One of the things people talking about reputation seem to miss is how easy it is to establish that base level of reputation. A couple of decent talks at local user groups will be enough in most tech areas that have job openings for employers and people with other opportunities to start querying you before they move onto more blanket searches.
On top of this I really dislike the argument that the skills are transferable from a big company to a small one easily. It seems like a much better argument for going towards something like a small-medium company. In the web space I'd suggest that the plethora of 10-40 person bespoke web dev shops that float around are a very good option for gaining broad skills and being less risky than startups.
People who are interested in startups should join something that looks pretty similar to a startup. People who are interested in making 10 million dollars should join a big company and live cheaply.
Good point on gaining reputation with the hacker group of the area by doing tech talks. However, I don't think that is the same thing as having a big name company experience on a resume. I imagine many HR people wouldn't likely know what a user group is, what a tech talk is supposed to demonstrate, or why they would find that valuable. On the other hand, if they see a brand they recognize and respect (Apple, Google, Cicso, MSFT, etc), they will more likely think higher of the candidate based on that alone.
Agree on the last point. One need not create a start up to experience working at one.
Your reputation is only as good as the people who know it. Most HR will not have heard of you (unless you are a high-profile leader in your field) and hence the desire for a rubber stamp from a brand company. It's the same reason many people desire Ivy League education, not for the learning, but the brand name that will make entry to most jobs a lot easier (as HR/Company assume certain level of quality/competency/work-ethic/etc has been met).
Which again, circles back to reputation building. Somebody, as you say, has to be impressed/like you enough to make the effort of pushing your information through the ranks to get hired. If you know the person from some other context, it's possible. If you're another resume from the stack, it's much more difficult to get that attention from anyone-HR, engineers, managers-in the company.
On top of this I really dislike the argument that the skills are transferable from a big company to a small one easily. It seems like a much better argument for going towards something like a small-medium company. In the web space I'd suggest that the plethora of 10-40 person bespoke web dev shops that float around are a very good option for gaining broad skills and being less risky than startups.
People who are interested in startups should join something that looks pretty similar to a startup. People who are interested in making 10 million dollars should join a big company and live cheaply.