Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

State of Startups

stateofstartups.firstround.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 122 posts

Re: State of Startups

#51

Post by Mahn »

discordianfish wrote: post #25
jdavis703 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you (generally) get other things like universal healthcare, free or cheap university, retirement plans, no need for a car due to proper urban planning, etc. In the US you have to shell out for all these things, paying into a private 401(k) for retirement, paying back student loan debt, paying for your health insurance etc. And these are at well funded tech firms.

While true, that doesn't even come close to filling the gap. In Berlin "the silicon valley of Europe", as people here like to say, there are pretty much zero engineering jobs paying >$100k/year. There is some magical ceiling of around $90k/year, no matter how senior you are. This isn't only true for startups but pretty much any company. That's one of the reasons I work remote for Silicon Valley.

There's also the fact that US in general has higher living costs, even if they are not immediately evident. Take for instance the price of renting a shitty one person flat in Berlin vs San Francisco. Not to mention that in most European countries you don't have to tip 30% over the price of a meal because waiter salaries here are actually enough to cover living costs.

Re: State of Startups

#52

Post by ci5er »

beat wrote: post #38
whoops1122 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there were less than 5 girls on my computer science class, so unless woman are claim that they should have the job without education. I can totally see the reason why there is a gender diversity in IT?

Why is a computer science background necessary for an IT career? I know many, many IT professionals who did not study CS in college.

"IT Professionals" is a broad label. Maybe we can think of getting a 'degree in a field' as a proxy-variable for 'interest in the field'. What's astonishing to me is through the 60s, 70's and into the mid-80s, computer-tech interest in female cohorts tracked with science, law and medical fields. Then it flattened and fell, while female participation in those other three fields continued to expand at the rates they had before. (So, what happened in 1985?)

Re: State of Startups

#53

Post by tedmiston »

aedron wrote: post #24

Interesting answers on lack of gender diversity in IT: Most of the men believe the reason is that there just aren't that many women entering the field, while almost all the women blame bias at various stages of education, hiring and promotion. Someone has a cognitive dissonance.

To me the pipeline is not about "women entering the field". It's about fixing the whole pipeline from the beginning — getting a more diverse group started with tech and computers early, say elementary school, and then seeing (hopefully a high percentage of) those groups go on to eventually enter the field professionally. And just like an accelerator reaching successful exits, this whole process takes a long amount of time and we are only right in the middle of it.

Re: State of Startups

#54

Post by tedmiston »

whoops1122 wrote: post #34
aedron wrote: post #24

Interesting answers on lack of gender diversity in IT: Most of the men believe the reason is that there just aren't that many women entering the field, while almost all the women blame bias at various stages of education, hiring and promotion. Someone has a cognitive dissonance.

there were less than 5 girls on my computer science class, so unless woman are claim that they should have the job without education. I can totally see the reason why there is a gender diversity in IT?

This data point isn't super useful without telling us the total size of your class. 5 out of 5–10 is great, 5 out of 25–50 might be realistic, 5 out of 100+, not great.

Re: State of Startups

#55

Post by brianwawok »

taneq wrote: post #28
ptero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double digit ownership usually means the person is a cofounder. This question was about engineers.

...who by definition aren't cofounders? Maybe I'm on the wrong site. O.o

If you join BEFORE seed money, and do a bunch of work for free, you can be a cofounder.

If you join AFTER seed money, and get something like a market salary, you are an engineer.

The gray area is the in-between places. If you join before seed money, but only work 1 hour a week (say to help out a buddy), are you a cofounder? I would likely vote no.

Or if you join AFTER seed money, but work for 75% of market rate. Or 50%. At what pay do you appear to be a cofounder vs engineer?

Re: State of Startups

#56

Post by tedmiston »

kornish wrote: post #29
porter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they are telling this to VCs afterall...

Recently on a John Oliver segment, Oliver was speculating on how Trump University received 98% excellent approval ratings from current students. Turns out that the students were asked to give feedback while still enrolled in the course, meaning that giving a bad review could negatively influence their grade or relationship with the teachers, and thus the students were motivated to give more positive answers than they…

That's how every university course evaluation I've ever done has worked. Though they say data is shielded from the instructor until after final grades are submitted. Not sure if that applies to the Trump thing.

Re: State of Startups

#58

Post by tedmiston »

coldcode wrote: post #44

Did anyone else find the constant shifting colors irritating?

Yes, scrolling through a rainbow in the background was really distracting from the text. On mobile I had to pan around a bit just to see the words because some parts had very little contrast.

Re: State of Startups

#59

Post by tedmiston »

demonshalo wrote: post #4
cbcoutinho wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this article have to do with Europe? I know First Round is based in SF, but they don't state where the startups are located - the only mention of the US is when comparing demographics of the workforce with the US itself.

What I mean is, Europe generally does not even come close to that level of pay/compensation. So I assumed that these are US based startups. I could be wrong though.

Keep in mind how heavily we are taxed at higher income brackets, higher living expenses, and also that "US salary" is a huge overgeneralization. Startups in third and fourth tier startup cities might pay 1/3-1/2 of what's in SF, etc. Comp varies a lot.

Re: State of Startups

#60

Post by zoidb »

discordianfish wrote: post #25
jdavis703 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you (generally) get other things like universal healthcare, free or cheap university, retirement plans, no need for a car due to proper urban planning, etc. In the US you have to shell out for all these things, paying into a private 401(k) for retirement, paying back student loan debt, paying for your health insurance etc. And these are at well funded tech firms.

While true, that doesn't even come close to filling the gap. In Berlin "the silicon valley of Europe", as people here like to say, there are pretty much zero engineering jobs paying >$100k/year. There is some magical ceiling of around $90k/year, no matter how senior you are. This isn't only true for startups but pretty much any company. That's one of the reasons I work remote for Silicon Valley.

I live and work in Berlin and have been thinking about doing the same. Mind if I ask you some questions over mail?
Post reply on HN