> All of those things are great, but you're assuming your manager and peers will value you them. The crucial transition is turning yourself into a senior engin

> All of those things are great, but you're assuming your manager and peers will value you them. The crucial transition is turning yourself into a senior engineer - someone who acts as a force multiplier in your organization (a possibly big organization). The valley problem with that transition is that a lot of value is left to the junior developer due to the startup ecosystem - the engineer who writes the first prototype, shoddily for a demo without worrying about possible future problems. The senior developer is left out in a plateau, if they can't switch back to core developer mode (build demo, get funding, hustle) and back, which is a not a skill issue, but more economical. There's the risk that the switch to a lower pay (for equity, hopefully) affects your next job offer in a BigCo if the idea does not pan out (& most of them don't). The reality of being hired in a Startup is that founders don't like people who aren't "all in". Once you take out "being employee #5" at the startup from the equation, the best part of Bay Area is gone. There lies only one path back in and that's building your own, except there the VCs get to actually pick on your health as a possible risk factor before handing you some $$$.