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Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

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Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#751

Post by zuhayeer »

dmode wrote: post #114
ryandrake wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take that view with a huge grain of salt. Nobody is denying that someone, somewhere is making $400k as a software engineer, but we are talking outlier employees at outlier companies. You’re not getting this as a medium level rank and file engineer, or at a non-FAANG company. This whole “software engineers make $400k” trope seems to have taken on a life of its own. Every time salary comes up here, these guys come out…

FAANG + Microsoft + Uber + Airbnb hire thousands and thousands of engineers in the Valley and Seattle every year. 400K is L5-L6 salary (senior engineer, first level manager). There are a TON of engineers making that money. They are not really outliers, and FAANGMUA is also not really outlier considering Google itself has 80K employees and Amazon and MSFT have over 200K employees.

http://levels.fyi is a good tool for shedding light on some of these numbers

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#752

Post by raz32dust »

kinganurag wrote: post #668
kentonv wrote: post #633

As a former startup founder, I tend to agree that most startups are low-balling early employees. These employees over-value their stock by imagining what it would be worth if the company reaches $1B valuation. It really is a lottery ticket. But in my opinion, the answer is more pay, not more equity. Employees should get market comp, period. Doesn't matter how early-stage the startup is. If a founder can't afford empl…

> If a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring yet. They could perhaps offer to take people on as co-founders -- with an appropriately equal share. Brother, I have worked with both startup & MNC's and i can understand what you are trying to say but it is a bit harsh to say that if a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring. Some part of me says you are ri…

Faith is cool. But it needs to flow both ways. If you have faith in the person, make them a co-founder and give correspondingly respectable equity.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#754

Post by jiggunjer »

rgossiaux wrote: post #741
kentonv wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Early-stage companies should offer sufficient equity such that their employees should in expectation earn at least the same as they would at a public company. That's the joke! Nobody comes remotely close to offering enough equity that their total comp is equivalent! Imagine a company that just raised a $1M seed round on convertibles at a $6M valuation cap. Now say they offer an "extremely generous" 2% equity packag…

Yes, I mostly agree. There's one nuance that I've been thinking about lately that I haven't seen anyone ever point out before, which is that high volatility will make options worth more than they are on paper. Here's a thought experiment: imagine that there are two employers on the market. One will always pay 200k/yr guaranteed and you can choose to work for them at any time for this wage. The other pays 100k/yr plus…

this also requires one exercises the cocounut option at the end of every year. If you don't and they drop to zero in year 4...

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#755

Post by rgossiaux »

jiggunjer wrote: post #754
rgossiaux wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I mostly agree. There's one nuance that I've been thinking about lately that I haven't seen anyone ever point out before, which is that high volatility will make options worth more than they are on paper. Here's a thought experiment: imagine that there are two employers on the market. One will always pay 200k/yr guaranteed and you can choose to work for them at any time for this wage. The other pays 100k/yr plus…

this also requires one exercises the cocounut option at the end of every year. If you don't and they drop to zero in year 4...

For the purposes of this thought experiment we're assuming that there's no price movement after year 1. In the real world this probability of failure in the future should be priced in to the year 2 price and doesn't affect the expected value anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#756

Post by nvarsj »

user5994461 wrote: post #525
nvarsj wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh cool, didn't realize that. Hopefully London will catch up.

Historically, the money in London has always been in the finance sector. Both large banks and hedge funds.

I think even in finance you'll be unlikely to touch 400USD (~300 GBP) for a similar level. Sure there are outliers, but of the senior people I know in this area total comp is around 200GBP after many years. It's much easier to just contract (if you don't mind the mercenary role), you'll make similar due to the tax savings.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#757

Post by raz32dust »

As an H1B visa holder, my number 1 concern when responding to startups is the uncertainty it creates in terms of future H1B extensions, green card application etc. Big cos have large lawyer squads to push me through the paperwork.

Besides that, can YC create some sort of insurance fund to pay employees at early stage startups at market rates? This fund would mostly be fueled by equity that the founders and investors were planning to give the employees. If a startup succeeds, the payout should be able to sustain a few more startups at roughly market pay. Of course, what this would mean is that the employees who opt in given up their chance to "make it big", but also reduce their risk while getting to work at something they are more passionate about and more rewarding compared to whatever they are doing at bigger companies.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#758

Post by _cs2017_ »

acconrad wrote: post #129

I was the first engineer at a TechStars startup that did have a successful exit (I was there about 5 years before the exit). If there is something I want YC to know, it's this: You helped create the culture of founder empowerment. You have the power to evolve that narrative to those that sacrifice as early employees. Tell the world that early employees deserve a lot more equity. Tell the world that early employees co…

Maybe engineers are more replaceable than founders? That would explain why founders walk away with a lot more cash and credit. After all, there are a lot of good engineers who probably would do a good job as an early employee. And relatively few people who have the vision, motivation, and skill to create a successful company.

That said, I sometimes feel that being a successful founder has less to do with skill and more with being at the right place at the right time.

Would be interested to see what others think.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#759

Post by _b8r0 »

bradhe wrote: post #744
bittcto wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR: 30 years experience, I learned: don’t go work for a SV style startup. Be a founder, even if you have no experience. Don’t take VC money for more than %10 of your equity in total. Better off, right out of school, founding a company and failing than working for a startup, especially if they take VC. It’s lopsided against the founders too. They might walk away with big checks but the risk is too high. This is the…

> Don’t take VC money for more than %10 of your equity in total. Good luck man.

Build things for which there's actual demand and real hard problems are being solved and they won't need it.

Build Uber for X and rightly it'll fail without VC money.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

#760

Post by fergie »

I was one of the first employees at a fairly large dotcom 18 years ago and via a circuitous route through industry and academia I find myself back at a startup now.

One mistake I see early-stage startups make over and over again is low-balling key positions with the consequence that good engineers/designers are not retained but less-able engineers/designers are. As the company ages and the remaining OK-ish employees gain more power, a culture-of-mediocrity-death-spiral sets in which is hard if not impossible to escape from: products don't ship, sales suffer.

There are lots of good reasons NOT to work at a startup: Outside of startupland it is now easier to land a well paid gig at a big tech company than at any time in the last 15 years. In the public/state sector technology workers have experienced steep pay increases due to the intense pressure to digitalise. Consultancy and contracting remain lucrative, with established players constantly on the lookout for new hires, and individuals often able to multiply their pay by switching to contract employment.

I feel like the opportunities to influence and be promoted within a startup are in some ways overstated. In my own experience this has been just as easy in larger and more established organisations. Startups often lean pretty heavily on this argument and I am not sure if it is actually true for anybody outside of the founder's circle.

Startups often tie themselves up in knots trying to find out how to attract early employees, when really it just comes down to pay and conditions. Treat your early employees like functioning adults by offering decent pay, pension, holidays and benefits and great applicants will come flocking.

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