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Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#61

Post by cachemiss »

segmondy wrote: post #50
cachemiss wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are bootstrapping, and you are starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers (which is most of them, regardless of how they talk about hiring the best), I'd consider starting someplace low cost. I think college towns in the midwest / rust belt are untapped resources, or areas that used to have strong technically focused companies that moved away. I've personally seen founders boots…

But I thought the internet removed all boundaries? Why do we need to be in the Bay area to have access to top tier of engineers? They are also everywhere else and let's say they are in the Bay area, that's what remote is for right?

We aren't going to agree on this, around remote employees. I believe there is value to co-located teams, not everyone agrees and that's fine.

The other point is, most startups do not need that talented of engineers, they think they do, but they don't. You don't want to pay bay area salaries if you don't have to, and in most of these areas, you don't have to.

If you are somewhere else but the bay, and you are paying people bay area salaries, but you aren't in SV, so you aren't raising VC like SV companies, I don't think that's a winning move.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#62

Post by koolba »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #36
autotune wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fancy apartment Being a 400 sq. ft. studio that you pay $3k per month for to live in an area where you won't get stabbed when you go out at night and is close enough to work where you don't need a car.

Just for comparison, I lived in SF for about 4 years. I saved a huge amount of money. I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find. Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be…

(Emphasis mine):

> I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year).

I'm not willing to test that theory and there's an inherent value to not thinking about getting stabbed on a daily basis.

> My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find.

To live with 3 other people in the sketchy part of town? Yeesh.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#63

Post by Woofles »

introvertsexist wrote: post #38
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you ever live in a studio if you want to save money?

Presumably for sanity & security & sleep. Fuck you; this attitude to rent is the worst part about the bay area. If you want to save money, please avoid the bay at all costs.

Or consider that the bay is more than SF. I recently moved to Oakland and I'm paying around $1k/mo on rent compared to $2k/mo or more living in the city while not really giving up any of the benefits of living in the area.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#64

Post by simonbarker87 »

k__ wrote: post #4
simonbarker87 wrote: post #2

Can a failed, or mildy successful, founder jump to the exec track and get some level of success faster than if they had just set out on that path to begin with? I’m thinking of those people who have run a business for 3+ years before it tanks or who are looking for a new thing and just decide to leave

Isn't this the default route for failed founders? I know a bunch of them now leading some divisions or branch offices.

Was thinking the default route would be to try again but if they didn’t would it be a faster way to climb to exec

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#65

Post by leeoniya »

didibus wrote: post #57
leeoniya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not really. my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the d…

> but to say that it was because of some innate wealth misses the mark I'm not sure it misses the mark. All data show that wealth carries over multiple generations. That doesn't mean that non wealthy can't make it, just that wealthiest will, on average or even probably some p95 and up metric. And wealth should be put into perspective, its often more to do with the surrounding education of the wealthy. If your surroun…

certainly i'm not saying that prior wealth does not play a major factor or isn't strongly correlated, but it is not a prerequisite by any stretch, which was my interpretation of the comment.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#66

Post by mahyarm »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k

Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#67

Post by mattdawson »

mwseibel wrote: post #37
mattdawson wrote: post #28

The lack of even a nod to diversity issues (race, gender, class, etc.) that the tech industry is dealing (or not dealing with) is tone deaf and insulting to the extreme.

Sorry you feel that way - if you take a second to look me up I think you will realize that I hold diversity as one of the most important issues in tech. This is advice that I consistently give people from all backgrounds.

I honestly don't mean it as any kind of personal slight or insult. My apologies that I came across that way. (I'm tempted to edit the OP, but won't for clarity purposes.)

For what it's worth, I acknowledge that many/most of these are indeed applicable to all people. I know you're not asking for this, but the points that jumped out at me as possible opportunities to highlight challenges specific to a wider group (most pertinent bits highlighted):

* Figure out the financial plan. I.e. Do you have enough money in savings, do you have friends/family who can provide seed investment, can you bootstrap, can you reduce your spending and save enough give yourself 6-12 months to work on your idea?

* Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money, make friends with the right potential teammates, or discover the problem that you are passionate about.

* Producing results isn’t necessarily how you move up the corporate ladder. Internal politics are usually as important, if not more so. <- Noted since it's often more than politics.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#68

Post by nuggien »

mmm94720 wrote: post #34
hellbreaker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep on hearing about that.. so what's savings rate people should expect in SF?

Let me describe a typical mid-career Silicon Valley salaried tech worker scenario. YMMV of course. Base comp 200K Bonus, stock, 401k match 50K Total gross comp 250K Expenses: Taxes 40% (30% fed, 10% state) 100K Rental housing 40K ($3300/month) Food 15K Transportation 15K Discretionary spending 20K Total expenses 190K As a result, you can comfortably save $60K per year. Of course, kids and housing options will add gre…

You meant to say “typical google or Facebook engineer”. There aren’t too many companies out here that can afford to pay you $200k base and give you 50k stock and bonuses.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#69

Post by wolco »

k__ wrote: post #4
simonbarker87 wrote: post #2

Can a failed, or mildy successful, founder jump to the exec track and get some level of success faster than if they had just set out on that path to begin with? I’m thinking of those people who have run a business for 3+ years before it tanks or who are looking for a new thing and just decide to leave

Isn't this the default route for failed founders? I know a bunch of them now leading some divisions or branch offices.

Or successful founders who get bought out at under 20 million. Usually they spend a few years as head of a product or vp without resposibility before trying to recreate there initial success

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

segmondy wrote: post #50
cachemiss wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are bootstrapping, and you are starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers (which is most of them, regardless of how they talk about hiring the best), I'd consider starting someplace low cost. I think college towns in the midwest / rust belt are untapped resources, or areas that used to have strong technically focused companies that moved away. I've personally seen founders boots…

But I thought the internet removed all boundaries? Why do we need to be in the Bay area to have access to top tier of engineers? They are also everywhere else and let's say they are in the Bay area, that's what remote is for right?

I think people are still afraid of hiring people for remote work, especially for critical roles such as first few technical people in a company.
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