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Downsides to working at a tech giant

blog.garrytan.com

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Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#41

Post by pathseeker »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #34

For people trying to draw false equivalencies between buying Apple stock, buying lottery tickets, etc I think it's useful to look at the difference in circumstances and how _close_ Garry was to joining. If you compare this to Apple stock it would be like if you had the cash in your bank account and your stock broker called you up and said "You should buy 1000 shares of Apple stock. In fact, I'll just give you 1000 sh…

>In fact, I'll just give you 1000 shares of Apple stock, there's no risk to you". And you said no.

That's not the same. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#42

Post by S_A_P »

senordevnyc wrote: post #21

This is such a weird post. Big fan of Garry, but I don't agree with most of this. 1. Just because it turned out that you would have made $200mm doesn't make it a mistake. If anything, that outsized return proves just how rare this kind of outcome is. If you look at the YC startups graduating every year, maybe 1 will ever generate $20mm for an early employee, let alone $200mm. Joining a new startup for that kind of ou…

Agreed. On the surface Im like, oh ok yeah that is good advice. But as I pondered the situation and remembered what I was doing at that age. If someone waved my annual salary in my face to join a startup there is no doubt I would take it. But how many of us hob knob with hundred millionaires or billionaires and get approached to leave their job? maybe .01% of the folks who frequent HN. It feels a bit humble braggy.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#43

Post by dpcan »

ogre_codes wrote: post #17

My big mistake? Not being buddies with Peter Thiel in 2003. Don't make my mistake, go back in time and be buddies with Peter Thiel in 2003. Just the fact that he had a buddy who could cut him a check for $70,000 before his startup succeeded says a whole lot about the situation he was in. If you have a buddy who tosses around this kind of cash, your options are different from the options available to the overwhelming…

Life is a lottery.

I had the opportunity to take a job as lead programmer at a dot com that ended up becoming one of the biggest entertainment companies of the early 2000's and I passed for a job at a company that went bust in 6 months.

The only lesson I got from this post is one I already know - don't regret your decisions because you can't see the damn future.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#44

Post by zainamro »

VCs feel the need to constantly remind us that working at a startup is worth our time as a means to fuel the startup workforce. I understand that he was simply sharing an anecdote, but I found the conclusions and headline misleading even verging on dishonest. I've worked at an early stage bay area startup -- hiring progressively got harder and harder because candidates were becoming more aware of the career risks involved and the perks they'd be missing out on at big companies. In almost every case, you're working far more for less with very little structure -- if that's your cup of tea and have an obsession for the product, then go for it. If you're hoping to make $200 million, don't bother.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#45

Post by seph-reed »

MattyMc wrote: post #32
wrigby wrote: post #7

There's a LOT of survivorship bias in this article. I personally worked in small companies (30 - 200 employees total) and startups (4 employees, including myself) before ending up at a big tech company, and I would have preferred to do this journey in the opposite direction - that is, work a few years at a BigCorp, and then work for a startup. Getting to see what works and what doesn't work in the context of a bigcor…

Completely agree. I worked for Microsoft this year. Had an amazing experience, learned a ton, built a great network, had benefits and was well compensated. I did this all while taking almost 0 risk. The idea that working for a tech giant is "maintaining the status quo," but working for a startup is "making something new," is perhaps not accurate. Working at a startup can be great. Working at a tech giant can be great…

When you work for a giant corporation of any sort, you are inherently breaking capitalism as it is.

There's no foreseeable way around this , it's irresponsible, and all the suffering you're seeing it the world is the cost of many many millions of people giving themselves a pass on this.

I strongly urge you to recognize that any of the life benefits you get from working at one of these places are reaped from the lives of others. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEO2P9j_vU)

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#46

Post by pjc50 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #26
gunshai wrote: post #14

Flipping the coin on survivor-ship bias here, I worked at a start up for 4 years that was going to "change the world". Came out with experience in all sorts of problems solved, projects implemented, customers reached, hell I even have some equity(not that it's worth much). I was young and wanted to work on problems I thought would have high impact, shit they did have large impact. Yet when I left finally as a jack of…

> I was young and wanted to work on problems I thought would have high impact, shit they did have large impact. I read something to the effect that post-WWII, the British government decided the future was in three technologies: nuclear power, aviation, and computers. So they set out to make sure the UK took its rightful place as master of the future, slanting policy heavily towards those ideas. And wow, they were thr…

I'd be interested in seeing where you read that, because they absolutely failed to do anything useful about it almost all of the time. And at the expense of the rocket program too.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#48

Post by alecbenzer »

senordevnyc wrote: post #21

This is such a weird post. Big fan of Garry, but I don't agree with most of this. 1. Just because it turned out that you would have made $200mm doesn't make it a mistake. If anything, that outsized return proves just how rare this kind of outcome is. If you look at the YC startups graduating every year, maybe 1 will ever generate $20mm for an early employee, let alone $200mm. Joining a new startup for that kind of ou…

I hope that eventually as more and more people realize how much more they could make at big tech (IME a lot of people just straight up don't know, esp. when a lot of the comp comes as equity grants), startups will have to start paying more/offering bigger slices of equity. But seems we're not there yet.

I also wonder how much of this is driven by software engineers who couldn't (or, probably more realistically, don't think they could) get a job at Big Tech?

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#49

Post by cj »

I think it's interesting part of this is that there was literally no bad decision in Garry's situation.

1) Stay with Microsoft, get promoted over the years end up a multi-millionaire.

2) Join Palantir and end up a multi-millionaire.

It sure does illustrate the meaning of being in the right place at the right time (e.g. starting a career in the early 2000's working as a designer / engineer in a tech hub).

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#50

Post by Apocryphon »

dpcan wrote: post #43
ogre_codes wrote: post #17

My big mistake? Not being buddies with Peter Thiel in 2003. Don't make my mistake, go back in time and be buddies with Peter Thiel in 2003. Just the fact that he had a buddy who could cut him a check for $70,000 before his startup succeeded says a whole lot about the situation he was in. If you have a buddy who tosses around this kind of cash, your options are different from the options available to the overwhelming…

Life is a lottery. I had the opportunity to take a job as lead programmer at a dot com that ended up becoming one of the biggest entertainment companies of the early 2000's and I passed for a job at a company that went bust in 6 months. The only lesson I got from this post is one I already know - don't regret your decisions because you can't see the damn future.

The butterfly effect is also worth considering. There’s no telling that the current outcome is inevitable if you had chosen to participate.
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