I'm assuming you're an SE. If you go looking, there are many non-VC backed mission driven companies that either a) aren't VC backable - often because the found

I'm assuming you're an SE. If you go looking, there are many non-VC backed mission driven companies that either a) aren't VC backable - often because the founding team is minority, or female, not because of any real reason, or b) the tech isn't the flavour of the month, or c) the founders are bootstrapping and don't have interest in VC. If you've got all 3 of those, that sounds like a winner to me! If you're in the US, which I assume you are, and particularly in SF, NYC, or even LA, or Austin, you're probably in so much of a bubble, that you just hear so much VC nonsense start-ups. It's why I moved to Sydney, Australia (from Canada) instead of going to SF. Sydney is a hub of people doing real interesting work, and building real companies. The VC environment here is quite pathetic - maybe I'm just sour grapes because we couldn't raise, but we now realize we don't have to, and it is a HUGE relief. BTW, myself and my co-founder were never interested in slinging-ads for big-tech. This was HUGELY helpful for me, as there is no way my co-founder would have joined if he was mostly just interested in the big paycheck and not taking on the risk and wanting to make an impact. So, before finding interesting work, are you willing to take the drop in pay and options that big-tech offers? Are you willing to risk it on a bootstrapping start-up where you believe in the mission? Another way may be to look at the post-growth companies that have a good product in a good niche, but are not looking for the escape velocity being a start-up. I'm thinking of places you may have thought of as "has been's" . Mozilla, IBM, etc, where interesting work is happening, but it isn't in the spotlight like may of the other big-tech firms. Those are my thoughts.