My efforts and labor are always wasted working for someone else. I tend to work for startups because it feels like I'm donating time to a cause or effort that could help people in need.

When venture capital spends their (precious) money courting unqualified nobodies, they remind us all that they are less mature than the people they sponsor and reward exactly the wrong actors. These are mistakes that don't get made by legacy employers in FAANG and Fortune 500, because they have a basic understanding of self preservation.

It reaffirms to me that the right way to spend my career is on meaningless but benign work that doesn't go to benefit madmen with a hole burnt through their pocket. A16Z is absolutely reprehensible in this respect, with YC as a close second in many ways. I'm lucky that much of the work I've seen under their patronage will never come to light and ruin my CV.