I&#x27;ve worked for two failed early startups. Gained a lot of knowledge in a short period of time, wore a lot of hats, did work I was passionate about, but also stressed out about making the right decisions or the company could shut down (the final decisions were made by the management, but I had influence over their decisions), extremely long hours, no social life, rapidly deteriorating health, screwed up my finances, etc.<p>But I&#x27;m a few years away from it now, and I don&#x27;t mind admitting it. The startups failed for reasons outside of me for the most part (although it feels a little funny knowing you&#x27;re at least partially responsible for a company losing two million dollars), and I don&#x27;t regret having that experience.<p>If anything, working for a corporation again and working on stuff I&#x27;m not too passionate about makes me itch for going back to a small company again, but I still need the stability to get my finances back in order and start losing the weight I put on during that time, plus I have a social life now, which is hard to give all that up for someone else&#x27;s &#x27;grand vision&#x27;.<p>As for misjudgment, from my experience, a lot of the &quot;bad decisions&quot; made in those startups actually made sense at the time and with the information available at the time of the decision. It was only with the benefit of hindsight and perspective that you can see why ultimately they were bad decisions.