I can't speak for others, but I can certainly speak for myself and say that this isn't true. I had my internships at larger companies. Sure, they're not the big 5, but big enough that they're household names. I used them as resume boosters and now _prefer_ startups over large companies.

I was also fortunate enough to grow up without a lot of money, so my lifestyle is fairly affordable and I never had the luxuries that could be difficult to transition to a lifestyle without them. Because of that, and my interest in working on bleeding-edge-and-could-fail tech, I don't mind the risks that startups offer.

I'm confident enough in my skill set that I know I can go after many of those high paying jobs with at least a modicum level of success _somewhere_, but I like the challenges and pace of the startup space instead. I've even rejected offers that offered a larger salary in exchange for a lower salary at a more exciting (and even earlier stage) startup. Does that make me naive/crazy? I don't know, maybe. It's just what excites me more and the tradeoff is worth it for me.

Right now I'm doing a lot of consulting/contracting at startups. Most of the companies I see on my travels are not really doing anything that falls into the category bleeding-edge-and-could-fail. Most are pretty boring and derivative. Especially compared to some of the stuff I saw worked on at Facebook.

I would argue that a lot of the cutting edge stuff that's being worked on these days is happening at bigco's (Google/Amazon/MSFT/Facebook).

Now their are some big exceptions to this but in general that's what I'm seeing while traveling around SV.

I would say that I prefer working with smaller companies for the sense of camaraderie and the relative lack of politics. That and the ability for my work to have a massive impact.

This is also true, sorry for implying that all the work is some sort of bleeding edge.