Almost everything mentioned about startups here has an equivalent trade off at large companies. It’s particularly amusing that he mentions Facebook towards the end as a potential place to work, given the pockets of high stress and long hours that I’ve heard about from folks who have worked there. Most of FAANG is no different. In comparison, most startups that I’ve worked at valued work life balance highly.

Every workplace has trade offs, it’s the nature of the thing. The compensation imbalances at large companies are bad as well, for example, it’s just that the total increase in company income allows for much more competitive packages overall.

Really this is more of a question of: what do you want out of a job and career? If you want to maximize compensation, go for that BigCo job. But that isn’t the only valid thing to maximize for, which the snark about “higher callings” towards the end misses. Higher autonomy, less complex organizational politics, More ownership of big problems, potential for better alignment between your values and the companies mission, etc. etc.