Ask HN: Those who've joined a friend's startup as an employee, how did that go?

You do that as equals. Working for someone means, you are no longer equals and money is involved in that hierachy. Very different situation and in most cases I would strongly advise against it.

I consider people worth calling friends to be similar to family. I also don't have close family connections at that level. Guess that means I put more importance on friendship.

I've had the experience one time of cofounding a company with a friend. It didn't end badly, but it wasn't ideal. I realized pretty quickly I was going to be solely responsible for actually building the product. My partner was a great designer and actually had the business knowledge. To be completely honest we could have made something of it but I wasn't in the right place at the time to deep dive. Probably should have carried through with it. We'd likely be the biggest site to basically do Airbnb for cinema rental locations today. Again, I only say that because he had the connections to make that happen. Not something I could have done on my own

I guess I don't have any specific advice, other than general history.

If you and your friend are highly aligned then make a go of it. But on the contrary, Steve, Steve, and the other cofounders didn't agree. One backed out, and Apple became what it is now. Woz and the rest are $$$$$$$$$$$ aires.

In the end we all die. How do you want to think about your life in 10-20-40 years? Did you build anything? Are you ok with not having a big impact? Depends on you.

No, I deeply disagree with this. This is the reason we have issues like the 737 Max. Earnings reports and a bunch of idiot shareholders who don't understand a flying hoot about aircraft owning bits and pieces of an aerospace company and exerting control over it and pressure to "beat earnings".

I'm very much on board with being generous in giving ownership to employees. But open market? No. F that. Avoid it as long as possible and pay your employees dividends instead.

Truth be told, I hadn't fully recovered from my burnout from my previous role, and the new role wasn't particularly thrilling. But that wasn't the only factor. I'm best in product-oriented companies, but there's a tendency where I am for product companies to be thinly-veiled development agencies for larger B2B corporate clients. That type of work I find soul draining, because I refuse to be at the whims of bad corporates with big wallets.

I had also wanted to put more effort to improving the developer experience of the project as it was poor, but could never quite slot in enough time or motivation, and felt it went unappreciated.

Eventually the higher ups pulled me in to effectively put me on a PIP. I showed some improvement for the next sprint, but they felt it was better to just part ways.

Got my first true holiday in years after that, then went off to start freelancing.

My friend is still at that company and he's doing great. I think we've just diverged in our work styles and preferences of company. No bad blood between us, but of course there's disappointment at both sides.

I'd add the caveat that equity is worth more than it isn't so limited in usage for those it is distributed too.

1 year cliff, 4 year vest, but company likely to just retrench you? Worthless. Developers don't stay that long on average, and the sale terms are basically handcuffs waiting for an exit event. Constant promises of revshare when profitability is reached? Worthless.

Cash is king because equity is not only a lottery, but a lottery that you can't even control when you play or get rewarded for it.