I don’t disagree with the spirit of your post. Large tech companies are paying ridiculous salaries and generally speaking we’re in a period of early-stage capital glut.
The point you’ve made — that it makes more sense to just start a company — is directionally correct, but for the most part is a logical fallacy. I hear this from competent, capable people all the time, “I might as well just start my own company rather than work at a startup as an employee.”
The reality is that 0 to 1 is an extremely, extremely difficult hump to overcome and most people intuitively know this. Which is why anybody who says, “I’m better off starting my own company than working at a startup,” especially without startup experience, is likely to never actually do that thing. I’ve never actually seen it, though I’ve seen a number of people go from working at to founding startups.
The real insight here is that it is actually more valuable to found — or be a really early employee at — a successful startup. And so the question becomes: how do you put yourself on track to get a $72k check from Peter Thiel at 23? Take risks, prove your competence and grow your network. That means work at startups.
Sure. I’m (currently) a lucky recipient of survivorship bias. There’s a long way to go and my current state is incomparable to most of the people we look up to and respect as a community. But the key word there is, “survivor.” If you look at the start of my startup career — middling ad tech company in Toronto, eng. lead at a failed Series A SF startup, short stint at a biotech company, turned down by BigCos — none of it looks like it could possibly have been leading anywhere. I just used those opportunities to meet really talented folks who believed in me and, one by one, would end up supporting me down the line. I’m lucky and very grateful for that. Some of the aspects of my journey to date are non-repeatable, and I’ll always give thanks for those moments — but a lot of the lessons I’ve learned can apply to any ambitious young technologist.
Keep at it. If startups aren’t for you, fine, but, again — survivorship bias requires you to survive in the face of insurmountable odds. And it does happen. Startups teach you how to survive. It’s OLN on steroids for careers.