There will never be any shortage of interesting startups to work for in the future.
Just like any other successful company that does something interesting and has been around more than a couple of years.
Borg is Kubernetes, flume is externally available as Google Cloud Dataflow (it's basically Apache Beam), Tensorflow is open source, many of Google's internal java libraries and tools are available externally (Guava, Guice, Dagger), and absl (c++ common libraries) are also available externally.
More importantly, assuming you land on a team with strong software engineering culture (this is likely, but admittedly not guaranteed, even at Google), the general skills you pick up for software design, planning, testing, etc. are transferable anywhere.
That said, all of this applies mostly to software engineers. If you're applying for an SRE position, then I've heard the experience is less transferable, but it's not something I could comment on first hand.
When I left Google for a startup, all the tools I took for granted didn't exist. But because I knew how things could and should work, I was able to apply open source and commercially available tools to improve software development practices at my new employer.
Also, Google's best tools are increasingly open-source.
Do you think they are more talented than other companies, like, say, Amazon?
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Amazon isn't really particularly good at any of these, so you'll tend to find more talent at places that do better. Facebook and Google both have better compensation and from what I've heard from friends (who've also had experience with Amazon), both also have a better working environment.
This is good advice in general
Life finds a way. -2008 joeb
(Being real, this is good advice. Find the lowest-cost digs you can get; stay flexible, lease; don't get involved with securities you can't unload. Remember that you're on a 5-year plan.)
Apart from what others mentioned in the thread In the startup choice the biggest benefit not going the Google for me is that I choose to work in a domain(by choosing the startup) where I am passionate about, slim chance of it happening in a large organization.
OP has to understand what he gets and does not get at both outside of pure comp and then figure out how much of value they are to him
While it's true that you may not have many options for your first team (unless you are already a domain expert, in which case you may get funneled into your domain), if you are performing well for your current team, it is extremely easy to move around.
I say this a a Googler who was originally slotted into a team that was fun but not what I was really into. I swapped teams a couple of times and found something much better for me.
I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience at Google. It is a large company, so I don't doubt that there are dusty corners with bad management. But I've seen a pretty broad cross-section of the company and find most of it to be quite great in terms of mobility.
You need to stay ~12 months in your initial team; if your performance rating is bad (non-trivial chance of that after 1st year), no other team would ever touch you and you'll be slowly driven out (rare exceptions happen). 18 months used to be average stay of a Googler inside company. If you are out of luck with your team/boss, you are done internally, and this happened to many clever developers. You'd also have to get used to usual corporate CYA, internal politics and all the fun that comes along, with many developers barely doing anything but excelling in those "soft" metrics. Smaller chance of that in a startup with strong pre-selection, a mission and personal relationships, if it has solid funding.
Still, I would strongly recommend accepting the offer. Despite the drawbacks it's a great learning experience.
Is this true though? I guess it might help with the first contact, but I've heard from x-googlers that they still had to prepare and pass all those whiteboard CS-riddle based interviews again, for next endeavors.
And typically yeah... that's true. You don't really want arrogant people on your team, unless they're super productive and share their knowledge freely.
Startups can't pay BigCo wages because they don't have the money to. They have to leverage other, harder-to-value benefits which BigCo generally can't offer.
Increased responsibility, fewer "rules" on how to execute, more tightly focused mission are a few.
Naturally this differs company to company and there are always bad actors.
The compensation equation works out differently for each individual. Not everyone should work at a startup.
I read parent's comment to be more about highlighting the expectations mismatch that occurs sometimes when candidates aren't willing to make compromises and then blame the startup for being "too stingy".
I've seen this mismatch occur on both sides of the table. Startups have a harder time hiring due to as they need to seek people willing to forgo direct compensation in exchange for these harder-to-value benefits. Startups need to stay self-aware they'll have a harder time hiring since the candidate pool is smaller.
Candidates applying to startups also need to temper their salary expectations. If you want to join a startup, especially pre-Series C, and you're not willing to compromise on direct compensation, then prepare for a harder time. The employer pool is much smaller and you're not likely to get the most out of working at a startup if salary is a top priority.
Every industry has small low income employers and big titans with deep pockets. The big take most of the high quality talent by offering high salaries, and the small compete for the scraps with niche offerings.
Only in software does being the former seem to be some moral crime. Like if you're not as good as a place to work at as google you're meant to put "we're fairly shit. B- tier candidates at best please" on your hiring page.
Does it ding investors for return driven thinking, or does it happily takes checks from people so crass as to care about money?
Look, employment is a business contract. Business is about making money.
Whenever I hear about an employer that doesn't want employees who want to get paid a fair market value, I just assume the bosses and owners are the greedy ones which exploit their employees emotions in order to under pay them.
For my current job, I was able to use my big company experience and contacts to skip the phone screen at least.
I would be leery of hiring from Google. I would need to be convinced that the candidate strongly rejects Google's culture.
But since you are thinking about joining a start-up, I assume you are not preparing to stay at Google until you retire, one last suggestion. Prepare for an exit strategy already basically from day one. Not to take it negative at being with Google. Just be aware that this is not your last job in your life.
You forgot to factor in the blatant age discrimination in most startups.
OP could build a nice nest egg at Google, but have a severe lack of free time + not be working on "interesting" work, and come out of it financially stable but unable to compete with fresh out of college grads with no lives, willing to work 24/7 and who have all the time in the world to mess around with the latest and "greatest" new foo
I think OP could work at Google and have a promising career start, while taking on the risk of working on slightly-less-interesting projects.
At the same time, OP could work at this startup and make a bucketload of money through equity while working on fascinating projects. But the work could also be boring API stitching. Or the hours could be really long, and OP might have no outside life.
They're both good options. But back to the point I was originally trying to make: it's not like OP is going to work at Google and then never get hired by a startup again. In fact, working at Google is such a positive signal on a resume that it might actually make it easier to work at startups in the future.