[imechura]

I often hear people complaining about "corporate politics". What do people think that really means? As if you won't have politics in your startup, with your V.Cs, clients, partners and competitors.

Everything in business is politics if you cannot handle your co-worker jockeying for position prior to performance reviews, good luck dealing with a partner or investor who wants to edge you out of your startup.

One more note, working for a corporation can provide a technical person with a lot opportunity not available at a startup and vice-versa. For instance, at a startup you will not likely get the valuable and lucrative experience removing and replacing a mainframe application that has been a core business system for 30 years. There are hundreds of companies out there at this very minute who are spending hundreds of millions attempting (and struggling with) this very feat. So while RoR and Django developers are a dime a dozen, others are building a skill that commands a premium at fortune 1000 companies across the nation and builds relationships with Sr. Architects, VPs, CIOs, and CTOs to boot.