I learned a long time ago that behaving like a startup is not a good thing, and I've specifically oriented my career towards working at companies that don't even want to pretend to imitate startup culture. I'm very happy in enterprise-land.
You set the expectation that you can deliver at the pace of a lean startup, but every step of the way you are slowed down by a process or internal dependency that is operating like a fortune 100 company.
Large companies should just fund startups and acquire them when the product has shipped than try to create a culture where teams are expected to operate a speedboat that is towed by an oceanliner.
I mean, that's basically what big tech has been doing for the left 15 years., not then people get upset that "Foo Corp doesn't innovate, it only acquires".
I tell people that the best size of company to work at is one that's just barely big enough to have an HR department.
They don't mean empowering their workforce. "We want to act more like a startup" is code for we want less accountability for bad decisions.
I want to (artificially perhaps) peg my projects to a smaller cohort of employees if it means the stress to them is worth it if they have the autonomy to ship stuff on their own accord, for a general feeling of having a successful and useful career.
Full disclosure: I do not have an MBA.
Finding out that one of the world's largest economic forces aspires to burn out their workforce and spend more time shooting from the hip is depressing.
It’s 2025 and I still see “unlimited PTO” in many places.
If you don't have leverage, you won't get those things regardless of enterprise or small business.
Also, in startups these things still happen more often, the culture normalizes unpaid overtime, unused PTO, etc. E.g.:
> While overtime is a reality in both startups and large corporations, the difference lies in the motivation behind it. In startups, work goes beyond traditional hours, not out of obligation, but from a genuine passion and commitment to achieving shared goals.
source: https://www.sdsolutions.tech/post/what-is-a-startup-culture
Not in the US. Most enterprise software engineers are salaried and do not receive overtime pay.
Sane working hours and vacation time should be taken as a given in the modern economy. Unusually long work hours should be reserved for unusually highly paid professions like investment banking and surgeons.