Saying that, "the majority of them are soul crushing boring with no care or love for the developers" is a pretty strong claim, for which you've provided no evidence. Certainly some corporate jobs are soul crushing, but the "majority"?
The wrong startup, for the wrong person, can be just as soul sucking as a large corporation. There's plenty of startups that I would never want to work for. This suggestion that corporations are inherently bad and startups are inherently good is overly simplified, and very naive. Google, Apple, and Facebook I'm sure all have employees working on their TPS reports as well. In fact, I'm sure they have security guards, lawyers, and janitors many of whom enjoy their jobs, and add value to the world, despite not being software developers.
I guess I just find the attitude that everyone should be a developer working 80 hours a week for a hot web 2.0 startup very troubling. I worry that some of us have some strange delusions of grandeur. Is the CEO of the next Instagram, working 80 hours a week, really living a better life than the guy next door? In the end, if you're living a life you enjoy, what differences does it make where you work?
Almost all the people I know that work for corporations hate their jobs and would call their job's soul crushing. Granted, I would not be able to find empirical evidence for this claim,it is just based on my experience. There are plenty of good corporations like I stated though. I will agree with you that a crappy job is a crappy job no matter where it is, but I would argue and say that there is a higher possibility of getting a good job at a startup because of the very nature of the work. I will also agree that you should do whatever makes you happy, including if that means you don't get rich or you dont even make money doing it.
The wrong startup, for the wrong person, can be just as soul sucking as a large corporation. There's plenty of startups that I would never want to work for. This suggestion that corporations are inherently bad and startups are inherently good is overly simplified, and very naive. Google, Apple, and Facebook I'm sure all have employees working on their TPS reports as well. In fact, I'm sure they have security guards, lawyers, and janitors many of whom enjoy their jobs, and add value to the world, despite not being software developers.
I guess I just find the attitude that everyone should be a developer working 80 hours a week for a hot web 2.0 startup very troubling. I worry that some of us have some strange delusions of grandeur. Is the CEO of the next Instagram, working 80 hours a week, really living a better life than the guy next door? In the end, if you're living a life you enjoy, what differences does it make where you work?