Well so this kind of seems like a copout to me. I work for a big company that pays really well (on all fronts) and I have worked in startups that tried follow

Well so this kind of seems like a copout to me. I work for a big company that pays really well (on all fronts) and I have worked in startups that tried following the E vs C calculus. I am also part of the HC at said big companies so I see a lot of factors in hiring and I regularly "hobby" interview at a lot of companies to see what is out there. Problem is the "big company" stuff you are mentioning is no longer limited to big companies. I see the unicorns of the world trying to act like big companies from mimicking org structures to leetcode puzzles in interviews to downlevelling (our Level N is Level N + k at BigCo X). All this while asking candidates to slog it out for 10+ years before their quantum money is worth something tangible. Equally BigCos for what they are worth are extremely alluring by ensuring one does not live perpetually on ramen and BigCos also do a lot of things so you can move around reasonably (sure not as fluidly). Additionally given BigCos (at least the one I am in) value diversity and collaboration a lot the "bigco"ness is getting more and more of a strawman argument! What would be ideal for me is startups of say 5-10 folks with roughly similar skill levels (and hence equity) with a really decent shot at a successful exit in a 2-4 year time frame. Where do you find these that are happy with such an exit instead of trying to become a unicorn and not stop until they take over the world by any means necessary?