[prostoalex]

Strictly speaking, a corporate recruitment process will peg and interview you based on your experience level. 3 years at a failed startup are likely to be equivalent to 3 years at a large established company, you'll go through the same interview process, be asked the same questions, and presented with the same offer.

From a rational standpoint, having even a mild level of success that ends up in an acqui-hire instead of an outright failure will yield you a better offer from a large corp than an applicant who just sent his resume in.

Given two choices - equivalent compensation at failure, and higher compensation at anything but failure, you should do a startup.

That does not take into account stress levels and opportunity cost of your spare time.

[sbisker]

I have to disagree here. Folks with failed startups are as diverse as the startups they built (or just as often, struggled to build).

The simple reason why is because while a startup is the best place to learn how to start a startup, it isn't always the best place to learn how to be an engineer.

At least, not the sort of robust engineering (hopefully) done at established companies, where you have to understand existing best practices like code style, continuous deployment and testing, and non-technical conventions like proper code reviews and pager schedules. That sort of rigor isn't found in all startups, but some amount of it is a necessity when your primary job is shipping code, lots of it, and not just searching for product market fit.

I think it is far more likely that you'll get a strong offer for a large corp coming out of another large corp - where you'll speak the language and have found at least someone talented to mentor you - than as a typical acqui-hire or founder of an also-ran startup. In fact, many acqui-hire employees themselves have to go through interviews at the acquiring company, finding themselves on the bottom of the pecking order at their new companies - if they even have jobs at all.

That's not to say you shouldn't do a startup...just, don't do it expecting your Plan B to be a cushy job at Facebook. :)

[karim_roushdy]

I left my corporate job which I have been working in for 3 years to focus on my startup (www.voise.co). So I have been on both sides & I need to say It is a choice you make. Some people it fits them to be in a corporate job while others would excel with something they do on their own. Obviously not everyone will succeed but if you are still at a young age and willing to take the risk, try a different path that might be a better fit for you, I do not see the problem. Life goes own and you still can prove yourself. Also the reasons for failure of a startup would make a difference. Sometimes it is just out of your hands. I have gained tremendous experience with my startup. As I have learned to be multi skilled, which is something a lot of multinational jobs look for these days. I believe it always comes down to you as a person. How you represent and how confident you are with what you did, doing and will do in the future.

[prostoalex]

That is true, I almost put a caveat there that small startups (or schools) teach programming, while large companies teach software engineering, but nowadays most large technology companies have onboarding/mentoring process designed around that, as a lot of the processes tend to be company-specific.

> many acqui-hire employees themselves have to go through interviews at the acquiring company, finding themselves on the bottom of the pecking order at their new companies

Employees yes, from OP's wording I understood the question was in regards to the founder. An acqui-hirer is likely to sweeten the offer for the founding team, otherwise why even pursue an acqui-hire.

[nxh]

With the word startup I actually mean founders and early employees. Sorry for the unclear wording and thank you for your opinion.