In any case, I have a strong suspicion that, aside from compensation, working for FAANG is hugely overrated. And that's not just sour grapes talk - mountains of

In any case, I have a strong suspicion that, aside from compensation, working for FAANG is hugely overrated. And that's not just sour grapes talk - mountains of red tape, processes upon processes, overwork and burnout, and best of all, you get to spend your best years infecting society with the cancer that is adtech. It’s a little weird to say “other than comp”, given that almost no one would work for their employer, whether startup or FAANG, if they weren’t getting paid for it. And the difference isn’t small. Multiple startups in NYC offered me comp of around $200k, while the public tech companies were all in the $400k to $500k+ range. Additionally, I think overwork and burnout are much worse at startups vs big tech. The offer I took pays more than twice as much as the startups and the people on my team are in the office for 40 hours at best, work from home as needed, no emails or slack on evenings or weekends, and take 4-5 weeks of vacation. It’s definitely not the grind that startups are. Your complaints about bureaucracy and ad tech are fair, which is why I went with Square over G or FB. I like their business model and they’re a fraction of the size of the bigger tech companies, but still pay much better than most startups.