I worked at two startups before realizing that they weren’t what I wanted out of life. Work is important to me, but so is life. I was duped into this vision of

I worked at two startups before realizing that they weren’t what I wanted out of life. Work is important to me, but so is life. I was duped into this vision of entrepreneurship and making it big in startups. While every startup founder likes to spin the story of wanting to be a unicorn, in practice, few do. I happened to work at ones with an insane workload and a less-than-survivable payout. I interviewed like crazy and landed a position at one of those well-known companies. Large companies have their fair share of problems, but it suits my lifestyle. I do my work diligently and then clock out. It’s liberating to know that if I don’t respond to a pager, the world isn’t going to end and some third-grade CEO/CTO won’t scream in my face. Different people want different things out of life, and I made a vow never to join a startup or scale-up with fewer than a thousand employees.