruiters offering me sign-on bonuses and other crazy stuff during the bubble - I declined and chose to finish school instead. A year later after graduating I moved to Boston and heard first-hand accounts of developers driving cabs to make ends meet when things imploded.
It's one thing to take a high risk / high reward chance, but swapping a steady good-paying job for effectively an unspecified unpaid role doesn't seem like that. If he's willing to work unpaid, he's more likely to get a low-ball offer if/when the company decides to employ him.
