[kelnos]

> So to "make it," you effectively have to grow into a BigCo employee anyway.

This is an excellent point. I know quite a few people who joined my company before I did (~50 people when I joined), stayed for a couple years, but didn't have the temperament to grow into the process, politics, and red tape that inevitably started accumulating, and left. Some of them didn't have the resources (or foresight) at the time to exercise their options, and got nothing, even though they put in a couple years when it was very risky to work there. I did stick around for the long haul, and it's paid out very well, but it still makes me a little sad to think of some of the earlier contributors who laid the foundation, but IMO weren't compensated enough for it.