101–110 of 132 posts
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Lottery tickets are worth more than $0
Yes, but not much more. E.g: I can go right now get a ticket for a $50M prize for 5$. How much do you pay for equity (in the form of reduced salary), and what's the expected upside?
These are the questions (and reasons for them) that I have used in the past: https://joewegner.com/blog/startup-interview-questions
Can you please clarify why you say "equity is worth at most $0"? If the company is successful surely the equity is worth something.
Venture Capitalists are in the business of making money off successful startups. They work day in and day out on finding startups that are likely to be successful and investing in ways to help them be successful. Most of the time, they're wrong. The only way that VCs are able to be profitable is by having a diverse portfolio of companies in the hope that one is successful enough to outweigh the losses of the others.
Picking out successful startups is (probably) not your expertise, and you only get about a dozen chances (on the high end?) to choose a new employer for the duration of your career. The odds are very very against you. Given those odds, we can value startup equity at approximately $0, perhaps a bit higher.
Unfortunately, most startups offer lower salaries in trade for equity. They also are offering you _options_ instead of actual shares. Unless you stick around long enough for a liquidity event that guarantees the option's value, you will have to exercise those options prior to knowing their true value. This costs you money _twice_ for an entity that has a near-$0 value.
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Why are you even applying to work for someone else's company then if you're so super rich? If you're gonna be arrogant you can expect many companies to shut the door for you.
I can see you're not from a hot job market for software engineer. Here (Bay Area) people usually don't apply for jobs, specially jobs at startups, unless they're really into the products/team/tech/... Even old-school walking-dead companies like Cisco/IBM/HPE pay way better than most startups in term of cash compensation. And given the high risk of failure, startup should sell itself hard to attract talents. I also fo…
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"We don't know what we want to know, but we have a vague sense that if we knew we would benefit from knowing it."
Would this be a bad answer? I think part of the data scientist's job is to look at the data and see what beneficial information can be gathered from it and how it can be used to optimize the company/revenue/costs.
Empirical inquiry doesn't (usually) start with aimless exploration of data hoping it tells you something. It usually starts with an observation and some pertinent questions.
What's your salary and why is it higher than mine?
The arrogance of many of the questions posted here surprises me. I am not unwilling to give answer to all sorts of questions that aren't the employee's business, but for some questions posted here the tone is so hostile and assuming that there is ill-will that I would probably not hire those people based on arrogance. The fact that software engineers are in a good position market-wise, doesn't mean you can say whatev…
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Which examples bother you?
To name some: - "You have enough money you live the rest of your life in idle luxury. You could just go to the beach and never come back. If I had your money, that's what I would do. Why the heck are you still working?" (this is incredibly assuming) - "Will you share slides from the last board meeting?" (I think if you need this information you'd probably be on the board) - "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" (th…
On the other hand, asking for slides from the last board meeting is a good request from someone deciding whether to accept an offer, and "where do you see yourself in 5 years" and "what keeps you up at night" are both perfectly reasonable questions about how you view the potential development of your venture.
These are the questions (and reasons for them) that I have used in the past: https://joewegner.com/blog/startup-interview-questions
One thing I learned from it, is that how insightful a question is essentially how well it circumvents bias. You can ask something typical and get canned responses, but posing an inquiry designed to elude defense mechanisms, and penetrate an semiconscious, semi-intentional haze will probably (and inadvertently) yield the most revealing answers.