You're not young and stupid, you are young and ignorant. Ignorance is curable.

NOT EVERY startup is run by idiots. Yes, you ignored the red flags like a lot of younger, less experienced people do, but many of the complaints you discuss are HOW startups work.

I work for a startup right now. It's literally the BEST JOB I have ever had! Better than Disney. Better than Dell. Better than any of the other medium to small businesses I've worked at.

It's not sexist if startups can only find the people they can find; they don't avoid hiring women; we have a few women working at our startup and they rock.

Startups don't have HR. It's ignorant to think that a company with a handful of employees is going to waste valued resources on an HR dept. Seriously.

Also, you often times don't get a job description at a startup. You get hired to work with many different hats.

Your biggest mistake was not doing your homework and going to working for a startup that was underfunded AND mostly likely run by kids who don't know what they are doing, much like you didn't know what you were doing when you went to work for them.

Live and learn. Mistakes are valuable opportunities to learn what not to do next time around.

Startups are not bad places to work if the right people are in-place. In fact, big companies with the wrong people can be hellish places to work. Been there done that too.

Don't allow one bad experiece to color your perception of startups. Now that you know at least some of the red flags, you're in a great position to find a startup run by people who hopefully have some EXPERIENCE to know what they hell they are doing.

Better luck next time around.