> And make it a company you respect and want to emulate

Personally I would caveat that they be a small company. Large companies are a very different beast. What it takes to get ahead and succeed at there is often very different from a startup, in ways that don’t become obvious until you’ve worked at a startup.

Rather than learning which wheels not to re-invent, you have one data point and reflexes that you’d need to deprogram.

Working at the company I most highly respect and would want to emulate (Stripe), I don’t think the skills would have been at all the right ones. (Admittedly I was in a highly toxic and political org.)