mgaunard parent
It is quite common for CTOs of smaller companies to be hired as team leaders into bigger companies; nothing wrong with that.
I agree. My point is this is probably unrealistic:
> It might be nicer to go work for startups, acquire experience there as you build everything from scratch across the whole stack, then get hired at a high responsibility position
You mostly don’t get hired into high responsibility positions at big tech from startups, unless you’re acquired by them directly.
There are some notable exceptions obviously, but those generally require you to be some sort of leading domain expert.