I've learned to take anecdotes as data points but also recognize that in a large enough company, there is a huge variance. A large company is like a country. D

I've learned to take anecdotes as data points but also recognize that in a large enough company, there is a huge variance. A large company is like a country. Different people will have different experiences. Take America for instance. Some people say America sucks, the healthcare is broken, there's too many guns, Europe is better. Others say there's more jobs that pay better in America, America gives people a chance to be on the leading edge (through various tech/cultural hubs) and to do something that would never be possible in their own country. A company -- like America -- is a bunch of people united by a set of constraints. If you don't like those constraints, then it's worst place in the world. But if you like those constraints, it's not bad. The former group though tends to be more vocal about it. This is why I discount HN opinions that are super emotional and embellished and one-sided. Chances are OP had a really bad experience and the sample is really biased.