They're not all that bad. I've worked in a horrible startup before and they absolutely forced everyone to work harder with longer hours instead of working smarter. We had a few ~12-16 hour deploys that started after a full work day where the entire engineering department was required to stay and the oncall was brutal 2 week long slogs because no effort was allowed to be put into actually fixing stuff.
But on the other hand, I've also been at ok jobs that were pretty great companies and the one I currently work at is absolutely amazing and it's a joy to work at. The pay has been pretty awesome as well.
Larger companies in my experience can be soul crushingly beaurocratic and the slower pace means your skillet grows more slowly (no big tech companies in the valley, just some large public companies after startup acquisitions).
It's just anecdotal from my experience and I'm not really sure how big of a haystack the amazing startup needles are in but they are out there. Work is work, but you spend a huge portion of your life at work, if you can enjoy it thoroughly, you can live a happier life.
If you're saying not all startups are bad, I completely agree with you, but we're talking about a specific kind here. I've worked at some really challenging startups where I also did overtime during deploys(I did get to charge the hours though) in which I learned a lot. AND THEN we actually worked on reducing those issues for the future.
They didn't actually make that part of the job either. I could have rejected if I wanted to. And there was never a vision alignment talk with miniscule equity with an unwritten agreement of doing anything that was asked otherwise I'd kiss my equity goodbye.
EDIT: I can't believe I have to clarify this. Most of the startups that would fit my above description don't market themselves as startups to begin with. I.e. they don't think their distinguishing feature is to be a startup with equity.
But on the other hand, I've also been at ok jobs that were pretty great companies and the one I currently work at is absolutely amazing and it's a joy to work at. The pay has been pretty awesome as well.
Larger companies in my experience can be soul crushingly beaurocratic and the slower pace means your skillet grows more slowly (no big tech companies in the valley, just some large public companies after startup acquisitions).
It's just anecdotal from my experience and I'm not really sure how big of a haystack the amazing startup needles are in but they are out there. Work is work, but you spend a huge portion of your life at work, if you can enjoy it thoroughly, you can live a happier life.