[barrkel]

I've found startup life to be less initiative-based than my previous corporate life.

In B2B startup, features are driven by sales and post-sale support, and sales / keeping the biggest customers happy (for later upsell) is of paramount importance. We have far more potential features to build than we have people to work on them, so prioritization is done from the top down and can change depending on the sales landscape. Thus I have very little discretion over what I do on a day to day basis, and there are people asking me to do things every day. Initiative isn't actually necessary, unless you want to improve things in ways that management etc. can't see.

Whereas in corporate life, I owned a little corner of the product, and when given a strategic initiative, I came up with feature suggestions that made our customers' and my team's life / lives easier. I had more strategic responsibility, and although the direct risk of my failure was lower, my work had larger impact because it got delivered to far more people - a mature organization has far more customers, if it's healthy.