Do people torture themselves over mistakes that only prove to be so after the fact?
I thought I was a master of this art but this form of it escaped me.
Downsides to working at a tech giant
351–360 of 583 posts
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#352The pessimism in this thread really bothers me. I’ve read anecdotes on entrepreneurship being on the decline, but it pains me to read so many negative takes on startups. We’re actively training our young people to avoid taking risks, and it’s going to fuck us — especially if some of those young people have the ambition be early employees at, say, a startup that takes on climate change in a big way. Look — the fact th…
>We’re actively training our young people to avoid taking risks, and it’s going to fuck us I think the kind of people with the balls (or stupidity) to join/found a startup tend to be the kind of people who don't listen to what everyone else is doing anyway. This might have a sort of positive selection bias: you need a minimum amount of risk tolerance to succeed in a venture. >Work at startups because you’ll work with…
> right kind of independent thinkers and doers who do not need hand holding and tend to have good understanding of large systems
lucky you. i’m in a startup where the very large majority of the eng team is here with their first job out of school. and they have the same latitude you are describing. i’ve found that to be typical these days.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a hard time not reading this as a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps".
I grew up poor as the child of refugee immigrants. I was food insecure. My dad was an alcoholic. Being obsessed with computers was literally the thing that changed my life. That's just my experience, YMMV.
> That's just my experience, YMMV.
The vast majority of people like that aren't (and don't) getting into Stanford, period, because impressive-to-admissions-committee folks are usually children of other impressive people (not always, usually). I don't think it's possible to interpret this as anything but "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps".
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#354The pessimism in this thread really bothers me. I’ve read anecdotes on entrepreneurship being on the decline, but it pains me to read so many negative takes on startups. We’re actively training our young people to avoid taking risks, and it’s going to fuck us — especially if some of those young people have the ambition be early employees at, say, a startup that takes on climate change in a big way. Look — the fact th…
The reason why is the math changed. The gap between startup and tech giant is much larger now than it was in 2010. Also, unless you have insider access and join a very risky angel stage company, the likelihood of getting a good package that makes sense is low, very low. Also public companies have shown to get +3x gains, which can make the math even worse. Example from personal experience that is very lucky in startup…
> The reason why is the math changed. The gap between startup and tech giant is much larger now than it was in 2010.
This is true but also kind of depressing. With the means of software production cheaply available to everybody is that stable job at a tech giant really the pinnacle of the software engineering career? I understand that everybody's got the bills to pay, kids to raise etc. and maybe I'm a bit naive but it just feels... wrong. And yes, working at BigCo can provide some interesting technical challenges, opportunities to impact millions of users and shield you from unpleasant interactions with the outside world. But it still feels like you are being paid premium to sit on the sidelines.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#355For all the startup founders and VCs in this conversation, you are cheap motherf*ckers. When I read that engineers and employees prefer FAANG companies because they pay better, I want to remind you that it wasn't always like this. 10-15 years ago startups paid way better than big tech. Big Tech rewarded you by getting to specialize on problems and working at scale. The reason FB and Google pay well is because when th…
Startups paying better than tech giants seems counter intuitive to me. The giants can pay high salaries because they're hugely profitable and don't need to worry about being hyper efficient to make the most of VC money. Startups on the other hand, are still weak on the profitability part, but have massive room for growth when it comes to valuation. Therefore, the equity they can offer has way more potential value tha…
Google makes so much money that it makes sense to overpay? I mean that keeps people from leaving and starting their own thing that might be competition to Google. Plus give them the resources inside Google and they might build something there.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#356Most startups solve boring problems in boring ways, require you to work too much and deal with a wild west environment without proper procedures of coexistence.
Even with compensation equal, I'd take the tech giant.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#357The real issue with startups is that there is currently no efficient secondary market for startup equity. This makes the game much riskier than it should be since: 1) There is no way to diversify for founders and employees. 2) There is no exit for employees. 3) It gives VC monopolistic power. There were attempts to solve this (e.g. ICO) but those were misused. Once such a market exists, it would be much easier to joi…
This is secondary, the real issue is employees don't get enough equity to even sell it on a secondary market.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 stoc…
I doubt many people have a passion for shipping to customers quickly.
I am saddened by this, since the “shipping to customers quickly (and iterating on the product based on feedback)” is the foundation of a successful growth economy.
There are so many gross inefficiencies in my market (US) that could be successfully addressed if more people has this type of orientation.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is a really good argument as why graduated corporate taxes really need to be increased in the US. I'd be curious how productive you felt at each position and if you think the FAANG job is more difficult and stressful. I'd like to think that no matter which of these paths we chose - the more stressful and risky life or the more secure and corporate FAANG one - we'd all have a chance to live a decent life.…
I think you need to reform employee stock options - in the UK there are far less possibilities to screw employees over stock options.
Absolutely, stock options in the US are super strange, they can be performance tied and for non-qualified shares. The thing I'd actually like to see is a better default governance for companies - companies are wholly owned by founders and I think there is just something fundamentally wrong with treating all employees as contractors by default until it's decided to grant them options or actual ownership.
A bunch of people gather together and build a thing - why is the first person to the table the person who takes home all the profit? Sure employees are technically signing away their rights by agreeing to work without being compensated with a portion of their work, but it'd be really hard to actually pursue proportional ownership in the current labour market.
Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The reason why is the math changed. Very true. Making it even more unbalanced is that a startup exit may not be profitable to non-founders. I spent the first 17 years of my career at 3 different startups. Two were acquired and one is still chugging as a lifestyle business for the founder. The net value of my options (> 1% even after dilution in two of them) amounted to a $2000 capital loss due to there being no mone…
I think this is a really good argument as why graduated corporate taxes really need to be increased in the US. I'd be curious how productive you felt at each position and if you think the FAANG job is more difficult and stressful. I'd like to think that no matter which of these paths we chose - the more stressful and risky life or the more secure and corporate FAANG one - we'd all have a chance to live a decent life.…
I really think the issue is that many startups don't offer alternative compensation and don't play to their strengths. You can be compensated in other ways, but often I've found much of the work at startups can be no more interesting than their Big N counterparts. Your career growth might also be similar. In theory, for startups, you sacrifice pay for other facets. The reality is quite different.
The work might be similar but you're paid 50-75% of your peers. That was my experience in startup land, at least. Few good challenges or career growth and half of what I felt like I was worth.