> “[Companies with a good trajectory] give your resume (and career) a pedigree and an opportunity to work alongside some of the top talent or top operational structures in an industry. They also offer great paychecks that compensate for whatever issues may be present.”

Companies with a good trajectory can be awful to work for but their trajectory — and subsequently their ability to allocate value (pay, headcount, interesting challenges) to teams to make them more competitive — in my view compensates for whatever drawbacks come from them. There is some benefit to working for them. For a bad company, there is often little explicit value for working there unless you’re personally passionate about the work/industry or you need a job.

Said differently: a good company delivers value to you. In a bad company, you have to drag personal value out.