This is a common position and it's really a choice each person has to make on their own because it really does vary person to person. Let me give you an exampl

This is a common position and it's really a choice each person has to make on their own because it really does vary person to person. Let me give you an example, when I was younger I was a pretty good programmer and I rose through the ranks very quickly and got a little bit of notoriety. I was self trained but I had some mentors that were real heavy hitters and they taught me a lot. Anyway I was given the option to go work for a very well know SV god father where I'd be a mid-level guy. The other option was to go work for a no name startup where I could sail the ship. At the time I had just gotten done working for another start up and I was looking for something better so I went with being an underling at a really big company. It was really cool to do some bleeding edge work and to work with people that were absolute geniuses, but I am not a geniuses despite what my mother thinks. It was like going from playing sports in uni vs playing sports as a professional, everyone was really, really good so instead of standing out I was just another brink in the wall. For me this caused me to really step up my game just to keep up with the crowd, something I wouldn't have to have done at the startup. It was a doubled edged sword, there was a lot of growth on my end but no rewards, I was just average for the company, if I had went the other direction I wouldn't have had to step up my game but I would have been the top dog. It's big fish/small pond syndrome you have to pick what you want to be, neither is wrong.