I think the fear people have in choosing a larger company is that they're going to miss out on working with smart people on interesting problems, having work-ow

I think the fear people have in choosing a larger company is that they're going to miss out on working with smart people on interesting problems, having work-ownership, etc. This was my personal fear. I've worked at 2 early-stage "prestigious enough" startups and now work at a much larger company that offers a much better work-life balance/salary/benefits/etc. What I've found is that contrary to my fears, it does indeed have "smart people, interesting problems to work on", etc. - without the BS you have to deal with at smaller and/or unprofitable startups (bad benefits, hours, etc.). To be fair, it's harder to find larger companies that offer this, and the one I'm at isn't massive, it's no more than 50 people. Unless invalidated startups begin offering better equity packages (because most can't usually afford to pay market salaries) they are going to see talent leave. It baffles me to think that companies think they can get away with this. And to those engineers who accept below-market salaries and small equity packages I ask you to question why - know that even if you work your *ss off and the product succeeds, your equity payout is probably in the tens of thousands at most - a typical bonus for a lot of entry/mid-level software engineers.