I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation • Hacker News Board

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#311

Post by justinlardinois » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

zatkin wrote: post #35

justinlardinois wrote: post #9

> one of the reasons I chose to work on Wall Street prior to joining a start-up was to fully grasp the financing terms of the companies for which I would later work. And this is also the reason why I'm very wary about equity. I'd certainly want to work for a company that's going to do well financially, regardless of how I'm being compensated, but I have only a layman's understanding of business and finance. I'm simpl…

Then you should educate yourself. Take a class or two at your local community college or do some research online. It's extremely vital that you have a good understanding of the financial world we live in. Knowing a thing or two about some of the basics will help you in the long run, regardless of whether it's related to compensation or equity.

Is that really enough? When I accept equity as compensation, I'm essentially investing in the company I work for. People who invest for a living typically have more education on the subject than a handful of community college courses.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#312

Post by nilkn » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

ditonal wrote: post #224

nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

Especially true for nurses. Very tough job, but there's more money in it than many realize. My friend who already does well for himself is now going to do 1 more year of school to get a CRNA and says he'll likely make 160k in Miami or 220k in SF. Yet a co-worker asked "how can nurses survive here?" SF nurse salaries are public and you can see they can out earn most engineers esp via overtime (which lots of engineers…

My mother's actually a nurse, and it's been a really great career choice for her, especially as she's aged. Over the last five years or so my parents have had to move several times due to volatility in my dad's career. And yet at every move my mom hasn't had any trouble finding stable and well-paid employment as a nurse.

Nursing is similar to teaching in that you're not likely to get rich off of it, and it's not even an easy job at all, but it is a very stable one which pays a solid middle-class wage for life in pretty much any area of the country, from huge cities to small rural towns in the midwest. And, while the hours are rough as a new nurse fresh out of school, they're not bad at all with experience -- certainly it's a far more family friendly career than many others in healthcare, like being a physician.

If my mom had been a programmer, she definitely wouldn't have weathered the moves they've made as well as she has. In fact, she'd have been the one forcing my dad to move with her, as decent programming jobs simply do not exist where they live.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#313

Post by blakeyrat » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 10:13 PM UTC

billmalarky wrote: post #106

flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

> What about the risk of work injuries faced by construction workers every day. That's real risk. I hear you, but the negative health effects of working insane hours developing in a high stress "start-up" environment for many years should not be understated.

So... don't do that?

There's plenty of programming/IT jobs that aren't in start-ups.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#314

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

aub3bhat wrote: post #52

lmm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you walk into a casino you're going to lose money. I don't even know the rules of any of the games and I can tell you that. Some situations are so tilted in favour of one side or the other that it's not worth trying to compete on that playing field. Valuing the options at zero and demanding adequate salary without them is the opposite of meekness.

Rather than loudly proclaiming your ignorance about casions and options, you should introspect. I know several people who successfully negotiated better terms. Demanding "adequate" salary and valueing options at "zero" are two seperate tasks. You assume latter (options not valued at 0) implies former (salary not adequate) its a statement about your risk averse world view, not a statememt of fact. As far as meekness,…

[deleted]

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#315

Post by blakeyrat » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 10:33 PM UTC

uiri wrote: post #13

nibnib wrote: post #2

I don't understand most of the financial terms used in this article. Where do I start?

I hope the following is helpful rather than confusing - feel free to ask any clarifying questions. Also, I will preface this with the fact that I am an engineer and not a finance person. I may be subtly wrong on some points and I am happy to be corrected by those with more knowledge on these topics. Liquidity preferences - Also described in the article as "investors escape safely on Preference stacks", investors usua…

What is a "down round"?

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#316

Post by alanwatts » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 11:50 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #305

alanwatts wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>piggybacking on a technological society that did make those investments. Indeed, every technological advancement has piggy backed on those before it.

Not the same thing - this tribe can't exist without infrastructure it cannot create or maintain itself. Your caring sharing tribe ain't going to be making a chip foundry or a means of powering it or extracting raw materials for it anytime soon. That needs capital.

What's not the same thing?

Plenty of such tribes exist and have existed without centralized industrial infrastructure.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#317

Post by woliveirajr » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #114

flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

Not sure aniut the low barrier to entry. Take 1000 programmers, how many can be made into decent plumbers in 6 months? Now take 1000 plumbers, how many can be made ibto decent programmers in 6 months? Also, I am nit aware how often tevhnology materials and tooling changes for plumbers (I guess some of these spsn generations), but I am aware that platform I have been working full time for 4 years did not exist 8 years…

:-) where are the jokes that plumbing is a hardware problem, not a software one?

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#318

Post by marssaxman » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

aub3bhat wrote: post #30

marssaxman wrote: post #6

It's really quite simple: you assume it's all worthless, because that's how it starts and that's how it generally ends. Even if it were going to be worth something, you'd have been better off taking the money up front and investing it however you wanted in the meantime. But it doesn't really matter, because you have no control over this anyway. All you have to do is decide whether the salary is high enough; the rest…

This can be applied to everything why bother making an informed decision about choice of University or Spouse or anything else. Your explanation is a self fullfiling prophecy disguised as if it was some wise advice. In reality employees can and should make informed decisions, this advice is equivalent of covering ears and screaming bla bla bla. Power is given to those who demand it. If you start with assumption of be…

Au contraire; it's a rule of thumb distilling 20+ years of industry experiences and observations into a simple bit of advice. If I'd followed this advice throughout my career, I'd be happier and considerably wealthier today. Chasing the big stock payout has always been the wrong choice for me.

You do whatever you like. If this stuff is interesting, go learn about it! There's nothing wrong with that. But all I've discovered, the more I've learned about the world of VC and options and equity compensation, is that it's a rich man's game and I've been wasting my time trying to play.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#319

Post by cheepin » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

blakeyrat wrote: post #315

uiri wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the following is helpful rather than confusing - feel free to ask any clarifying questions. Also, I will preface this with the fact that I am an engineer and not a finance person. I may be subtly wrong on some points and I am happy to be corrected by those with more knowledge on these topics. Liquidity preferences - Also described in the article as "investors escape safely on Preference stacks", investors usua…

What is a "down round"?

Suppose a company raised money at some implied valuation. If they raise money again at a lower implied value, you call it a down round.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#320

Post by developer2 » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 7:15 AM UTC

20yrs_no_equity wrote: post #238

developer2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Options do have a calculable value, if you can determine the risk of failure for the company. Yes, because every company that has ever failed was predetermined to be a failure long before they went out of business. Give me a break. I've watched companies of varying sizes do extremely well for several years, which then fall apart into ashes in a matter of a month or two. You can't assign value to options unless you…

There are multiple types of value. Some of which that you often see in startups is calculable. For instance if the strike price is X and the last funding was at Y then there's an intrinsic value to the options of Y-X. If that's positive you can make an estimate of the likelihood of the company being viable long enough to realize that value and then discount that value by that amount. EVERYTHING involves risk. A risk…

"Estimate", "likelihood", "viable long enough", "realize that value", "risk", "adjusted calculation", "isn't a guarantee". These words and phrases do not inspire confidence.

Also, your analogy if full of it. You make it sound like options will pay out 5/6ths of the time. Adjust your analogy to rolling a 100,000-sided die with a couple of numbers that pay out, and we might be closer to the reality. With those adjusted numbers, no you cannot have my $0.50.