Corporate vs. agency vs. startup

Please note this is my subjective approximation of what each environment could look like. It may vary from company to company.

How each environment scores, in my experience. Three filled circles is a strong fit.

Corporate worships the system.

Corporate (mine was VMware) moves slowly, but on rails: a process, a review, a stakeholder who surfaces on day forty with a concern that turns out to be load-bearing. Easy to dunk on, but it taught me that rigor is a feature. A thing that survives ten rounds of review is sometimes a better thing. Slow isn't always fear; sometimes slow is care.

Agencies worship the client.

Agency (Omnicom Group, clients like LEGO and Blackstone) is fast, sharp, and varied: a toy brand and a financial titan in the same month. You get very good at making things look finished. But the work isn't yours, you hand it over the wall and rarely find out if it actually worked. A brilliant guest in other people's houses, who never sees how they live once you leave.

Startups worship the outcome.

Startup (Compute Labs, now) has no process to hide behind and no client to blame. If it ships and nobody clicks it, that's you. The terror is also the gift: you own the whole thing, the brand and the button and the bug, and you're standing right there when it works, or doesn't.

None of these is the real design job with the others as training wheels. They're just different bets about where the truth lives: corporate bets on the system, agencies on the craft, startups on the outcome.

Do your research, and pick the one you'd happily lose sleep over.