I think that a large number of people go into "startups" thinking they're some kind of antidote to the politics and flat-out unethical behavior seen in "the cor

I think that a large number of people go into "startups" thinking they're some kind of antidote to the politics and flat-out unethical behavior seen in "the corporate world". That's not really true. These startups (i.e. companies designed to become, or be bought by, corporate behemoths) are often like junior gangsters-- that is, more violent, more unpredictable, because they're trying to prove themselves. There's a gigantic survivor bias in startups at the upper end: to build a $200B company like Google or Facebook, you have to do a lot of things very right (and more than you do wrong). This makes it seem like "startups" are better than they are, because the ones with dogshit MBA culture crash and burn. Superiority is not intrinsic to startups, and there are plenty of shady players who still get exits and credibility. I've seen far more unethical behavior in the startup world than in finance. Large tech companies are somewhere in between. Why? It's not that finance people are intrinsically better, but that even junior bankers know how to fight for themselves. Junior tech workers, in general, haven't a clue, which is why a lot of these dodgy startups will fire people without severance for completely bogus reasons. On the founder's statement to the effect of "I pay you a wage and you do the work": the lesson is that loyalty has to be earned. Don't just give that away. I feel like a lot of us, when we start our careers, are like that socially inept guy who'll go out of his way to help some girl who isn't really interested but is basically nice to him, and he overvalues the interaction (and, in some cases, fabricates an emotional relationship in his mind). Just because the boss is basically nice to you, and may pretend to want to be your friend, doesn't mean you should trust him blindly. Con artists are nice, until they screw you over. Loyalty has to go both ways.