Getting a job at Google as an engineer is ridiculously hard. The guy that wrote Homebrew couldn't even get hired even though 90% of their engineers use his software.

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

If you can get a job at Google, it's very different than getting a job "at a big company" and has historically actually increased your odds of success later on (via the propensity of investors to fund Xooglers). So I would definitely agree - taking a job at Google when you haven't had one before vs. starting a startup is a very legitimate choice to make. Taking a job at Microsoft vs. starting a startup, I would argue (and the X-Microsofters in my life) a very different one.