1/5     Thinking about joining a startup. Do you think now is a good time
        to jump to startups, since many companies are overvalued already?
        \_ Not all startups are the same.  It's not like "I'm in a startup",
           end of story.  It's like "I'm in a startup with a good idea, a lot
           of money, run by semi-clueful people, and I have rights to enough
           options to retire if they successfully go public" vs. "I'm in yet
           another dead startup".  The latter is the norm.  Let us know if you
           find the former.  -working in latter
           \_ this sodan has the right idea.  IMHO everyone in CS should take
              a corporate, a startup, and an academic job (or be a grad
              student) to begin to understand how to assess their long-term
              career goals.  Somewhere along the line you'll also understand
              what a loser corporate/startup/academic job is, as well as the
              really cool ones.
                \_ Did academic, did semi-corporate, doing startup now.  The
                   academic thing was ok but _very_ low paying and not very
                   challenging.  I totally slack off like that and end up
                   doing nothing that way.  Bad.  Semi-corporate (mid sized
                   internet company) was terrible.  This company in particular
                   had painfully bad management who did their best to screw up
                   the entire company.  I bailed right before they finally
                   succeeded.  Problem with being in a startup is you're too
                   close to get a really good feeling for how the rest of the
                   world thinks of what you're doing.  I think my current
                   company is totally worthless yet I can see that the market
                   is very likely to shoot our stock into the heavens when we
                   IPO.  Perhaps because I know too much.  Or maybe all
                   startups are this messed up so it doesn't matter.  See you
                   on the other side of retirement!!
                        \_ CoSine sucks
                           \_ CoSine?
           \_ be a grad student, intern summers. startup on side.
                \_ shut up nweaver
                \_ you can't seriously do a 'startup on side'.  Startups take
                   _more_ work, not less than a corporate job.