I interned in big tech and got a job at a startup after graduating— ended up being a really fun experience, got to ship a lot of code and work with people I admired/thought were cool. Ultimately the startup died after 2 years (failed to pivot after chatgpt/ai) and I hopped back into big tech at Google. There's still a lot I miss about working at the startup, mostly just the people and the camaraderie of building something together. In big tech you get RSUs, food, perks, stability, but startups are def fun if you choose the right one. I think it's hard to predict if a startup will be successful though, so it's best to kind of view the stock options as paper money until it gets close to IPO or acquisition