One reason this woefully reductive article doesn't mention is the value of learning about what <i>not</i> to do when the time comes to start your own startup. Why caring about optics instead of revenue is a bad idea. Why peddling reputation instead of product can get you in trouble. How dangerous founder-founder disagreements can be for morale and success. How important it is to hire good talent.<p>The fact is, if you choose to start your career working for a startup, you will likely work for a failing one. That can be a more valuable lesson than working for a successful one.<p>Established companies have largely weeded out inefficiencies, problems with product-market fit, and so on. If you work for a startup, you will learn very quickly why you don't see the "startup culture" in mature companies--at least not all the bells and whistles associated with a startup--because it doesn't work. Letting employees work from anywhere when the company has no sense of direction doesn't work. Paying for meals 3x a day for the whole staff when there's no bottom line revenue because the CEO would rather be photographed with a celebrity than make a sale doesn't work. Giving entry-level employees right out of college the power and responsibility to distract the company from its core mission doesn't work.
I think it is better to work for a established company at least once<p>I get overwhelmed by people who never really had any respectful work experiences and started to call themselves Director/CEO/Founder<p>And surely they failed
The advice in this article would make a lot more sense if the title were "Why You Should <i>Found</i> a Startup at Least Once", because working for a startup as an employee, even a fairly early employee, really isn't all that different from working for a larger company. There are more changes in direction, that's all. But you're not the one calling the shots on the changes, so whatever.<p>(I've worked as a junior employee for two startups, one about a year in with ~10 employees and the other about five years in with ~100 employees.)
I don't agree that all of these are exclusive to startups. In my experience, smaller, more laid back companies generally hit most if not all of these points. The company I'm currently with certainly does, except maybe #5, and it's been around for a couple decades.<p>To me this reads more along the lines of "5 reasons to work at a small company", and #5 is the only one that's more startup-specific, though there are companies out there that provide that too, and are not startups.