I work at one of the companies in the parent post (~1/2 year), and worked mainly at startups prior.

I have less meetings than I had at most startups by a significant fraction. I have total technical direction on the product I work on (within reason). I have gotten to code in more languages than at any other shop I’ve been at, most of which I had zero professional experience in prior. I work on an internal product that excites me & is more complex than anything else I have worked with prior professionally. I work with any technology I like that does the job, new or old. Have no competition to jump into management because not enough engineers want to become managers. I also have flexibility to take days off unofficially because I work hard of my own volition, as well as work from home, and almost all of the flexibility I have gotten from startups.

Not to say I don’t like some things about startups - after all, I worked at them for about 75% of my career spanning over 5 years. There are a lot of myths about bigger companies out there though I have found at my current job, and friends at similar companies like Facebook and Netflix.

Many large corporations are structuring themselves around this kind of model. I recently started working for one of Canada's largest financial institutions and they've managed to check most of these boxes for me. I do front-end development though, so it might be different for more technical roles.

One doesn’t need to work at a startup for most of this points. My company is over 16 years old and we also meet the following bullets:

  * Less bureaucracy, more building
  * Larger impact on a product; not just being a cog
  * Generalist rather than one narrowly defined job
  * Ability to learn many new skills
  * Working on something they believe in
  * Working with newer technologies
  * Flexibility (work from home, set own hours, etc)

Most of our engineering team has stayed for more than 5 years. Some have been there for 15 years.

Yes, that's what people think they can get out of startups. But having worked in both startups and large companies, I can say a few of those things aren't true.

Less bureaucracy, more building - Only if the founders give you autonomy. Lots of micromanagers in the startup world.

Working on something they believe in - When you're hired, they try to hook you with this line. But startups are not charities. The longer you work at one, the more cynical you get.

Flexibility (work from home, set own hours, etc) - In my experience, startups want you to work more than 40 hours a week, and expect you to check your email during your free time, in case something urgent comes up. You can call that flexibility, but it's not in the employee's favor.

I've found the rest of your points to be true, more or less.