This is so subjective - everyone's experience is different. While I agree that large companies have a tendency to accumulate overhead and slackers things have changed significantly over the last few years.
I started out working at several startups and they were orders of magnitude worse in terms of politics and personality clashes. Also, it was hard attracting qualified engineers. On the flipside, it was very clear what my contribution was and I felt very responsible for the success and failure of the company.
I've been at HP for 11 years now and it's changed from somewhat bloated to very lean. We've had pretty thorough housecleaning efforts in recent history as have most mega companies. Bureaucracy has never been a problem where I've been (I'm sure it's different in other divisions), the smaller project teams feel a lot like working at startups with the added benefit of very good equipment, etc.
I started out working at several startups and they were orders of magnitude worse in terms of politics and personality clashes. Also, it was hard attracting qualified engineers. On the flipside, it was very clear what my contribution was and I felt very responsible for the success and failure of the company.
I've been at HP for 11 years now and it's changed from somewhat bloated to very lean. We've had pretty thorough housecleaning efforts in recent history as have most mega companies. Bureaucracy has never been a problem where I've been (I'm sure it's different in other divisions), the smaller project teams feel a lot like working at startups with the added benefit of very good equipment, etc.