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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?

#901

Post by aaron_m04 »

icedchai wrote: post #812
DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Sample size of one) I worked at a unicorn startup five years ago in the bay which no longer exists. Anyone who bought the options -- and the company was very cagey on providing cap table info -- was left with nothing.

Worthless, or nearly worthless, options are very, very common. The last options I exercised and did get paid out... but in the end, I didn't even make back enough to make up for the pay cut I took. Financially, I would've been better off taking a different job. At least I "had fun' and "got something" though.

Why the quotes? Did you not have any fun?

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

#902

Post by aaron_m04 »

ibz wrote: post #280
DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Sample size of one) I worked at a unicorn startup five years ago in the bay which no longer exists. Anyone who bought the options -- and the company was very cagey on providing cap table info -- was left with nothing.

> in the bay which no longer exists :)

That happens sometimes -- lava filled a bay in Hawaii just last week :P

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

#903

Post by phamilton »

delroth wrote: post #778
dunpeal wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure how H1B salaries compare to the overall average. H1B salaries are typically lower than average. Why do you think companies spend millions lobbying for more H1Bs? To pay them more than average? :-) Also, keep in mind Google only has to disclose base salaries for these H1Bs. For a staff engineer, most of the total comp would be in bonus pay and especially RSUs. They can easily be making $400k or more thr…

Do you have evidence that people coming on an H1B visa get paid less than their non-H1B coworkers (at same level / same seniority / same office) at Google?

I would suggest that while new hires of H1B might not get paid less, the market dynamics of not having as many alternatives would invariably lead to less valuable retention efforts by the employer. i.e. fewer raises, fewer promotions, smaller bonuses, etc.

As I understand it, H1Bs aren't too bad (transferability is a thing here), but other forms of visas are brutal in this regard.

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

#904

Post by [deleted] »

acconrad wrote: post #567
biztos wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's an "early employee" for you? (That is, who gets "a lot more equity?") I ask because I've noticed with some high-dollar acquisitions a lot of times "engineer #50" makes his/her "F-You Money" on the acquisition, but having been "engineer #2" and "#4" and even "#1" (sadly, no big exits) I am skeptical that #50 took on much more risk or contributed more than, say, #200.

Pre-series A. Once Series A comes into play, you can get paid "market" - which is to say, the normal rate outside of FAANG.

[deleted]

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

#905

Post by busterarm »

webmaven wrote: post #898
biztos wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's an "early employee" for you? (That is, who gets "a lot more equity?") I ask because I've noticed with some high-dollar acquisitions a lot of times "engineer #50" makes his/her "F-You Money" on the acquisition, but having been "engineer #2" and "#4" and even "#1" (sadly, no big exits) I am skeptical that #50 took on much more risk or contributed more than, say, #200.

#2-#9 (roughly) are taking on more financial risk (this corresponds to the startup's market risk). #50 is probably being hired for very specific skills and experience (to mitigate technical risk) that increases their opportunity cost considerably, and you aren't going to get an engineer with a track record of scaling operations like yours unless they get a decent salary and a shot at a significant upside. For certain…

The trick to this is find a company with large upside potential that is either about to IPO or has just recently IPO'd.

The list is small, but there are some obvious choices, even now.

Tangentially, I _really_ lucked out. I had other options that were lead engineer, or engineer #2-4, but this was unequivocally the best choice. The work is more interesting here too.

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

#906

Post by RangerScience »

webmaven wrote: post #900
RangerScience wrote: post #38

In terms of how to move the needle for early employees, at my prior (and first) startup, I watched us go from 15-20 employees to >300. One of the interesting things that struck me was how much advisement/mentor/training/etc investment went into the founders/C-team, and how little went into all the rest of us. (Totally reasonable that this was a situational thing, but I don't think it is). There's fame and reputation…

> the guy running the panel "didn't want individual contributors". That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic. But note: Plenty of EEs aren't individual contributors! An EE can be a "team lead" for example. Basically if you have any responsibility for directing or managing other people, you are already not an IC.

> That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic.

Hmm. I really don't see how. That's a bit like saying that because you work in Java, you can't talk about Ruby, or AWS, or Scrum, or skydiving. This really seems like the sort of thing that you "opt in" rather than "opt out" - you're qualified to talk on a panel if you are X, rather than being disqualified if you are Y.

Can you think of any topics where that WOULD be a reasonable requirement? I cannot, but I'm biased.

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

#907

Post by FearOfReprisal »

I was the 7th hire at a YC start-up which is now worth at least $1bn. I negotiated 2% of the stock in exchange for a 60% discount in salary, and an understanding that my work would primarily be evangelism/marketing, as I was burned out on engineering and just didn't want to be a sysadmin/devops/whatever anymore.

Anyways, I signed our two biggest customers, organized our tradeshows, did some tech work, and protected one of our employees from assault at a conference.

When I'd been there for 3 months, in the midst of a conference (where we were kicking butt, by the way), most of AWS went down and we scrambled to figure out what to do.

When I got back from the conference I was fired without severance. After I let them know I'd be speaking to the customers I'd signed, and that three of the engineers in their hiring pipeline were friends of mine, they came back with a "generous" offer of 2 weeks severance.

The funny thing, is they were really nice kids, and I do mean kids, they were children. I'm quite sure they used this as an opportunity to get rid of me because Paul or some other greedmonger at YC ordered them to screw me over so that they could sell more stock to investors later.

After that point, it hasn't mattered if I work for a start-up or a big company. YC taught me that all companies are the same, and now I just view myself as a mercenary.

It doesn't matter where you work, how much they lie to you about "culture" and "family", or how much they try to convince you that you should take a salary discount because "your stock will be yuuuuuuge and we're changing the world", or "this is a greenfield environment with a chance to do something entirely new" (it isn't. all start-ups are really just rip-offs of other start-ups. )

Your main response to every sales pitch they give you should be, "fck you, pay me".

Repeat it, memorize it, live by it. Fck you, pay me.

"This kinda shit happens all the time. You gotta get yours, but fool I gotta get mine" -- Snoop Dogg.

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

#908

Post by FearOfReprisal »

FearOfReprisal wrote: post #907

I was the 7th hire at a YC start-up which is now worth at least $1bn. I negotiated 2% of the stock in exchange for a 60% discount in salary, and an understanding that my work would primarily be evangelism/marketing, as I was burned out on engineering and just didn't want to be a sysadmin/devops/whatever anymore. Anyways, I signed our two biggest customers, organized our tradeshows, did some tech work, and protected o…

PS, I've also been told by several friends who have gone through YC, and one who currently works there, that there's an unofficial internal blacklist, and I'm on it.

For what it's worth, in the 3 months after I was fired I referred a few dozen new customers, and I had no animosity towards them until I found out about the blacklist last year.

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

#909

Post by maconic »

rhizome wrote: post #857
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…

I had an extremely similar experience, but I do have a beef with the founders for not compensating me fairly with respect to the work I did in helping them create something they could eventually sell to a large company. [Before anybody throws shade, the site was developed by a Flash dev, a Java team for webdev, and me building the backend and running things as a solo sysadmin.] None of these people are your friends,…

That doesn't have to be true, there are many decent and honorable people that decide to start companies. But I do certainly think you need to walk away as soon as you feel a founder doesn't recognize or value you or your contributions

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

#910

Post by earthscienceman »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #758
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 mo…

This is such a laughably unprovable claim. "Few people who have the vision, motivation, and skill" is equivalent to saying "few startups succeed". It's just a truthism. It's equally likely that few companies are lucky enough to have a talented and motivated team of engineers.

Finding someone who thinks they have it all and will be the next big billionaire is easy. Finding a group of people who know what work needs to be done and can put their nose to the grindstone to match the "vision motivation and skill" is the hard part. Just look to google, the holy grail of tech visionaries. No one doubts that Page and Brin have vision/motivation/skill but they readily admit that their initial team of engineers is what carried them and they rewarded them like it.

What you're advocating probably feels good for the ego though... everyone loves imagining having demi-god-like status. For me it's always interesting to look at what people are fighting for. "The founder deserves 100 million, not 80 million, pay the engineers less!" At the end of the day it's just greed.

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