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

Twice actually. The first time it someone who I grew up and was close friends throughout my schooling and higher studies. It started out well enough. They offered me sweat equity upfront (no cliffs or vesting) so that showed a lot of trust. As time went on, him and his partner began spooling off different companies with no intimation and conflicts of interests. They even diluted my stake without informing. I waited till I was 4 years complete, asked them to hike up my equity stake by a few points as the business while running was not making a load of cash and the salary I was drawing was peanuts compared to the market offers I was saying no to. They didn't respond on that request for a year. Put in my papers. As to how our childhood friendship fared. He had a child recently and I found out via common friends :-)

After a stint in another startup, have joined another friend at his startup. It is hard but there is much better transparency. Only time will tell though if the friendship will survive the stint (I hope it does).

When I was 18, I was working three pub jobs to pay for rent in Sydney. I studied Art History, which is about as far away from anything Startupy as you can get.

I lived on campus, where a guy I was really close with got a 50k seed investment through an accelerator to start a company. He hired me, who knew nothing but needed no convincing to drop out of school and give it a shot. It died, so I hopped to another accelerator startup (also died), and then to a bank as a Software Engineer. 6 years later I'm a PM at a reputable company.

I feel like - while probably terrible financial decisions - the deadly combination of accelerators and friends with questionable startup ideas has probably been one of the biggest propagators of people into tech.

Best mate from college: totally. “Friend” otherwise? Seems like opinion here is “no”.

Other rule of thumb I picked up - don’t do special deals. You have to treat them like you would any company you don’t entirely know, and if you’re managing your friends expect them to do the same - or encourage them to if they don’t.

At the end of the day, the founder gives way to a board they need to answer to.

As an employer, I'll push back on this. I'll start by saying that if you want equity, then by all means seek out jobs that provide equity.

In mu experience, people don't want equity as much as they want a living wage. They want a proper salary, every month, not some mythical payday in the future.

If you can find a place that does both, thats fantastic.

Incidentally if you have meaningful equity that comes with a bunch of stress as well. Our responsibility is to make payroll every month. In good years we get some profit (so do employees) in bad months we get paid last, sometimes short, sometimes late.

I've voted you up, not because I agree with your point, but because you help readers to understand that different people have different goals. And the trading of stability for equity is not necessarily exploitation.