Great answer, I'd add one more thing: startups used to be much more attractive financially. In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table b

Great answer, I'd add one more thing: startups used to be much more attractive financially. In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table but would not make you particularly well off. Startups, by contrast, would often load you up with equity and have a liquidity event in 2-3 years. Growing up in the bay area during this time I know a lot of programmers who became wealthy during this period by just picking good startups. Contrast to today where you need to wait a decade to find out if your options are worth anything, and even if the company is worth hundreds of millions you may still get screwed if the founders promised their VCs it'd be worth billions.