Culture is smoke and mirrors. When investors say frog, founders jump and guess who gets the cultural shaft then.

Better to be thinking in transactional terms from the get go especially in early startups, where majority of total comp is an illiquid call option.

I mean it's not smoke and mirrors, when I'm picking between jobs I'm strongly considering the people I'm spending 35-40% of my waking hours interacting with. If I cared solely about maximizing personal returns I wouldn't work for startups.