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I'm curious if there have been any new developments or changes in thinking since the sentiments expressed in that thread about a year ago.
Have the Pros and Cons changed much? Any new considerations? (e.g. Softbank, M&A patterns, potentially looming economic slowdown)
In general, what do you think in 2019 HN?
The comments on the 2018 post you mention are all still true and relevant today.
My experience has proven than as an employee, joining a post series B will usually be a better bet with if you want to have impact + leverage on stocks, and joining a bigger company is the better bet if you want to maximise your income.
Earlier startup are just as risky for a new employee than founders, but with much less leverage, offsetting making it interesting.
My view is only a data point, but what I've observed is that while comp at startups has not evolved much in the last 5 years (seeing roughly same salaries + stock packages), total comp at later stage startups or bigger companies has sky rocketed. The comments on the 2018 post you mention are all still true and relevant today. My experience has proven than as an employee, joining a post series B will usually be a bett…
Anyways these kind of HN threads are awesome, I hope they can rationalize the market somewhat.
I'd say in my experience, atleast in the Bay Area unless you are a co-founder, dont bother joining an early stage or that's not as late stage as Airbnb or Uber. The problem is the base salaries are good. But, startups try to be too stingy with your equity valuing themselves at a pretty high valuation. IMO putting in the hours for someone else and getting almost nothing in return is not worth the effort. Saying this h…
I'd say in my experience, atleast in the Bay Area unless you are a co-founder, dont bother joining an early stage or that's not as late stage as Airbnb or Uber. The problem is the base salaries are good. But, startups try to be too stingy with your equity valuing themselves at a pretty high valuation. IMO putting in the hours for someone else and getting almost nothing in return is not worth the effort. Saying this h…
Why did you work there for 3 years? Was there any particular reason why you accepted bad terms?
- A lot of people don't know what they are actually worth and undervalue themselves
- or they do not understand the caveats of things like dilution and classes of stock
- or they were offered stock in units of shares without knowing the valuation
- or they accept a job and relocate to the Bay Area from a reasonably-affordable place and mistakenly think that a $100k/year salary is hitting the jackpot
- or they were persuaded by the founders that the company was going to be a rocketship without fulling knowing how to judge potential in companies or in the personal traits of the founders themselves (we're not all superstar VCs) and then it didn't turn out to be the case but they didn't want to eat the sunk cost with their unvested shares (takeoff was always just ostensibly around the corner!)
- or they didn't realize just how much more FAANG actually pays than late-stage startups or even other top-tier companies (even Glassdoor is wrong)
- or they preferred to take on more risk without fully understanding the reward aspect (the survivorship bias here in the Bay is real, as enforced by a tough housing market)
- or they previously worked for a big company with poor culture and were turned off by it and decided to only work for startups
- or they weren't prepped in the art of negotiation
- or the founders acted against their employees' best interests and took an early buy-out offer that brought everyone in as acquihires of BigCorp for cheap
- or the founders took money off the table for themselves with zero intentions of ever doing anything favorable to the employees that would actually let them to liquidify such as trying to go public or sell the company, while still keeping up the whole carrot-on-stick shtick
To the extent there's been a change, the economics of startups and tech are more precarious nowadays. GOOG and FB both have their business models under significant threat, aside from cyclical concerns. And if a recession happens, both they and companies at all stages will have substantially reduced budgets for compensation. This means fewer jobs and more layoffs.
It's also more unclear nowadays what the next unicorn is. You're not going to become a quick multimillionaire by joining Uber or AirBnB at this point--there was awhile a couple years ago where they were a pretty reasonable choice to maximize comp. No such candidates exist nowadays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why did you work there for 3 years? Was there any particular reason why you accepted bad terms?
A bunch of possible reasons: - A lot of people don't know what they are actually worth and undervalue themselves - or they do not understand the caveats of things like dilution and classes of stock - or they were offered stock in units of shares without knowing the valuation - or they accept a job and relocate to the Bay Area from a reasonably-affordable place and mistakenly think that a $100k/year salary is hitting…