Comment by dkersten

> The pessimism in this thread really bothers me.

I don’t recommend startups because of personal experiences. I’ve personally lost more working for startups (in terms of unpaid salaries, lower salaries and impact on health) than I did running my own startups. Startups rarely have good development practices, are often always in crunch mode and often have bad work-life balance.

Some people thrive in that environment, sure. Personally I don’t hate the environment but I can’t stick it too long either so I’ve job hopped a bit. But when you add that high-stress-low-discipline (discipline in terms of development practices) environment together with low salaries, false promises based on worthless stock, high founder ego and a high rate of startup failure, I don’t think it’s a good deal for most people, who would be better off in a stable balanced low (comparatively) stress well paying big company instead.

I hate to say it since I’ve started startups myself and it makes finding employees hard, but I think the people who really thrive in that environment are relatively few.

Sure it can be rewarding, you can make great connections and learn a lot but I’ve found big companies can be all of the same things, although the learning is usually deep in big companies and wide in startups, but a medium sized (ie established startup) company might be a good middle ground. Maybe everyone should experience it once though and then move on. I also will likely make another attempt at a startup myself too, but I do feel that there’s a difference when you own the thing.