I lived mostly the same story as this guy, except I was working in a startup when this happened. I was working on great software, but I hated my job and hated everyone around me. And yet I joined this startup because I felt it would be the best job ever. I was so wrong.

I finally left for BigCo afer 6 months and I plan on staying there for years and years because this job is incredible. We write the most beautiful software and the team is simply amazing.

And it seems every week I see my old colleagues post status on Facebook along the lines of "Look at us, working hard into the night!" at 9 or 10pm. They seem to take pride of this sort of thing. Now that I'm at BigCo, I get to leave every day at exactly the same time and 3 days / week I have activities planned on my evenings that I will never miss again because of overtime.

Just remember that these horror stories of "I hate my job at BigCo, let's join Startup and everything will be better" can go both ways.