This is interesting to read but a one-sided perspective. It can also go the other way, where going into the startup world is a big career mistake and is later regretted. A number of my female friends joined startups right out of college. Multiple busts/layoffs/firings later, they realized they had a disjointed resume, with short experiences at companies no one has heard of, and worse - few skills to show for it. They never progressed beyond customer service and various other administrative, low-paid positions. On the other hand, after a short stint in consulting/banking, other friends gained skills that they could leverage for much better positions in both startups and the corporate world. Yes, working for a company like Deloitte or GE expands your choices later on. For some reason, lack of career progression seems to impact women in startups much more than men. I think it's because there are so few women at startups - and male founders bring in their friends/other men they're comfortable with for interesting positions. The good news is that although they "lost" 4-8 years where they didn't learn much, these women were able to finally get going with their career - either through graduate school (MBA, law school, going into medicine) or getting an entry level job at a large company (Facebook, Cisco etc) where they were able to work with MUCH more senior people in a business team and actually learn things.