Because you like the mission, and having a palpable impact, and dislike bureaucracy, and busy work.

The equity equation for startups changed over time because the abundance of venture capital made it possible for startups to avoid going public to raise capital, and the attendant scrutiny. But this meant that workers' equity stayed illiquid longer. I do not think startups conspired against workers.

There’s more to life than money. Autonomy, mastery and purpose. Those are the textbook three dimensions of intrinsic motivators that lead to job satisfaction, and it’s often much easier to find those in a startup. Working in a more established company can be soul sucking. Sure, you make more and you don’t have to worry as much about the whole thing failing and needing to find another job, but you’re in a position where you can meaningfully move the needle on the company’s success. You’re not a cog in a very large machine. You’re going to be given more freedom on how to accomplish things. And the mission of a startup can often feel much more compelling.

To some extent, it can feel very different depending on whether you’ve got a family to support. Having a family as a sense of purpose makes you want to choose something more solid in service of that. But to those without kids, finding purpose in work can feel more appealing and compromising on security and pay to get that freedom and sense of purpose can be much more compelling than trying to find purpose in money, which is just a losing proposition for most people.

Hey didnt the guy say end of convo?

Now you’ve made him out to seem like a liar…

More control over your own destiny and the company's? If you just want to do what someone tells you and conform (which most people do, and that's fine) you're better off with a bigger company. If you want a chance to defence what you do, startup is better. I would agree that it's important to not join a startup that wants to pretend it's a big company, or you get the worst of both worlds.

Yep. But the chances are greater that the startup will die in a given timeframe.

A generation as in 20 years ago? Are you sure you want to claim that those people had job security? 3-4 years later, those people would be out of a job.

40 years? Lets see what Volker was doing to maintain that position.

60 years? Now you're getting to a place that the term might have made sense. But only in this place, and only if your entire career lasted less than 15 years.

80 years? Well, we're in a war, don't know how much that counts for job prospects but a military career is a career.

Relatively speaking the bigger the company the better the job security. Nothing is ever risk free. But a job at a large pubco is way more secure than a job at a random startup with 6 months of runway.

It was exactly the same a generation ago. unless you’re referring to industries that used to have strong unions 3-4 generations ago or something.

Most of them were not engineers