Appreciate your opinion. Unfortunately, I am a Masters student continuing for a PhD, so dropping out with a Masters is not an option for me. A PhD in general is quite demanding, so, doing both would be next to impossible.
Is this specific to machine learning ? I feel industry is slowly eliminating ML research scientist positions and transitioning to engineering only off late.
I want to do what's optimal in the long run. although, working on the startup is tempting i feel it will be sub-optimal for a long term career in research.