I’ve never worked in SV. Only small enterprises, Microsoft, a handful of local startups, and one SV company. The SV company had above average retention compared to most of the non SV places I’ve worked. The 3 year range has been pretty much the norm in my experience (20 years or so). 5 years has been on the high end in every company I’ve worked for. It is anecdotal, but it is what I’ve seen consistently across markets both large and small.

> That's a rather SV-centric view.

Trust me, it isn't. It's valid for every organization I've ever been in or consulted for (15+). I am in Eastern Europe and spent 9-10 years in offices, and the other 7 after that it has been all remote. I've seen a lot of companies for both consulting and normal 5-to-9 work.

While the reasons why most people don't stick around above 2-3 years are many and varied (and some are frankly quite stupid) to me it does seem to be the norm.

But I'll readily admit we all live in our own bubbles and confirmation biases. So I'm just sharing an additional anecdote here.

Fair enough. I’ve worked mostly in the US Northeast and while I’ve worked in companies across a wide range of sizes my observations are probably flavored by a lot of big firms who have been partners and clients. I would have said 5-10 years was more the norm among people I work with but then I probably tend to disproportionately work with people who are more senior in their organizations.