The article creates a false dichotomy. A startup is not necessarily a small company and a big company isn't necessarily not a startup (depending on your definit

The article creates a false dichotomy. A startup is not necessarily a small company and a big company isn't necessarily not a startup (depending on your definition anyway). I understand the two categories are supposed to be generalisations but I think there's a middle ground worth mentioning: small businesses. Large corporations are the "low risk, low reward" extreme. They stereotypically offer good job security (although this has become increasingly untrue) and career growth opportunities. They are more likely to offer stable working hours at market rate but also require a lot of red tape if you want to do anything new or exciting. Startups are the "high risk, high reward" extreme: typically pay below market rate, terrible working hours but possibly exciting technology with lots of self-guided work and in some cases you may even be offered the equivalent of a lottery ticket. However there are small (5-50) companies that offer more reasonable working hours and quality of life than a startup while also enabling you to "leave your mark". The difference is that unlike startups these aren't necessarily "growth oriented" but that doesn't mean they won't have an impact -- just that they don't have to grow their impact exponentially to avoid dying. In my country (Germany) there are entire industries that are dominated by small companies. Sure, those industries aren't always the kind you can brag about (but then again neither is "I built the address widget on the Amazon checkout page" and if you're honest, nobody really wants to hear about how you worked on "Facebook for cats" or "Uber but with rickshaws" either) but they're a legitimate middle ground. That said, I find it telling that the article seems to mostly disregard the actual question and focus on finances -- both by going into unnecessary detail about startup viability and by talking about salary and "revenue opportunities" but nothing else that's relevant to quality of life (except for multiple stabs against Microsoft, that is).