
Startup vs. Corporate Life - stevencorcoran
http://blog.lawnstarter.com/post/87331474878/startup-vs-corporate-life
======
seldo
> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From
> people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what
> you see in corporate America these days.

I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as
working you hard. Also, the average US working week is 35 hours, 37 in
"information" industries:

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm)

The fact is that past 35 hours most people just aren't very productive, and a
startup asking you to work 50 hours is going to get just as much "busy-
looking" time as a corporate job asking you to do the same. Don't work at any
job that expects you to work 50-60 hour weeks. Those companies are unhappy
places.

~~~
gordaco
I came to say exactly this. 50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing
it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on
the verge of being crazy if your job is intellectually demanding.

I've worked in one startup, another one on the process of becoming a small
corp (i.e., already adopting process in a much serious scale) and a corp. The
best by far, if you value your life outside the job, is the corp. The worst
was IMHO the second one, which had the worst of the two worlds: from the
startup world, disapproval stares whenever you left without doing enough
overtime, crazy schedules overall (I learned later that some mandatory things
were actually illegal in my country) and permanent fire-extinguish mode; from
the corp world, bureaucracy and lots of meetings. This was in Europe, not in
the US.

~~~
throwaway5752
"50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look
for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy"

I feel badly for you that you've been at jobs that have made you feel that
way. I've worked 50ish hours for a long time, generally in jobs I enjoy and in
compensation structures that rewarded me for do intellectually stimulating
work.

But 50 hours a week is hardly crazy. Do whatever works for you, but I want to
combat this strange myth that nobody can be productive after 35 hours a week.
It's obviously false from my experience (and I would guess the experience of
many, many people on HN).

~~~
overgard
35 or 50 hours or whatever is a pretty arbitrary number, I would agree most
people have different limits on how long they can work, but I think the larger
point is that for intellectual work, more hours don't imply more output. Or at
least, not sustainably.

Not at my current employment, but I know there have been jobs where, say, 3:30
would roll around and my brain would pretty much fried for the day, but I felt
obligated to stick around for an extra hour and a half because I'd get
disapproving stares if I peaced out early. That extra hour and a half the
company got of my time as not a useful hour and a half though. Or conversely
sometimes I'd stay late because I was engaged with some sort of problem.
Either way, the number of hours really had very little to do with my
productivity, and trying to "force" it was never particularly useful.

If I were a manager, and I saw a person was treading water, I'd rather them go
home and have them come back the next day refreshed, rather then have them
stick around being miserable to meet some arbitrary number of hours.

------
edanm
This article misses some of the _very good_ reasons to work at a Megacorp in
terms of job security. I know, I know, it's one of those things that
developers of our generation have been taught not to care about. "No job is
secure", right?

The truth is, startups are _much_ less secure, have in many cases _serious
problems_ in terms of future opportunities. And most importantly - despite
saying "the job market is great, you can always find another job", this is
just _historically false_.

Please, read what Patrick Mckenzie has to say on the matter here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7611848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7611848)

And Thomas Ptacek's writing on this as well here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612575)

"When Sonicity failed in 2001, I had a track record as a lead developer on a
successful, well-reviewed enterprise product, the lead engineering role at an
ISP that might still have been among Chicago's most popular, and research
publications at least one of which has a cite record that a lot of ACM journal
submissions would envy. Not to mention, I had cofounded a company that had
raised a significant amount of money. I was living in San Francisco at the
time. I had to move to Ann Arbor to find my next job."

~~~
tomphoolery
Startups might force you to leave because they die, but giant corporations
will make you WANT to leave because they're terrible to work for. This is more
of a general note than anything else (as in, not just programmers), but many
of my friends who have taken corporate jobs have ended up leaving them for
something else, like a startup or consulting shop, because while the pay was
great, the work was boring and the culture was just awful. Startups can be
like that too, but generally even if they are you have way more power to
change things.

It's all a trade-off. You trade the fun of constant change for possibly
better, but definitely more reliable, compensation. That is, until your
company starts downsizing because someone up top bought 1 too many Ferraris.

~~~
timthorn
> giant corporations will make you WANT to leave because they're terrible to
> work for

Some might be. Some are great fun to work at.

~~~
rquantz
I'd love a list of big corporations that are actually great to work for. It
seems like Google is in this camp (I know, not for everyone, but it seems like
most people have positive experiences there), maybe Facebook. I hear mixed
things about Microsoft. What are the top ten BigCorps to work at as a
developer?

~~~
count
This is pretty easy. All of them, if you're on the right team, working on the
right project. Broad generalizations are pretty useless for something so
intensely personal.

~~~
rquantz
Ok, so it's possible to have a great experience at any huge tech company. That
doesn't mean there aren't some with a better chance than others (it also
doesn't mean that there are). Also, while everyone experiences things
differently, I think there are probably some things that most people will
agree on as good things and bad things in an employer. I will venture to name
some:

The opportunity to work on hard/interesting problems; good salary/benefits
relative to the industry; the company is interested in advancing your
career/training you to be better when you leave than when you came in; the
company places an emphasis on engineering rather than treating it like an
unfortunate necessity; programmers are given some level of autonomy or self-
determination, the structure is not overly hierarchical; the company tracks
developer productivity in reasonable ways rather than based on LOC or ass-time
in seat.

There are probably a lot of other things that could go on that list, and at
some companies, I'm sure that all of these really depend on where you are in
the organization. But I can't believe that these and other things can't be
influenced by corporate policy and practice, and that there aren't some
companies that make these sorts of things a priority when others don't.

All that being said, I asked the question because I've never worked at a big
company before, and maybe I'm totally off base. I was genuinely curious. I'd
be happy to hear people's impressions of different companies, or a real
explanation for why all big companies are the same and none of them are any
better than any others at keeping their developers happy. But just waving your
hands doesn't seem any more helpful than overbroad generalizations.

~~~
count
I've worked at big companies, small companies, and government agencies. You're
asking for specifics based on generalizations, which is what I was suggesting
you can't really get.

Corporate policy in Corporate America is, much like everything else, basically
the same across the board, for legal reasons. What's written down isn't the
real driver of company culture and individuals enjoyment and fulfillment in
their jobs though.

I've worked ridiculously horrific hours for substandard pay, but _loved it_
because of the team and folks I was working with (common thread from the
military: working in the face of adversity breeds camaraderie). The company,
boss, the end users could have cared less and provided nothing on your list of
'good things', but it was still a job I enjoyed working at.

I've also worked for companies that checked every 'this should be awesome'
box, and found it soulless, with a poor team of folks doing just enough to
skate buy on their cushier salaries and lower hours.

Anecdata aside, it's like asking if it's possible to have a good life in
America: it depends on what you want, but probably, yes. Where you live, what
you do, who you socialize/work with, etc. is highly personal, and drives
everything. While YOU (hypothetical you) may think the Silicon Valley is
amazing, I know great folks who want nothing more than to live 50 miles from
their neighbors in the woods in Maine. They're happy, etc. doing what they do,
living how they live. They'd be miserable in NYC or the Valley. Likewise,
hypothetical you would be miserable in their log cabin in the woods.

You might love Google or Yahoo or Microsoft, while someone else absolutely
hates it. That's got VERY little to do with policy, and nearly everything to
do with your personal life philosophy and the team/individuals you end up
working with.

------
fideloper
It's worth noting that there are tons of successful small to medium sized
companies which don't fall into either category.

I've made a career at them so far, both avoiding the corporate culture and the
start-up culture, while gaining the tight-nit teams, stability and learning
challenges.

Examples include agencies that have developers, smaller development shops,
bootstrapped product companies and more that I'm not thinking of at the
moment.

------
happywolf
The article doesn't mention if you join the start-up as a 1) partner (who
holds a portion of the company), or 2) as a full-time employee. Even most
people will be in #1, but I think it is worth-while to call this out.

Personally I have experience in #2, and it was a three-year old start-up. The
experience was awful.

First, I was all on my own, I was told I would wear a lot of hats and would
learn a tonne. The reality was I googled a lot, and just copied and pasted the
solutions and code snippets off Internet and hoped those would work well
enough to meet my need. Take a look at stackoverflow and you will understand
what I meant. To make this really concrete, say setting up a server. Before
VMs were more popular, I would need to actually get a Dell (bcos it was
cheapest, period), removed the Windows, installed Linux, then the fun began:
apache, postfix, mysql, spamassassin, etc etc. Do you have time to thumb
through each of the excellent documents? We are not even starting to code!!!!
On top of that, I also needed to do powerpoint (we had to use Windows because
those VCs we met loved Windows), helped to proof-read the product specs to
make sure it wouldn't promised anything that would take even Microsoft 80
years to build, and clear the thrash before I left office.

Second, as an employee I didn't have much say on the product design, and
technical roadmap, this is especially true if you are someone who is fresh
from school, I joined with 6 years of professional experience, but still I
didn't have much say on the product features. I was just the guy who did the
implementation specified by the biz guy (the CEO), nothing more. I also
thought it could be this particular company was fucked up, however talking to
engineers from other companies reviewed this phenomena is far from unique.

This kind of work is not much fun if you have a tight deadline and changing
requirements from the sales (usually the CEO), especially the one who peddles
the products doesn't have a technical background. On top of that, you are most
probably doing so many things that you will not likely to have time and energy
to sit down and run through the work that you have done.

Make no mistake, I am not saying corporate life is good (I am now working for
a US MNC), it has its own set of shit, that I will leave for other day to
bitch about

~~~
seldo
> I also thought it could be this particular company was fucked up, however
> talking to engineers from other companies revealed this phenomena is far
> from unique.

While it's by no means unique, that doesn't mean it's not fucked up. There are
a lot of terribly-run companies out there. Misplaced loyalty keeps them alive
longer than it should. You should quit whenever a company sucks; life's too
short.

~~~
happywolf
Totally agree. I left the company after one year and joined an MNC. Although
the BigCo has its own issues, but the upside (stable income, more resources,
clearer roles and responsibility, etc.) keeps me until now.

------
bane
Depending on how you count things, I've been part of 5 startups and 3
megacorps (none smaller than 40,000 employees) (plus a couple regular old mom
and pop small businesses when I was young).

If I can draw any conclusions, I liked the megacorp work much more while I
liked the small business work environment more. I've spent about twice as much
time in startups and small businesses despite having significant opportunities
in the corporate world.

In the small business (startup or mom & pop) everybody is pulling their weight
or they're gone. But the work, especially the startup, tends to be lots of
"getting set up and doing things for the first time". You want to solve your
customer's problems, but first you have to set up this or that server, or get
the dev team using some new code profiler, or building up the QA team from
scratch. It's a _long_ walk before you can really start attending to customer
issues directly because there are so many issues internally to work out.
However, your individual contributions can make or break a company, your
impact locally can be _huge_. That's really rewarding.

At a corporate job, the problems you get presented with are bigger and often
very interesting, you work for a 1,000 pound gorilla who can (in theory) throw
lots of weight and maturity behind solving it. The biggest projects I've ever
worked on were at these kinds of places. You won't ever really have a big
impact on the company, but you might participate in having a big impact on the
world. At the end of the day, the single most rewarding things I've ever done
have been while getting a paycheck from a megacorp. However, there's tons of
dead weight you have to deal with. Bad employees get masked over by the size
of the organization and work they aren't doing simply gets shifted onto one of
the other nameless drones there.

If you want to be rewarded on both levels, don't think of the megacorp as the
company you work for, think of the program or project as the "company" and try
to get put on lean, thinly staffed, high risk projects. Your impact will be to
the project, and it'll be huge, but the corporation will bring huge and
interesting problems to you to work on.

~~~
analog31
This is a nice description. For me, working at a mega-corp is like living in a
city. There are people who take my garbage away and keep the barbarians out. I
don't have to do those things, so I can focus on what I enjoy: Developing new
technologies, for which I'm rewarded. I've set myself up as a sort of
entrepreneur living in this city, where I can take on more speculative
projects, but at no risk to my own money.

I make damn sure that what I'm taking away is not only money, but also
learning, even if it's at some cost to the efficiency of any particular
project. And should I ever get into a start-up, I'll benefit from having
observed the inner workings of a business from end to end.

------
buro9
If you're an employee then the differences are not so great and you can spend
time debating the minutia.

If you're a founder, the risks are real and the costs significant. You'll
probably earn little to nothing, for a great expenditure of time, effort and
emotional investment, for a very long time, all the while knowing that you
could've been earning money/pension/progression elsewhere.

There's absolutely no guarantee (in fact the odds are very heavily against)
that you'll even come out the other side having much to show. You _may_ have
positioned yourself for a career as an employee elsewhere, but whatever
monetary benefits follow are unlikely to make up the losses incurred as a
founder of a startup.

And then there's the dark times along the way...

------
mabbo
I chose the corporate path for reasons never mentioned: education. At a
fortune 500 company with a high entry bar, i'm surrounded by really damn good
developers who mentor me. There are best practices, and explanations behind
them.

My friend at start ups seem to me to have not had the same further education
that I have. Maybe some will figure out all the same things on their own, but
it will take longer. Hard to say. Some of them at 27 are the 'senior
developer'.

~~~
patrickread
I have to agree with this for the most part, coming from the startup side.

I'm on my second startup (started at age 23), both of which I was
unfortunately the most senior, and at times, the only developer.

There are often times that I wish I had a more established structure around me
to facilitate learning the lessons it takes you a while to learn on your own.

That said, before I was in a startup, I also found that I sometimes had a
habit of asking too many questions of more senior guys at my mid-sized
company. The negative side of this is that not going through the paces of
learning those things on my own, I started to feel like I was missing out on
developing the critical thinking skills that it takes to learn those things on
my own. I was skeptical that I wouldn't be able to move into a role with
nobody else to lean on all the time.

After being the most senior guy at a startup for a few years (except for the
occasional times when I've contracted with people who have 5+ years more
experience), it's helped me develop the problem solving skills that I'm not
sure I would have with a resource working right next to me. The lessons are
harder won, but sometimes it can be more satisfying to come up with that
continuing education on your own (and, well, with the help of the internet).

------
qwerta
I do not agree that in corporate you make lesser impact. Big company usually
produces things used by real people.

Also I find most start-ups to be very conservative in employment arrangement.
Option to work remotely or part time is usually deal breaker. In corporation
it is norm after you establish yourself.

But I think best career is to build lifestyle business. Get a few customers,
some products and just keep incrementally extending it for decade+.

~~~
frostmatthew
> I do not agree that in corporate you make lesser impact. Big company usually
> produces things used by real people.

It really depends on what kind of _impact_ one is looking for. The author
touched on this point but think he could have made it clearer that working at
a startup gives you the _possibility_ of having a significant impact on a
product with limited reach while working at a larger company gives the
_possibility_ of having a smaller impact on a product with much greater reach.

This is not always the case of course, you could work at a startup that
creates an extremely popular product (though it may not be considered a
"startup" for very long then) or work for a corporation on a project that will
never see the light of day.

------
bquinlan
I graduated in 1997 and, since then, have worked at:

\- 2 big companies

\- 2 small steady-state businesses (<100 people)

\- 4 startups (one as a founder)

So far my best experience has been at Google, where I work now. Here are some
of my reasons:

\- I have a lot of opportunities to learn because there are so many people
with diverse skills and expertise and Google has the resources and motivation
to let people investigate novel technologies.

\- I work with amazing technology. Google has the resources to devote many
engineers to internal development tools and production technologies.

\- I don't have to work with (many) crazy people. At startups and small
businesses, I found that one crazy founder or manager (who is probably related
to the CEO) can completely ruin the experience. Google has processes to avoid
hiring such people or to deal with them post-hire.

\- The work I do effects a lot of people. My Mom has commented on features
that I've implemented. And, since we usually work in small teams, my impact
isn't usually diluted by a lot of people.

\- There is a lot of project diversity and ability to relocate (if you want).
So far I've worked on Google's support systems (Dublin), search (Dublin), App
Engine (Sydney) and Chromecast (Mountain View).

\- I get paid well without a lot of risk. At Google my base salary is pretty
high and I can treat my bonus and equity awards as extras that I don't need to
count on. And the bank can count on Google too so I can get a reasonable
mortgage.

Not everything is perfect, of course. Two months ago a bunch of work I did was
thrown away because my manager's manager's manager's manager didn't like it
(his reasoning was sound but...) [1]. And bigger companies are under increased
scrutiny so you have to be more careful about privacy, regulatory compliance,
etc. A lot of things that you would just do at a startup require consultation
with lawyers at a big company.

And my other big company experience really really sucked. I won't go into the
details here but I ended up quitting in about 3 months.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Chromecast/comments/22n3uv/squirrels...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Chromecast/comments/22n3uv/squirrels_possibly_coming_to_chromecast/)

~~~
was_hellbanned
_I don 't have to work with (many) crazy people. At startups and small
businesses, I found that one crazy founder or manager (who is probably related
to the CEO) can completely ruin the experience. Google has processes to avoid
hiring such people or to deal with them post-hire._

That really hit home for me. Part of the severe burnout I'm experiencing is
from years of dealing with people from a pill-popping, paranoid nutcase
founder to plain old manchildren who thrive on creating drama.

(This was in the SV/SF "startup" scene, though most of the "startups" were
actually just small, privately held companies who seemed to use that label
when they were in the red, didn't have a clear direction, and wanted people to
work more hours.)

------
pop45
I'm just finishing my MSc and I feel so lost and hopeless. I just started to
evaluate my options to enter the job market. I'm not sure what is corporate
life like for a software engineer in the US but in my country I'm finding out
that it has more to do with requirement analysis, evaluating the best COTS
(things like Microsoft NAV, SAP, TIBCO seem to be common) for the client and
then configuring and deploying it.

Maybe with some ABAP in the way and in some cases some J2EE/WSDL/SOAP or
C#/.NET webservices to interact with it. It looks like it's almost impossible
to escape this kind of work here, the main employers are
outsourcing/consulting companies like Accenture, etc.

I fear that if I go this way I will never be able to escape because I will be
gaining experience in this areas and my career will be stuck in this world.

I won't be touching anything like Python, Ruby, Scala, RabbitMQ, Redis or any
other technology that might be used by companies were someday I would like to
work for, and do real development/engineering.

I'm sorry for my ramblings, I just feel so lost and depressed and would like
to get it off of my chest before I explode, and maybe find some advice and
guidance from you guys.

~~~
bicx
It may be an unpopular opinion on HN, but I would urge you to seek meaning in
your life in something more fundamental than your career. Once you find your
identity in something more important (God, family, relationships... don't
hate, HN ;) ), it's actually easier to make an objective decision about what
to do for a living. It makes it easier to take intermediate steps
(unfulfilling in the short-term) between what's available and what the future
may hold. I would even dare to say that it makes you more adventurous in your
career because failure in your career no longer equals failure in life. You
are not your code.

The perfect job isn't always on your doorstep, and it doesn't define the rest
of your future. For my first job after school, I was writing enterprise APIs
in old, deprecated languages for a large insurance company, and I had the same
fears you do. However, I am now working at a cutting-edge startup writing
Android apps. They were smart enough to see potential in me rather than a
collection of acronyms and technologies on my resume. Working hard is
important no matter where you are. Showing genuine interest in the startup is
also huge.

~~~
pop45
Thanks a lot for your comment. It hit home. I don't have many friends or
relationships, my family is really small (no siblings or cousins) and I'm far
from home, and my life is centered around finishing my deggree and
programming/learning new technologies. I feel I don't have anything else, so
if I fail at it, I have failed in life.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It gives me some hope which is invaluable
as I have very little of it right now.

~~~
bicx
Glad I could help you out a bit. If you ever need someone to talk to, you can
always email me at brian@spire.me.

------
MrScruff
A few straw men in this article.

 _Most people in corporate life are expected to look busy when they aren’t,
and put up the appearance of working long hours._

There are plenty of larger companies you can work for where this isn't true.

~~~
patrickread
Read more carefully.

"Of course, this will vary from company to company. Facetime wasn’t valued at
the big company I worked at, for instance."

~~~
mhurron
And that's different from startups how?

------
pixelmonkey
I spent 3 years at one of the name-brand Wall Street firms before starting my
own company. This essay rang true to me. It's now 5 years into my "startup"
(Aside: can I still call it that? We have 25 employees and millions in
revenue.)

I have no regrets. My goal is for our employees to have the kind of
environment we always wished the large companies we used to work for would
have. In fact, many of my early employees were "corporate rescues", bright
engineers that had been languishing in comfortable corners of large
bureaucratic BigCo's that we convinced to join us, mainly on the promise of
actually being able to use Python as part of their day job and work on
meaningful/interesting problems.

At our "startup", we use the best tool for the job; we only work with bright
people; we focus on results; we never stagnate; and, we deliver on an
important mission. Also, our engineers get to open source a lot of work that
isn't core to the business (see e.g.
[http://parse.ly/code](http://parse.ly/code)).

The only BigCo's that I've seen that have tried to maintain that engineering-
friendly environment are e.g. Google and Facebook, but for those companies,
size still becomes a limiting factor on impact. As the essay put it,
"Proportionally, you will have a bigger impact on the company's future than
you will working for a corporation."

Product development also has a different feel when you're trying to create one
of the world's next great software companies, rather than when you just happen
to work at one that already holds that title.

~~~
dk8996
I command you for building such a culture at your company. This is not a easy
task, even at startup.

------
fma
I'll comment based on the context of the question submitted. The student is a
sophomore. If the student were about to graduate, if newly out of college the
answer would require some thinking.

If they are a sophomore I would say, startup hands down. As a sophomore I
would assume they don't have any experience, or any risk, or any real need for
money. It easier to do a startup at that point in life. They will find if they
love it or hate it. It's better to test the waters then, instead of after
college when they have real risks, a real need for money (house, spouse, kids,
etc)

Me personally, I founded my first startup my junior year of college, which
lead to co-founding a second startup while in grad school. Both startups had
little to no profit. There were weeks where I easily put in 40-60 hours+ a
week in along with a full time engineering course load. And yes, I still
maintained a social life and remained active in campus organizations.

Post-graduation, I'm on my 3rd 'corporate' job. My current job and previous
employment were with publicly listed, multinational companies who decided to
start innovation centers/incubators...not only build their next generation of
products, but in-source everything back to the US.

I also think it's a fallacy to generalize the work, and people in startup vs
corporate life. My first employer, I ran circles around most of the
developers, and had to be there 8 hours a day...I rarely worked more than 8.
My 2nd job, I was the least senior of all the hires and everyone ran circles
around me. My current one, I'm in the middle of the pack as far as experience,
and hours are reasonable.

tl;dr While in college do a startup.

------
jader201
When does a startup stop being a startup? When they reach a certain age, or
reach a certain revenue, or when they go public/get acquired?

I know there is probably a more technical definition, but when do they cross
that line in real terms as it relates to the risks and pains of working at a
startup, like this article mentions?

~~~
analog31
A couple features of start-ups:

1\. Many-hat-wearing. People adapt to the jobs that need to get done, and
there is little or no supervisory hierarchy.

2\. Possibility of exponential growth.

I'd say if both of those things vanish, then it's either because the business
failed, or stopped being a start-up and is now a mature business.

------
h1karu
> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From
> people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what
> you see in corporate America these days.

If you're working at an early stage startup then in general nobody should
"work you" at all, rather you'll work yourself 60+hours a week because you
ACTUALLY HAVE SIGNIFICANT EQUITY in the company and therefor you want to see
it grow quickly.

In a corporate environment you don't have any "skin in the game" so to speak
so there's no incentive to push yourself.

If you're working at an early stage startup and you don't have significant
equity then you're doing it wrong.

~~~
ulfw
'significant equity'. Who outside the founders and maybe five first employees
really have that in a startup? If owning 0.1% which gets diluted to 0.01%
before the startup sells for say 40MM bucks four years later is significant to
you...

~~~
h1karu
It depends on what you mean by "startup" I suppose. I've worked for three and
in each I've been one of the first dozen or so employees. You don't have to be
a founder but I think that being a core "early employee" with a fair equity
stake is the right way to get the real "startup experience". Anything else is
like.. well working for an established company, and doesn't have the same
vibe, or excitement.

------
bigtunacan
Most startup vs corporate discussions all come down to a lot of anecdotal
evidence that falls on both sides of the spectrum.

I have worked for several startups as well as several "big corps".

Without naming names; I'm just going to lay things out in a sort of
chronological order.

<TL;DR>Try to find something you love there are good and bad in both startups
and big corporations.</TL;DR>

Big Co #1)

\-----------------

I was brought in as an intern; this was my first exposure to the professional
IT world. I learned a lot, the job was secure, benefits were good, nice people
all around too.

I was groomed for the spot I was interning and when a full time spot opened at
one of our locations half way across the country I was asked to take that
opening and move. While the job was secure, benefits were good, and the pay
going into the full time position was pretty stellar I felt dissatisfied at
the time and didn't want to get "stuck" working there the rest of my life, so
instead I turned down the offer and jumped to startup #1.

Startup #1)

\-----------------

This was a great environment, we were having a lot of fun. People were working
a few extra hours, but nothing too bad. I really enjoyed it there; they really
took off and these days they are now a "big corp".

Things probably would have been ok if I had stayed there instead of moving on
to startup #2

Startup #2)

\-----------------

Work environment was great; very small close knit team. I loved every minute
of it right up until I was layed off unexpectedly and the company closed their
doors virtually overnight due to their single largest contract being dropped
with no notice due to a change in federal government funding policies.

Still not too jaded by things; both startups had been pretty good to me so far
I moved on to

Startup #3)

\-----------------

This place was just insane. People constantly were being asked to work more
and more hours even while the company appeared to be growing quite quickly.
Then the police showed up at the company to arrest the CEO; he subsequently
went to prison for some type of loan fraud (I never looked into the exact
details).

This didn't slow things down though; his equally honest son was there to take
over the reins of the company. He demanded even more hours of everyone while
trying to slash costs/spending everywhere. We were actually called into a
company meeting where he pointed out the window at the parking lot and said,
"At 8pm at night this parking lot is virtually empty. That is unacceptable. I
expect people stay as long as it takes for our deadlines to be met."

Not long after that happened my boss came to me and told me that he was
quitting because a sale of the company was imminent and that it was not going
to be good for the employees. He advised that I get out early because the job
market wasn't going to be able to absorb that many programmers after the sale.
Things were pretty bad; I was already unhappy; so I took his advice and moved
on to startup #4. Less than 3 months after I left the company was sold in a
major acquisition where the purchasing company was after our high profile
clientele. Almost the entire development staff was killed; our products were
all killed; existing clients were moved to the product of our competitor who
had bought us out.

Startup #4)

\-----------------

Tiny little startup; one major investor. I worked way too many hours, but I
enjoyed it. We never turned a profit and eventually ran out of money.
Eventually they couldn't even make payroll. They were unable to pay me about
$10K in salary that I was owed due to there being no money left. The end.

Startup #5)

\-----------------

Holy dear god and anything that is holy; this place was a living hell on
earth. Unfortunately, the job market at this point had turned really sour so I
couldn't find a job to save my life. So I accepted a position with this
terrible startup. I was working 60+ hours a week, every week. I was getting
calls when I wasn't at the office to come in and put out fires even at 2 and
3am. It was incredibly terrible and awful.

I was finally fed up with startups. So I decided it was time to move on to big
co #2

Big Co #2)

\-----------------

This place was so good to me. The time off was great; I was used to working my
ass off from startup culture so I was able to put in half as much effort as I
normally had to and was still getting more done than the people around me.
Meanwhile most of the development team was just coasting by and doing the bare
minimum while complaining that they had too much to do.

Despite what experiences other people had; this worked out great for me. 3
years in a row I was promoted and given stellar raises for my outstanding
contributions. I was traveling on the companies dime frequently; which I
really enjoyed as well. All in all I really loved this place. I also did not
feel like a "cog" here; I was making major contributions to key projects at
this place.

Startup #6)

\-----------------

So it was with some real hesitation that I left Big Co #2. At this point I was
actively recruited, not by some recruiter, but by a former colleague to come
and join startup #6. I out right refused to entertain the idea, but this
colleague was very persistent and kept talking about better pay, fat stocks,
etc... He promised me a wonderful company culture, etc... and as he said, "It
can't hurt to at least come in and talk to the VP."

So I had a sit down with the VP at this very new, but very well funded,
startup. I was offered a ridiculously huge pay increase as well as stock that
would vest in 3 years. It turned out that the cost was my life. I was working
7 days a week including holidays; usually from 8 am until 1 or 2am. Despite
what everyone says; yes more hours can me more work gets done. But at what
cost; my health was on a steep decline due to lack of sleep primarily. I was
feeling burned out as hell at the 2 1/2 year mark but pushed on since that
stock vest was so close.

The CEO though was a complete megalomaniac asshole (and this is being nice)
that never liked me from the beginning. Despite the fact that I personally
implemented more projects and delivered on more customers than any other
developer in the group; he fucked me out of my stocks by firing me 1 month
prior to them vesting. I got zero out of that. The VP called me an personally
apologized and told me how unfair it was and that he even he couldn't believe
that the CEO would be that big of an asshole especially considering how much
it was going to hurt the company to have me gone.

Big Co #3)

\-----------------

At this point; as one might imagine I was rather jaded by the whole startup
scene. So I went to another big co. I said going in; "I'm done. I'm taking a
job at this big co and I'm going to stay there until I retire."

Most people sat around here pretending to be busy when they really didn't have
enough work for all of the employees. There were no opportunities for me to
advance because there really wasn't enough work to go around; and people who
had work to do sure weren't going to share. They were going to hold on for
dear life in case layoffs came they wouldn't be the ones to get hit. And those
layoffs sure came. In my 3 years there 3 rounds of layoffs hit. Each time I
was sweating that the executioner was going to come for each time. And each
time I was granted a stay of execution.

I was bored out of my mind and worried that it was only a matter of time
before I got cut.

I started interviewing at other places; I considered several startups, but due
to my past experiences I turned them down. I was really selective and focused
on trying to find a position that valued my time, my knowledge, presented
challenges, and had stability.

Eventually I found a small team within another big co that really seemed to
fit with what I was looking for.

Big Co #4)

\-----------------

That brings us to today. I work on a small team within a huge organization. We
create products that make a big difference. We value creativity, productivity,
and personal life. This is a team, more than any that I've worked with in the
past, where we like and respect each other and I like to see these people
outside of work. Will I stay here until I retire? I can't answer that, but I
can say I love my job. It is challenging and rewarding, but it allows me to
have a personal life as well.

~~~
EdwardDiego
Cheers mate, thank you for sharing, it illuminates the discussion well.

------
badman_ting
I have my reservations about the startup world, but the question about risk
management is strange. Young people shouldn't necessarily be worrying about
that just yet.

Hell, worry about the risk of getting stuck in a situation where 50 hour weeks
are "normal" and not a serious failure mode. Companies of all sizes know that
young people a) have a lot of energy, and b) are easier to screw over salary-
wise.

------
dylandrop
_> "I tried to be as objective as possible"_

 _> "Finally what do you really care about: name brand or doing cool work?"_

I did a lot of boring, mundane work during my time at some startups as well as
interesting work at others. It's either subjective or not informed by enough
experience to say that only startup work is cool work and you can't find cool
work at a larger company.

------
btbuildem
A little too rose-coloured, this article.

If you want to slog it, really give all you got to someone else's project, a
startup is the way to go. You're likely to learn a lot, and your decisions
will have direct impact on the well-being of the company.

If you want a stable job that you can put out of your mind when you're not at
the office, forget about startups.

------
rumcajz
One difference that was not mentioned is how much of your time is spent in
office politics. For early-stage startups it's close to zero. In corporations
you spend most of your time doing politics and dealing with consequences
thereof, such as doing work that nobody needs just to placate the management
etc.

------
rackoons44
The one thing that I like about startups more is the camaraderie you have with
your teammates. That plus interesting work makes startups a hands down winner
over cubicle life.

------
pmoods
I really like the final line "Finally what do you really care about: name
brand or doing cool work?"

Very true and something I feel so many people fail to realize.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Doing cool work? Many startups want fresh grads to be taping together CRUD
apps! MegaCorps will often ask the same of you, but have more paths toward
getting deeper into both the product and the stack.

~~~
dk8996
I am always surprised by this point of view.

1) There is nothing wrong with taping together CRUD apps if it achieves a goal
or makes a big impact for your startup

2) There is a good amount of grads that can't even tap CRUD apps together, let
have CS degrees

3) At MegaCorp people are deeply specialized in their roles, its like a
assembly line -- you don't get to design the car you screw the bumper on (if
that)

------
romanovcode
I see startups as mirage to fool young professionals into thinking they are
working less when the exact opposite happens.

