I think the questions/issues around this topic don’t really make sense: A. Why are we comparing an employee situation at a FAANG company with what should be a

I think the questions/issues around this topic don’t really make sense: A. Why are we comparing an employee situation at a FAANG company with what should be a co-founder situation? If someone is an engineer that can make something happen at a startup, they should probably be a co-founder rather than an employee. B. Why are tech center startups trying to hire coders of a certain skill level that will be incredibly expensive due to local competition? If a startup is looking for skilled coders to implement the vision of the co-founding engineers that can make things happen, then there are plenty of remote coders in non-tech-center areas that will do a bang up job for a reasonable price. Note that many of these remote coders don’t want to or cannot come to a tech center. I assume that this is an issue because many/most startups are not good at hiring, on-boarding, managing people, managing remote workers, etc. C. Related to issue B, why play the micro-equity game with coders at all when they should either be co-founders or they (as remote workers) can be paid a satisfactory wage without equity bait? D. Why is this conversation comparing a job with (relatively speaking) a lot of hierarchy and politics at a FAANG with a job that should have a flat structure and a great deal of autonomy? These jobs cater to two different groups of people — the ones who like the former probably won’t like the latter, and the opposite is true as well. There are subtle sides to this (e.g., do your time at a FAANG to develop a network), but many people who succeed at startups are not folks you want working at a large company — they will go nuts, and they will drive the people around them crazy. This whole conversation is bizarre to me. I think there are three relatively simple choices: 1. Take a company job if you’re a company person — that is, someone who likes structure and hierarchy. It might not be trendy to admit it, but many/most elite school grads fall into this category. 2. If you prefer things like autonomy, being close to the customer, and being a generalist, then go to a startup. Plan on leaving once it hits a certain size. 3. If you have a plan for an alternate path that includes both, then go for it — specialist work at FAANG, FAANG then startup founder, startup employee then startup founder, etc. Just know what you’re getting into, because it can be awfully tough to walk away from $300k annual comp as a 25 yo. Most people I’ve known clearly fall into one of these categories barring some sort of life-changing event.