I have never worked at the stereotypical tech company. Worked at an agency for years and it was fast paced but it wasn't cutthroat compared to plenty of other companies. I now work in a large tech company but it isn't like companies like Google either. 

There are middle ground places. You described the extremes. The vast majority of IT jobs are not like working in Silicon Valley. 

kepford

Yeah, being surrounded by lazy people grates on me... but then again I don't think I'd feel very at home in a super-fast-paced go-get'em atmosphere like the big tech companies either.  I'm just not that ambitious about money, honestly, and would rather work on my own independent side projects that I think are cool rather than serving a corporate overlord who can fire me at any time.

It's hard to find a place where you get a good balance of people.

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siggy47

Yeah, being surrounded by lazy people grates on me... but then again I don't think I'd feel very at home in a super-fast-paced go-get'em atmosphere like the big tech companies either.  I'm just not that ambitious about money, honestly, and would rather work on my own independent side projects that I think are cool rather than serving a corporate overlord who can fire me at any time.

It's hard to find a place where you get a good balance of people.  
