[dasil003]

> I’d also note that not everyone wants to work in a startup environment or are able to. Many engineers got into it for a good paycheck and don’t have much interest in anything particularly dynamic or engaging.

This is an excellent point. In my experience a majority of people value stability and predictability in their lives. They would rather have someone tell them what to do within well-structured bounds than contend with the ambiguity inherent in an early stage startup, or with solving massive product/business/technical problems with too many stakeholders to fit in a room.

I think the challenge is the people with the intrinsic motivation and stomach for the ambiguity can struggle to grow in large corporate environments that are full of good soldiers who stay in their lane. It's not uncommon for entry level ICs to come in with 3 or 4 layers of management between them and VP level, and then become pawns in middle management games, or stuck reporting to Peter-principle cases who teach them all the wrong lessons.

This is why I was really glad to have worked in startups when I was young, to really get exposed to all the moving parts and fundamentals of an operating business. It's just much easier to learn when the big picture is more legible, you have the latitude to iterate faster, make more mistakes, and see first-hand how things scale (or don't!) from the ground up. These days I see too many ivy league grad ex-FAANG who have all kinds of ideas of best practices with no understanding of why things are done that way at the tech giants, and extremely limited ability to reason from first principles about what makes sense in a different context.