[anonny]

One thing I get a lot of is that working at Google is somehow a mark of complacency, and that as a smart young person I ought to be out founding companies. Chris Dixon has a post entitled "Every Time An Engineer Joins Google, A Startup Dies" in which he argues that Google and the like stifle innovation by ensnaring people in cushy, comfortable positions.

I definitely get that, and I do sometime think that the safety of working at a place like Google is addictive, but on the other hand, I'm basically a child in this market. I've almost never worked on anything for more than the two weeks it takes to complete a school project. If I were to go out and work at a startup and get saturated with the "disregard quality, acquire technical debt" mentality, I'd never become a respectable engineer.

I don't want to be mocked because I value technical experience over adventure.