[ajbonkoski]

"The tradeoff for the bad hours/pay is that you'll get more autonomy in your work and the ability to really influence the product. To me, this is why you should work for a startup."

I'm beginning to really hate hearing this over and over. So many people accept this at face value when in reality it's dubious at best.

Case in point: 6 months ago I left a start-up for a medium-size company (~300-400 people) that has been around for ~15 yrs with no ambitions of going public nor taking outside investment. I get both amazing pay and an insane amount of autonomy. I doubt this could be matched by a Big or Small company.

Here's the rub: Silicon Valley markets itself VERY WELL and if you're willing to internalize everything that comes out of this marketing machine, then yes... it's snake oil.

I'm not diminishing the the importance or impact of entrepreneurial ventures, but I think we can do better than Cookie-cutter Generalisms repeated ad nauseam without independent thought.

[fratlas]

Would you say your company is a rare breed?