I don't know how that follows, you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org. If that's the thought you'll have quite the rude awakening.
Everything you just said is true of working at a big co as well.
Plenty of people at big cos have bad bosses, plenty get over worked. Plenty feel they have no input etc etc, this is a human organizational and work issue that is true of both small startup and big org.
I've listened to my mother gripe about some of the biggest financial companies in the world from various positions all the way to fairly senior management for the last 20 years with everything that has been said here. The only solution she had was to jump to another company after investing sometimes up to 5 years of her time in places like that.
> you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org
No, but you will be paid more over time and switching jobs won’t cost you deferred payment in terms of vesting.
If you can land a startup job with the same salary and benefits as a bigco, then by all means do so. This is more about the poor value of deferred compensation.
> In a bad startup you typically can’t ‘push back’ meaningfully. If the management doesn’t understand how to treat people well, people pushing back won’t educate them, and employees have to get work done to justify their presence rather than fighting battles all the time.
Is what started our sub thread here, I didn't believe we've been talking financials. If we have been, then in base salary I guess I still disagree, but yeah at least with RSUs it's hard to beat. That said I've interviewed for startups where the base salary for an IC position was like 230k+, they're rarer, founded by exceptional past founders who raised ridiculous sized rounds, and all just as rare as a job at a FAANG so I don't know, is the real problem that all 85th percentile and below of all jobs pay like shit or treat people poorly?
Our sub-thread is in the context of the overall posting, which is about what a bad deal it is to work at startups. The entire point is about the risk not being worth the financial reward. Our sub-thread is discussing one aspect of that.
Depending on how long it takes you to get to this point, it could have cost you a great deal in lost opportunity and benefits.
The fact that you can get another job is irrelevant to that.
Which is the point of this overall thread - you could easily have been better off at an established company.