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Startup employees don't earn more

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Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#51

Post by ux-app »

Retric wrote: post #13
ddlatham wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on whether you believe it is sub-linear or super-linear. Many people treat the value of money as sub-linear (e.g. better to go from $0 to $50k, than to go from $100k to $150k). If that's the case, then the riskier, lottery style model would not be rational if money is the only value in working for a startup. However, most startup employees I know make the choice for more than just the direct monetary rew…

The idea is once your making ~80k extra money does not make a big difference assuming your single. Until you hit an extra ~2,000k which let's you stop working. I take the opposite approach where a low stress 40 hour a week job can be pleasant. I have a minimal commute and spend less than 1/3 of my waking life at work or getting there. Further I mostly enjoy my time there. I did the high pay high stress job and it's j…

> is ~19% of your time.

Let's not count the 8 hours you sleep. That gives us 8 hours out of 16 spent working. Also your employer isn't paying you for your commute let's count that at 1 hour per day this comes out to 9 hours /16 @ 5 days per week

45 hours out of 112 waking hours in a week spent working (and commuting). That's if you're lucky enough to work at a place that allows you to leave after "only" 8 hours worked without raising eyebrows.

That's 40% of your premium waking hours devoted to earning those precious clams.

Let's not kid ourselves. Your employer gets the best hours of the day and the best years of your life.

Work sucks.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#53

Post by thedufer »

arcticfox wrote: post #20
rlanday wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, many people believe the value of money in non-linear but most of those people believe that the marginal utility of each additional dollars diminishes as your wealth increases, rather than increasing. I.e. even if you might earn more money on average at a startup (which the article claims isn’t the case), it still wouldn’t be worth it because it’s better to earn a decent salary from a big company with high probabi…

I also believe that the marginal utility of additional dollars decreases, but I prefer the startup value prop for me. My personal calculation is something like this, where "value" is some personal average of marginal utility: Big co: $50k extra from $100k -> $150k = $50k * 1 value / dollar * 100% = 50k value Startup: $10M extra from $100k -> $10M = $10M * 0.25 value / dollar = 2.5M value * 5% chance of success = 125k…

The entire point of the article in question is that startup employees make less on average, so forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical of your claim that the startup job will pay on average a full order of magnitude more.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#54

Post by segmondy »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Wow, someone gives a company $1million and you claim that the person is playing with dreams, time and skills?

Give us a break. No startup has to accept investor money. If you don't want their million, don't take it. Bootstrap with your own cash.

The reality is that going into startup for money is a big risk, it's a big gamble. Go in for the fun, go in to learn new things, play with new tech, go in to avoid ( big company politics, enterprise style software development, meetings, locked down environments).

Do it for the for the fun and if you make money great, if you don't, you come out with new experience. Long before fullstack became a buzz word, I earned my badges due to startup. I coded, I did design, I touched the DB, I setup the servers, wired the network, setup the firewalls. It was hella fun, I made $0. But my experiences from then still serves me till this very day.

Cheer up, the world is not such a terrible place.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#55

Post by hellogoodbyeeee »

bunkydoo wrote: post #31
jeremyt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just sour grapes. You don't have any magical insight into the industry. You're just drawing conclusions from one data point. Here are two more data points for you: I've worked at two startups and so far both startups are solid successes.

Our country is just shy of $20 trillion in debt because investors spend their cash on startups like mine and expect the government to write it off on their taxes when it fails.

I don't think you understand how tax write offs work. A $1 million loss in investments does not equal a tax bill $1 million less. At most it only means only paying $150k less in taxes (based on 15% capital gains tax). This only off sets other capital gain taxes.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#56

Post by vasilipupkin »

elliotec wrote: post #11
isoos wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see what the expected outcome's distribution is with buying lottery tickets for $X/month vs. doing a startup (and potentially earn less by $X/month than one could have had at a larger corporation).

Interesting. If I spent 20% of my salary on lottery tickets, how good would my chances be of winning vs cashing in my stock at a startup that goes public in which I made 20% less salary? And what would the payout differences be?

The startup deal is a much better deal than lottery tickets. If you can get a 1% ownership stake and we assume a 10% chance of a 100 million dollar startup, the expected value of that grant is 100k. The expected value of buying lottery tickets with 20% of your salary is close to zero You should also consider the fact that if you are an early employee in a startup, your future expected payout is at least in part a function of your efforts

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#57

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

segmondy wrote: post #54
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Wow, someone gives a company $1million and you claim that the person is playing with dreams, time and skills? Give us a break. No startup has to accept investor money. If you don't want their million, don't take it. Bootstrap with your own cash. The reality is that going into startup for money is a big risk, it's a big gamble. Go in for the fun, go in to learn new things, play with new tech, go in to avoid ( big comp…

The reality is that going into startup for money is a big risk, it's a big gamble.

Isn't that exactly what the parent comment said?

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#58

Post by eschutte2 »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

I'm interested to know more about this part:

> have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#59

Post by rckclmbr »

segmondy wrote: post #54
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Wow, someone gives a company $1million and you claim that the person is playing with dreams, time and skills? Give us a break. No startup has to accept investor money. If you don't want their million, don't take it. Bootstrap with your own cash. The reality is that going into startup for money is a big risk, it's a big gamble. Go in for the fun, go in to learn new things, play with new tech, go in to avoid ( big comp…

This reminds me of some documentary I watched about the Klondike Gold Rush. Someone (who obviously didn't make money at it) was interviewed by a reporter, and he said he would do it again any time just to be a part of the excitement and fun. It's cliche, but it really is about the journey not the destination.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#60

Post by [deleted] »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

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