I think your gut is right-on; the issues you describe aren't just endemic to BigCo, you'll find them anywhere and everywhere...but...if you have the financial risk tolerance to work at a startup, why not start your own company instead? These days, it's really easy to get going and self-fund with very little capital if you can save up living expenses & tighten the belt for a year or so.
Set goals and a drop-dead date (i.e., if I'm not making money within $65_percent_living_expenses_depleted, time to head back to work) and I suspect you'll be happily surprised by the outcome...
> if you have the financial risk tolerance to work at a startup, why not start your own company instead?
I don't think I'm ready for that yet, and I'd like to think that working at a startup will better prepare me for starting my own.
What really sent me down this path was PG's comment suggesting that "you can titrate the amount of startupness you get in your job by the size of the company you join." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346224) It's not a binary decision, but a sliding scale.
Set goals and a drop-dead date (i.e., if I'm not making money within $65_percent_living_expenses_depleted, time to head back to work) and I suspect you'll be happily surprised by the outcome...