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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?

#81

Post by drb91 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

Entirely accurate. At a startup, I expect to make ~$100k/year, have mediocre insurance and work life balance, and underwhelming equity ( Unless you’re a founder, I actively steer colleagues away from working at a startup. The sense of accomplishment, impact, or whatever the feel good term is, isn’t worth shorting yourself on significant comp for years (while founders and funds are getting almost all the upside). Edit…

Just to state the obvious, there are things to optimize for other than compensation (like happiness); ~$100k/year provides a comfortable life and saving opportunity in many (most?) parts of the country.

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

#82

Post by ObsoleteMailMan »

This is a bit nuanced, but i'll try to be brief:

- housing in the bay area is substantially more expensive now, so you need to already be pretty qualified in your role to justify your cost - this partially goes against Paul Buchheit's old point that startups allow you to do work you'd otherwise be unqualified to do - because startups work on building (rather than maintaining) products, the tech skills that startups want are different from the tech skills engineers in big companies are using - universities aren't really making up the difference

Options: - YC makes its own university for engineers/scientists

This goes along Alan Kay's point about not relying on vendors. If there's a particular skillset that YC cos want early engineers to have and people don't have it (at the scale YC collectively wants), it may make sense to teach it.

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

#83

Post by dalbasal »

nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

Well... If you can get 400k per year semi-guaranteed... that puts you in a certain category. I don't think that's average though, even in sv. Anyone making this kind of money (regardless of industry) usually has limited options for employers that can match it.

I do agree there's a problem with early employee comp. They don't have anywhere near the upside founder's do, but may be taking more risk on their equity than later employees. Personally, I think the best solution would be to create some liquidity for employees. 5-10 years, if you're still around is just too long.

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

#84

Post by HillaryBriss »

davidw wrote: post #29

Here's what I consider the 'sweet spot': A small company, say 20-50 people or thereabouts, that has a profitable niche and does not require much in the way of investments. Here's why: * Small is more fun for me - I like knowing everyone I work with, and the chance to see what other people are working on, and maybe move around some in what I'm doing, rather than 'the same thing day in and day out at BigCo'. Your work…

> You need to avoid things like winner take all markets.

i love this idea.

yet, it seems like the whole point of startups nowadays is to become the winner in the winner-take-all market. and VCs seem to be looking for that kind of play mainly. and markets become winner-take-all with alarming frequency.

so, it's like, how do we get to the kind of market with room for multiple long-term, profitable players?

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

#85

Post by snowmaker »

k5jhn wrote: post #68

Currently a dev at a pre-Series A startup. Pros: - both the freedom AND responsibility to build things that'll directly translate into increased growth/profits, or the opposite in the case of failure - close-knit dev team, and in general everyone is chill, i.e company culture is great so far Cons: - my salary compensation is pretty average so I am hoping for an eventual big pay-out, but it's hard to gauge what the pa…

Here are a couple of articles that might help with regards to calculating your equity payout: https://codingvc.com/valuing-employee-options https://medium.com/@jamesseely/eshares-option-value-calculat...

I'd also really encourage you to talk to the founders of the company about this and ask them to walk you through their model for how much you should value your equity.

Our advice to founders is to walk every employee through a model that estimates the value of their options under different scenarios.

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

#86

Post by swimorsinka »

ryandrake wrote: post #62
swimorsinka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to this. 10 years ago you couldn't make 400K at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Now you can. Startups made a lot more sense when your opportunity cost was 50-150K per year.

You can make that much. You can also win the lottery. Your opportunity cost should not be measured against your best case alternative, it should be measured against a most likely case.

I agree with this too. There is a tier of engineers that are good, but for whatever reason, can't get into the big 5. They're bad at white-boarding or maybe they don't live in an area where the big 5 have offices.

In those cases, maybe a startup makes more sense.

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

#87

Post by avip »

nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

So well put. Startups in 2018 make economic sense iff you're not CS-ish enough for the big apes, or live in a location they have no presence in.

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

#89

Post by toomuchtodo »

drb91 wrote: post #81
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely accurate. At a startup, I expect to make ~$100k/year, have mediocre insurance and work life balance, and underwhelming equity ( Unless you’re a founder, I actively steer colleagues away from working at a startup. The sense of accomplishment, impact, or whatever the feel good term is, isn’t worth shorting yourself on significant comp for years (while founders and funds are getting almost all the upside). Edit…

Just to state the obvious, there are things to optimize for other than compensation (like happiness); ~$100k/year provides a comfortable life and saving opportunity in many (most?) parts of the country.

Happiness doesn’t provide good health care to my wife and kids, or help me retire years earlier (I get to save >$100k/year because we live in a low cost of living area). I suggest a hobby if you want to be happy, as well as time with your family and loved ones.

Be careful about those who offer you emotional fulfillment or purpose in your job. There’s always a cost.

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

#90

Post by drb91 »

shamino wrote: post #8
nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

This. I joined a moderately successful startup (good acquisition where founders made > $1 m) and the rewards were not worth the risks as an early employee. Also, the RSUs are low risk, high rewards at the "usual suspects". Unless you love working on a small team with more autonomy, but without comfortable resources and losing sleep over whether your company will be there next week, I just don't see the attraction of…

> I just don't see the attraction of joining a startup as an early employee. You can learn a whole lot from a "usual suspect", where the world's experts reside, and a whole team of competent and hard-working people are also.

I’ve noticed people tend to specialize at larger places, and not everyone wants to go deep rather than wide. Startups are a super easy way to optimize for a wider skill base, albeit at a sharp cost of depth.

YMMV, but it depends on the type of education you value.

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