[__--__]

He's not the only anti-startup commenter here. I'm curious, have you ever worked at a startup as a programmer, not as a founder? Sometimes, it's easier to see the downside of a system when you're not the one profiting from it.

[nostrademons]

The part I don't understand is why people generalize their one bad experience to "the whole system is corrupt!"

I've worked for two startups as a programmer. They were both broken, and each was broken in its own way. I don't think that the founders of them were bad people or out to screw me. They were, however, way in over their heads. Startups are hard.

I also founded a startup. It was also broken in its own way, despite trying to avoid all the mistakes that I'd seen my previous bosses make. Startups are hard. Luckily, I didn't take anyone else down with me - it was just me and my cofounder, he soft-landed at business school and I soft-landed at Google.

I now work at Google. It is significantly less broken than any previous startups I've worked at. However, there are still a bunch of things about it that are annoyances.

No place is ever going to be perfect, but if you tar each new employer with the same broad brush that made you leave the last one, then chances are the same broad problems will come up.