[hga]

Well, I for one loathe working at bureaucratic, political companies. And the older you get, the less you believe in the illusory stability a W-2 at such (for an extreme, Lucent had 106,000 employees when I started at it and was aiming for 35,000 when I left).

I prefer the environment of startups, I prefer being given an opportunity to focus all my talents and energy in making tangible differences, I'm not in it primarily for the money. Granted, I'm a would be scientist who was forced to live a sordid life as a programmer due to finances....

As for the options I didn't cover, I'm not enough of a extrovert, salesman type (you need at least some of that) to be a multi-client consultant or co-founder.