I started out my career at Fidelity Investments too! And after a couple of years, moved into the startup space. I agree with many points here - you learn infin

I started out my career at Fidelity Investments too! And after a couple of years, moved into the startup space. I agree with many points here - you learn infinitely more quickly, you work infinitely harder, and this has given me business and engineering acumen far greater than had I stayed at Fidelity. I will disagree with the overall tone that, when we are young, salary is less important. It is certainly true that many of us have fewer financial obligations, besides perhaps student debt and rent. But I would always advise against joining a startup at significantly below market rate just for the equity. Even as a 1st or 2nd employee, you can only control the direction of the company so much, you're working just as hard as the founders, but the upside is a fraction of what it is for them. (Let's also remember that you're typically not granted stock, but stock options. So if you have student debt, join a startup as a customer experience associate, you may not even be able to afford to exercise all of them when you leave!) If I had gotten a job at Google after graduating (let's say I had applied and gotten in) my starting salary would have been higher, and that would have served as an anchor point for all future salary negotiations - for the rest of my life! I've probably left ~100k on the table over the past 5 years due to this alone. Today, I still have few financial obligations, but wouldn't take an appreciably lower salary for any company until I start my own. I have enough experience now to be able to negotiate that kind of deal, but if I were to do it again, I would try to be a little smarter about this point as well.