I think one has to follow the life-cycle of a company to have a good time; e.g. Valve used to be awesome company, now that is no longer true. Be in the right pl

I think one has to follow the life-cycle of a company to have a good time; e.g. Valve used to be awesome company, now that is no longer true. Be in the right place at the right time, all the time, it seems... So to answer your question, one has to view a company in time and likely there will be a time span when company is not dominated by internal politics. Managers push for bureaucracy as their desired form, rank-and-file employees fight against it, at some point power moves to managers and companies slowly die, even while wildly profitable, making disruptive innovation by a next generation of companies possible. Avoid stressful start ups (except when you are co-founder/investor), join once a company has money to invest into crazy things, run away once bureaucracy sets in (or if company passes Bozo event horizon).