| Background: I've worked on all side of this spectrum, left Google 10 years ago and have been working in startups since then. And now founder of a startup. I agree that from a financial outcome perspective, the odds of making big in startups may not be in your favor. "Interesting work" perspective may need a bit more color. No matter if you work in a big tech or startup - majority of the work is very mundane. Even if you are working on the coolest AI big-tech or startup, you are probably not doing "exciting cutting edge" work most of the time! This is probably also why folks who join a startup looking for exciting work get bored quickly with the day-today mundaneness. Eventually what matters from the interesting work perspective is to understand what part of the work truly gives you joy - what makes you excited about getting off the bed and do great work - even the mundane one. The motivation could be - seeing your product being used by millions of users, solving a hard problem, sharing your research with the world, having a great work-life balance, or getting rich. Understanding that can help answer the question on what is right place for you. One challenge I've found in big-tech is that even if the company is doing amazing work, not everyone gets an opportunity to work on the most exciting projects. |