When you work in a large company you have to deal with many more people than a small one. For example in a small company, if you have issues with pay, you go s

When you work in a large company you have to deal with many more people than a small one. For example in a small company, if you have issues with pay, you go speak to the boss/owner, or if you're big enough, the book-keeper/accountant type. In a large company there will be a whole department for your problem - be it HR helpdesk, your local accounts/payroll clerk, etc. In the big company, you should make the effort to learn who is who and what do they do. You will soon start working out what qualities these people have that make them great, average, or terrible at their job. In a small company, if you hire someone with the wrong qualities, at a pivotal time in your growth, it will be like contracting a disease. Big company experience shows you lots of mistakes, which can be covered over by co-workers, PR department, caught by the QA team hour before shipping, etc. etc. If you don't get exposure to these sorts of mistakes, whilst they may not kill your startup, they will cause you some big-time stress. Stress in those quantities is not good for the survival of your business. You can, however, mitigate some of these risks by having good mentors around, and hiring smart and experienced staff at the beginning. Successful startups like Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. didn't survive on hiring graduates alone. And if they did, they were lucky or smart enough to hire the right people in the right roles.