Thanks for replying! I certainly agree that you’re more likely to get the things you mention at a startup, but it’s possible to get those elsewhere (I have the

Thanks for replying! I certainly agree that you’re more likely to get the things you mention at a startup, but it’s possible to get those elsewhere (I have them now, with the exception of inexperience). Since I only need one job, I care more about the upper bound than the expected value. Everyone has a different definition of ‘interesting’, but, IMO, Microsoft Research has more interesting work than pretty much any startup out there. Since I don’t have a PhD, there’s no way I’d get hired there; I’m just using them to illustrate a point. As nostrademons points out, Google’s also full of interesting projects. Their process is notoriously slow, so I can’t tell if my resume was thrown into a black hole, or if it’s actually being considered, but that’s at least within the realm of possibility. Even IBM, which is known for not being a great place to work, has teams that are doing really cool stuff. Here in Austin, I’ve heard very good things about their Linux group, and, of course, IBM Research has lots of groups working on fun problems.