Early employees get fucked over by later hires in terms of both salary and equity.
Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
91–100 of 166 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#92People. Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things,…
Reading this comment and thread was painful because I immediately agreed and can tell that it was written from the wisdom you gain only by having experienced it first hand. I was so naive when I started out in tech as a starry-eyed fresh grad, only to have my soul slowly crushed somewhere between the transition from slash and burn start-ups and boring behemoth big Corp bureaucracy. How do you guys stay sane in tech a…
> How do you guys stay sane in tech?
Recognize that the work life is not the ends, but the means. You're selling your time in exchange for money which then allows you to pursue your personal goals.
Also, enter a state of mind where you watch office politics from the sidelines without getting personally invested in it. Maintain a metaphorical "strategic popcorn reserve".
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#93People. Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things,…
Successful companies also attract gold diggers. When the company is small, unless everybody is going above and beyond the call of duty, it's likely going to fail. As the company gets bigger, there is more and more latitude for failure. At some point it is successful enough that it can survive having people whose only goal is to direct a large amount of money into their pockets. This can lead to really weird decisions…
At some point it is successful enough that it can survive having people whose only goal is to direct a large amount of money into their pockets.
Seen this a few times, “executives” joining late in the day (weeks before IPO) with 10-100x the stock(options) of early engineers.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#94Values.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reading this comment and thread was painful because I immediately agreed and can tell that it was written from the wisdom you gain only by having experienced it first hand. I was so naive when I started out in tech as a starry-eyed fresh grad, only to have my soul slowly crushed somewhere between the transition from slash and burn start-ups and boring behemoth big Corp bureaucracy. How do you guys stay sane in tech a…
> How do you guys stay sane in tech? Recognize that the work life is not the ends, but the means. You're selling your time in exchange for money which then allows you to pursue your personal goals. Also, enter a state of mind where you watch office politics from the sidelines without getting personally invested in it. Maintain a metaphorical "strategic popcorn reserve".
I love the "strategic popcorn reserve". The trick is to a) not use it up and b) not become someone elses popcorn reserve
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#96People. Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things,…
Do most people leave when they make a lot of money? Or do they stay and continue working?
I worked at a small company in Silicon Valley that was very successful and became a very large company.
A lot of people did leave when they had the chance.
It surprised me how many people stayed. As another poster here noted, a lot of very senior people stayed who were at or near the VP level stayed. Some of them wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they left. And I think some like the status and power that comes with managing a huge org.
But I was also surprised how many individual contributors who became rich stayed, and just continued to write software or Verilog or whatever. They were bright people, and nobody messed with them because they were well-known and were just allowed to do their own thing.
Watching what people did when they came into a lot of money was an interesting life experience. Hell, watching what I myself did when I came into a lot of money was also an interesting life experience.
When I first came to Silicon Valley I was so excited to be surrounded by so much great technology. I got to play with so much very expensive test equipment: it was like being a kid again. As time went on, it wore me down, and it wasn't so interesting. I encountered a lot of bad actors: the other anecdotes in this HN post sound very familiar. When I had FY money, I left. At that time, I hated my job. I have no interest in writing code or using fancy oscilloscopes and logic analyzers. I don't want to look at another C function as long as I live. And I will never go back to Silicon Valley.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#97The fear of failing and long working hours.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#98Suddenly realising that you have to do things in a way you don't want to because of investors demanding growth! Restructuring, moving the office, laying certain people off, bringing certain new people on, making profit everything and only pretending that everything else is still important.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do most people leave when they make a lot of money? Or do they stay and continue working?
I worked at a small company in Silicon Valley that was very successful and became a very large company. A lot of people did leave when they had the chance. It surprised me how many people stayed. As another poster here noted, a lot of very senior people stayed who were at or near the VP level stayed. Some of them wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they left. And I think some like the status and power that co…
At least you have beenn lucky enough to get FY money, this is quite hard to come by outside SV I assume. Otherwise I could imagine it would be a rather bleak spot to be in.
Re: Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?
#100[deleted]