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Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

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Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#51

Post by s73v3r_ »

nostrademons wrote: post #50
kodablah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You pretty much don't have a shot at getting rich I agree with most of your points except this one as it's very situational. Maybe not as an intern, but having real albeit small equity in one of these tiny things can be negotiated, and they can get sold. Unlikely, sure, but the possibility is there. But in general it's about what you're optimizing for. You're points are right for optimizing for intra-company career…

My point is that companies that are slow-growing are rarely sold, and when they are, they usually aren't sold for much. The eye-popping valuations for companies like Whatsapp, Instagram, and YouTube were all based on growth, and on strategic fit with the acquirer. When an acquirer wants you for these reasons, there are large time pressures and asymmetries of information you can leverage to extract a lot more money th…

Most of the employees at those places didn't get rich either.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#52

Post by mizzao »

j_m_b wrote: post #32

One thing that seems to be very common in startups is nepotism. People often start companies with their friends and family. This leads to the company having a built-in clique. If you are an "off-the-street" hire, meaning someone who came in because they submitted a resume and not because they knew someone, expect that you're going to be second-guessed while the original people are going to love each other's ideas.

The flip side of 'nepotism' is that you're much more likely to be successful working with people that you know well or have worked with before.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#53

Post by ambicapter »

nostrademons wrote: post #42
kodablah wrote: post #24

> If you’re seriously considering both options — a traditional company and a startup — here are some points to consider. There are so many definitions of "startup", but given the common one of "VC funded trying to get big", I'd say there's a third company type between these two I dub a "starting-up". It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with…

I worked for one of those for a couple years that had started as a "startup" when I did my internships with them but had morphed into "slow-growing lifestyle business" by the time I left. I'd argue that you get most of the downsides of both with few of the upsides. You don't actually get stability with this setup; you're a couple of customer cancellations away from layoffs at any time. There is no career advancement.…

I've been at one of these for two years out of my Masters. My time here is definitely by its sell-by date.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#54

Post by mi100hael »

nostrademons wrote: post #50
kodablah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You pretty much don't have a shot at getting rich I agree with most of your points except this one as it's very situational. Maybe not as an intern, but having real albeit small equity in one of these tiny things can be negotiated, and they can get sold. Unlikely, sure, but the possibility is there. But in general it's about what you're optimizing for. You're points are right for optimizing for intra-company career…

My point is that companies that are slow-growing are rarely sold, and when they are, they usually aren't sold for much. The eye-popping valuations for companies like Whatsapp, Instagram, and YouTube were all based on growth, and on strategic fit with the acquirer. When an acquirer wants you for these reasons, there are large time pressures and asymmetries of information you can leverage to extract a lot more money th…

On the flip side, I think there are a higher number of small companies willing to pay a bit above market + bonuses for real talent vs. large established companies that are constrained by HR processes. If you're good at selling yourself, you may be able to make more than you would at a big company.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#55

Post by mi100hael »

justinzollars wrote: post #38
TomMckenny wrote: post #37

> ...because they just wanted to work on interesting frontier projects... This is the exact reason I have exclusively sought out startups in the past. But quite frankly the Bay Area is simply to expensive to do that anymore. I deeply miss that life and still tinker with side projects. But if that city can not solve it's cost of living crisis, there will continue to be a smaller and smaller pool of people that can aff…

This is a big problem with the Bay Area! I often wonder if I need to move for a few years to get something started elsewhere.

http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-sa...

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#56

Post by grosjona »

mpodlasin wrote: post #29

It's funny how my experience is exactly reverse. Since I joined startup I learn much less, since we can't afford experimentation and there are no other front end devs here, so I don't get a chance to learn backend stuff, since someone has to do front end part. I also hoped to learn some business stuff, but most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors while you code boring crud application.

I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical solutions to problems which don't really need to exist to begin with.

For example, one reason why many corporations push really hard on having 100% unit and integration test coverage is because they have such high employee turnover that they can't rely on their engineers to maintain their own code; corporations have to assume that engineers who work on their projects are completely unfamiliar with the code - In this case, automated tests are the only way to maintain the integrity and stability of the code base. The time cost of maintaining all these trivial unit tests is ignored (even though the cost is actually very significant; not to mention that these tests lock down the code and thereby discourage refactoring and experimentation).

Corporate processes are designed around the assumptions that engineers don't care and can't be trusted. This is a very inefficient approach to building software. Personally, I'd rather my project have code with 0% unit test coverage written by a team of involved engineers than code with 100% test coverage written by a team of indifferent engineers.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#57

Post by leetcrew »

nostrademons wrote: post #42
kodablah wrote: post #24

> If you’re seriously considering both options — a traditional company and a startup — here are some points to consider. There are so many definitions of "startup", but given the common one of "VC funded trying to get big", I'd say there's a third company type between these two I dub a "starting-up". It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with…

I worked for one of those for a couple years that had started as a "startup" when I did my internships with them but had morphed into "slow-growing lifestyle business" by the time I left. I'd argue that you get most of the downsides of both with few of the upsides. You don't actually get stability with this setup; you're a couple of customer cancellations away from layoffs at any time. There is no career advancement.…

> cred at parties

maybe i'm naive, but if party cred were a serious priority, i would probably have chosen a different career altogether.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#58

Post by jorblumesea »

dumbfounder wrote: post #7

I think it's interesting that the major point is that you will learn a lot, but he also says that you should not expect to be mentored or given any real direction. This is definitely my experience, but it doesn't mean that startups teach you these things, it means that you have to teach yourself these things and you are in an environment where you are forced to do it. You can also do this and keep your day job if you…

I would dispute the idea that you get any better mentorship opportunities at a large company or well established fortune 100 companies. In theory people are less busy and have more time, but the motivation isn't really there to improve or groom team members as the general attitude is "rest and vest".

It's something the industry seems to struggle with across the board.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#59

Post by sonnyblarney »

marsrover wrote: post #30

I’ve learned much more at a normal company (1) than startups (2). I think giving people jobs they’re unqualified for is a large part of that.

I've worked at several startups and some big companies.

Doing things you've never done before, and being thrown into the brink is I think the best opportunity to learn.

This happens without necessarily being pushed into roles, merely by the scope of activities one might be involved in.

You can work at a large company, as an Engineer, and literally never learn how a company actually works.

A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc..

Granted - in a specialized discipline - you may have the opportunity to work on projects that fly or not, or take time. For example, if you are doing some kind of big data implementation that's going to take 2 years, but it takes 3 but the company has the resources to handle it and you've been able to do it 'properly' - that's great and it's a kind of learning you may not get at a startup.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#60

Post by Karrot_Kream »

leetcrew wrote: post #57
nostrademons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for one of those for a couple years that had started as a "startup" when I did my internships with them but had morphed into "slow-growing lifestyle business" by the time I left. I'd argue that you get most of the downsides of both with few of the upsides. You don't actually get stability with this setup; you're a couple of customer cancellations away from layoffs at any time. There is no career advancement.…

> cred at parties maybe i'm naive, but if party cred were a serious priority, i would probably have chosen a different career altogether.

When I used to socialize a bit more around SF, there definitely was social cache to being part of a unicorn. Declare that you worked at [Uber, Facebook, Airbnb, Square] and you'd have people wow or talk about how smart you were. There is a huge social capital element here.
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