Indeed. I've also noticed that we (as engineers and designers) have a better lifestyle in terms of treatment, job security and pay at these startups/tech companies - compared to the marketing teams which consist of the people who typically write these negative articles.
Countless of these articles critiquing the tech work culture pop on HN and it's rarely ever written by devs/management. The tone always comes off as criticism from 'outsiders' who worked within the company, who treat the pride taken in creating eccentric workplaces as somewhat alien to them. Maybe because they aren't truly insiders to the culture... especially in the sense that they aren't ever the creators/leaders or long term members. Only temporarily working within the environment before going back to more typical corporate environments from where they write their analysis with a certain level of cynicism.