[rjdagost]

Sam isn’t getting dumped on. It’s a simple fact that his best interests don’t necessarily coincide with your typical college student’s best interests. In my experience, on average you will be better off working at Google for 5 years than by starting a startup with overwhelmingly low odds of success. At BigCo you will make more money, get better benefits, and you’ll probably have more free time as well. After a few years you will probably have more financial security and more name-brand recognition than if you had spent a few years in the trenches at a start-up (which in all likelihood won’t even exist at the end of this 5 year window). That doesn’t mean that everyone should try to work at a big company but your typical software engineer will be better off in the process.

As far as Zuckerberg, Drew Houston, and other big winners in the startup game, well, you might as well interview lottery winners for their secrets of success. No doubt these guys are very smart and hardworking, but so are the far more numerous legions of startups that fail.