Why working at a startup? You have an image of an ideal that may be a fallacy. I work at a startup and it's not all fun and games. 1) It's a lot of work, 2) there is a lot of bureaucratic red tape (just like any real world business environment) 3) startups are more fluid and flexible, meaning they can succeed quickly, but fail just as fast. My point being that it's not fun to watch your friends get fired because the startup suddenly cannot pay them anymore.

Perhaps what you meant was "Working on my startup." To which I would agree. If I could be doing anything right now it would be working on my own projects and working towards being able to sustain myself through the application of my own skills. Perhaps that's not what you meant, but heed my warning, startups are not a panacea for programmers.

same here. Instead I read HN and try to not work on side projects while being bored at work.