It seems to me that the author was generalizing from one specific experience he had, plus some anecdotal experiences he has gathered from others, to impugn the

It seems to me that the author was generalizing from one specific experience he had, plus some anecdotal experiences he has gathered from others, to impugn the entire start-up community. There may be some validity to what he says; I'm inclined to agree that there's disproportionate age-ism and sexism and probably several other kinds of -ism's in the start-up community, perhaps because their founders tend to be younger and less well versed in mainstream corporate behavior which in recent decades has been moving away from discrimination. I don't see how a "glorified telemarketer" working on a desktop that watches him is a typical start-up tech worker, though. It sounds like tough and thankless work and I hope people get the message in the VC funding community that the way to build a high value company is not to treat people really badly and thus create this kind of bad press. At least, I hope it's not the way you create a good return on investment! Otherwise we're all in trouble. I'm curious as to whether the comments about Amazon are broadly valid. Have not worked there myself, but have interviewed over the phone in the past (very negative experience). Yet, as a customer, I admire Amazon and consider them one of America's great companies. Could they really have gotten to this point by treating their rank-and-file like a disposable commodity? Could Apple?