Comment by KaiserPro

The problem is that people seem to think that one must drink the coolaid to do well.

I have worked for both small, large, internationals and startups.

A startup is a massive risk. 99.5% of them fail, of that 0.5%, >50% are acquired which is a spectacularly brutal experience. Odds are, your startup will fail, and take you with it. (especially as those of you in the US have to think about health insurance.)

Most of the time you'll be making fudge after fudge, using stuff cause its shiny and regretting every choice you made 6 months previous. then you have to deal with the batshit social rules are de rigueur.

Either way, you can either choose to believe that your company is looking after your interests, or treating you like cattle (Kobe beef, if you're lucky enough)

Far too many startups require their staff to blindly worship the co-founders, even though they are obviously deficient, only useful for tax write-down fodder. Look the other direction as your boss has a spectacular mental breakdown, or decides to initiate conjugal relations via blackmail and obnoxious power plays.

Basically, you can't just slap the word startup on a thing and allow it to fuck with peoples lives.