There are a lot more variety of startups than there are big companies. If you're thinking of late-stage VC-driven companies who work hard to maintain the label of "startup" to perpetrate the mythology of rocket-ship riches that their ivy league hiring funnel relies on, then yeah, it's gonna be stressful. On the other hand, if you're willing to take less money for the ability to work with tighter constraints, less resources and more creativity then it's not too hard to find a company willing to accommodate you, especially if your talent level is validated by a big tech name brand on your resume (not saying it's the best signal, but hiring manager psychology is what it is).

That's a sort of outdated view on startups IME. Unless you're talking about the FAANG types (which, IMO, shouldn't be called startups anymore) I've found that many small startups are embracing a healthy work-life balance. I switched from a small startup working on an early-stage SaaS to a mature big tech company and my wlb got worse.

I think the reason is that small startups can't always compete on salaries, so they have to make up for it by giving you something else in return. The market is full of extremely talented people leaving big tech because they're unhappy with the wlb, or want full-time remote or so on, so it turns out to be a win-win for startups and engineers. Big Tech will continue to get meat for the grinder by their sheer reputation, so they can expect you to dedicate your life to them if you want to stay.

It's a different kind of stress, and some people prefer one over another.

I experienced both a megacorp and one-man-army setups, and I find fighting bureaucratic inertia, office politics, endless stream of status updates, ever-changing organization chart and product rebrands - all way more tiring than shipping out features at frantic pace.

There are more ways of doing startups than dreamed of in Silicon Valley, my friend.