Downsides to working at a tech giant • Hacker News Board

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#131

Post by garry » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

thecleaner wrote: post #12

This vlog is more of a cheap advertisement for the "oh work for a startup it's great" nonsense school. I don't really understand why I would work in an environment where the pay is shit and the issued stocks can be re-classified or diluted or just taken away by lay-offs. Makes no sense.

I started here on Hacker News as a software engineer. I learned that I could build software for others, ship it and release it. I did end up taking the venture path, and now help others on that path.

The key here is that magic can be created by people, and I'm not that different than a lot of people on this site. I also got very lucky, and I'm thankful for that.

Startups are hard, and most fail, and most startup stock is worthless. But if you read my post, I'm trying to point people to the fact that the deeper lesson is to be able to learn to ship to real customers quickly.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. It's shockingly hard to get something that is both nuanced and clickable in video format, but I will keep trying to get better.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#132

Post by senordevnyc » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

gregd wrote: post #124

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…

What I got out of the post is that the value you bring to a company, doesn't at all align with what you're actually paid, which is typical of our society.

I think the truth is more complicated than that. The synergistic existence of the company itself is what allows each person to be able to create millions of dollars in value. And there was a risky bet made with capital to create that company in the first place, and those investors / owners / etc. making a solid risk-adjusted return on their investment hardly seems like a travesty to me.

I wish we did have more employee-owned cooperatives though. I think that's a better way to fix the inherent tension of owners vs employees.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#133

Post by OldHand2018 » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #10

Not buying Apple Stock in 1999 cost me $200M too. Not to mention what not picking those winning lottery numbers cost me...

> Not buying Apple Stock in 1999 cost me $200M too.

When I was the TA for my high school physics teacher back in 1994, he couldn't ever stop talking about how terrible Apple stock was and how he wished he never bought it. He kept trying to sell it to me; I didn't have a brokerage account or I probably would have just to get him to shut up about it.

Back then it was less than $1 per share.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#134

Post by bradleyjg » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #94

alecbenzer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The other big thing messing up startup comp right now are super-high valuations for mid stage companies. When you’re getting options based off an inflated evaluation your upside is low, and the probability your options become worth $0 even if the startup does moderately well (eg if it raises a round at $4b right before you start and goes public for $3b). Doesn’t matter how many options you got, they were pegged to an…

RSUs are the solution to this problem. With a double trigger a pre-public company can offer them without employees suffering a tax liability on illiquid equity.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#135

Post by garry » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

thrownaway954 wrote: post #117

The "could of", "would of", "should of" game... Ah.... how I love to play thee. But wait... let's go further and play the "what if" game as well!!! What if... you took the job and moved out to Palo Alto only to trip walking up the stairs on your first day of work to break your spine and be confined to a wheel chair the rest of your life??? Point being... life turns out the way it does for a reason and you never know…

This is a good reminder and I agree with this.

By the end of the video my point is: Try to make stuff for other people, and a smaller place generally lets you do that.

That is the true reward.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#136

Post by ogre_codes » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #57

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…

This is a shallow dismissal, which the HN guidelines ask you not to do, and especially not out of indignation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html It's obvious from early in the article that Garry wasn't "buddies" with Thiel. He had just graduated, and a college friend was the connection. That means your point reduces to: people who go to elite colleges encounter opportunities as a result. No one disagre…

I don't think pointing out that the article only applies to a very tiny minority of readers is a shallow dismissal.

I seriously doubt the overwhelming majority of people reading this article lost $200m from any single decision in their lives. Hell, most of us haven't lost $1 million from any single decision in our lives.

If anything, what this article most effectively points out is the fact the value of being born with or building connections is greater than ever in history. Maybe if the author had spoken about that it would have been an interesting piece. As it stands, it's more or less meaningless.

Keep in mind, the author has a huge vested interest in developers like us working at startups for equity stakes.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#137

Post by garry » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

alecbenzer wrote: post #113

> The real reason you should consider working at a startup or starting your own: It's not the money I think this is correct, but makes the post's title seem really click-baity. I think expected financial upside is exactly where Big Tech unequivocally wins over startups (esp. joining and not founding), so it seems weird to frame the post around money.

Sorry, I made this post for YouTube originally, and didn't expect it to show up on HN. :-)

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#138

Post by thatsenough » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

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…

A cynical reading is this: he missed out by not buying a $200M lottery ticket, so the next generation of engineers and designers should buy lottery tickets.

Conveniently, the author is now in the business of selling lottery tickets.

(Then again, if he’d stayed at Microsoft he probably wouldn’t be in a position to sell lottery tickets).

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#139

Post by catalystic » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

alecbenzer wrote: post #123

catalystic wrote: post #70

I feel a lot of the folks here are focusing on the wrong parts here. The $200M loss was a cheap way of getting user attention, but hey it worked! The core of what he was trying to convey was the sooner you get to understand real user / customer problems the better off you'll be in life as an entrepreneur. He stayed away from this in his early days as he opted for stability and that he seems to regret.

> I feel a lot of the folks here are focusing on the wrong parts here. The $200M loss was a cheap way of getting user attention, but hey it worked! It "worked" in that that it got people's attention but distracted from the post's main message.

Agreed .. bait and switch technique i guess. But since we've invested time looking into the content, might as well talk about the core / useful content rather than focusing on the bait :)

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#140

Post by ericjang » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

garry wrote: post #103

ericjang wrote: post #53

A lot of the comments are rightly pointing out the logical fallacy of survivorship bias in the article, but I don't think Garry intended to say that "choosing to work for Palantir in 2003 was the expected-wealth maximizing career decision and that's why you should join a startup". I think the title and lede, "working for Microsoft cost me $200M" is intended to be provocative and encourage clicks on the article, while…

Apologies for the clickbait— I'm trying to build a YouTube following and having some collaborations drop this week. Just trying to make it work on that platform. The values and what is acceptable on different social networks is so different! I didn't really think it would appear on here, so tuning it for different audiences is hard.

I, for one, thought it was an excellent title. It's always fascinating to read about the eccentric Peter Thiel, and this gave me some inspiration for how to structure my own future writing. Thanks :)