However, other divisions of MSFT (and where this person was going) have some of the worst people I've met.
Plenty of startups have worse people than the worst of Microsoft. Some of them have people who couldn't get a job at one of those stodgy, blue-chip companies if their lives depended on it.
The range is very wide at most of the startups. I worked at one where there were some seriously good engineers, but a really bad one ended up becoming the lead architect and things went to hell quickly.
Plenty of startups have worse people than the worst of Microsoft. Some of them have people who couldn't get a job at one of those stodgy, blue-chip companies if their lives depended on it.
The range is very wide at most of the startups. I worked at one where there were some seriously good engineers, but a really bad one ended up becoming the lead architect and things went to hell quickly.