Downsides to working at a tech giant • Hacker News Board

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#451

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #403

majormajor wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely no way new startups can play ball with those salaries Are their ideas just not that promising, or are they just not raising enough money, or what?

Google has an ATM printing money in the basement. Startups do not.

> Google has an ATM printing money in the basement. Startups do not.

Venture capital is supposed to be (and certainly was a few years ago, though it may have gotten more conservative) the transfer pipeline between the money printing enterprises and the high-risk, high-reward startups that provides the unlimited cash the latter don't otherwise have while unlocking the return potential the former lack.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#452

Post by desert_boi » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #421

desert_boi wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're not giving the meritocracy at MIT enough credit. I went to a state university.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm? I went to an unranked state university myself - I'd love to experience even a fraction of the respect these folks get.

It is not sarcasm. Stanford does indeed have the most alumni who founded unicorns. But Harvard, UC, and MIT round things out nicely, for American schools at least.

https://www.theatlas.com/charts/HJSgAUdPx

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#453

Post by tuananh » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

senordevnyc wrote: post #437

austenallred wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and FB were paying less when they were founded than most startups I see today, adjusted for inflation. The difference is that now Google and FB pay way more . More than startups could ever dream of competing with. Everyone I know at FB or Google is making $225k+, with the average/median being around $300k/yr. Absolutely no way new startups can play ball with those salaries, and FB/GOOG certainly weren’t paying…

Most startups can't match G/FB on cash, but they can do much better than they are on equity amounts, equity terms, work-life balance, etc. For example, what is the option exercise window if you leave Lambda?

> startup can do much better on work-life balance?

really? i never heard anyone said that

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#454

Post by jeromebaek » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:12 AM UTC

A little-discussed issue is that big tech cos tend to do better on diversity and inclusion. Obviously it varies by startup, but when you’re in a survival mentality it is difficult to be open to people of different sexualities, races and experiences. You tend to get clumps of similar overachievers. Paul Graham said this was an “advantage” but for people like me in the LGBTQ community it certainly isn’t.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#455

Post by teachrdan » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:18 AM UTC

plorkyeran wrote: post #245

shadowgovt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone's opinions on tradeoffs vary. Were it me, I wouldn't be proud if I'd made the call to join the company that is directly supporting The US's broken ICE system ( https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/technology/2019/05/do... ), even if I were $200M richer. It seems Garry dodged a bullet on this one.

He says he ended up working for Palantir anyway, so he dodged the bullet then chased it down to dive back in front of it again.

In the case of this metaphor, he ran back to Palantir for his opportunity to shoot the gun, for a tiny share of the profits.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#456

Post by teachrdan » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #435

Let me make sure I get this straight. On the one hand, by not working for a startup, you're missing out on at least $1.6M of value you're creating every year for your employer. You might even be missing out on $200M like Mr. Tan did. On the other hand, working for a startup "is not about the money". So you should be ok with getting less money because you're getting access to users and customers. That's a pretty muddl…

No ax to grind. Tan's trying to encourage more junior[0] engineers to work at a steep discount for startup founders so that they might make a massive profit for VCs like him.

0. Experienced engineers know better

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#457

Post by elamje » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

thesausageking wrote: post #441

Palantir built a lot of ICE's software systems. Among other things, when ICE was using children crossing the border to go after and arrest their family member, "the key place where that information was stored and communicated to be able to prosecute them was through the ICM and Palantir’s information sharing."[0] I would encourage anyone to think twice about taking money from Gary or similar VCs who only care they lo…

Not everyone has the same views on business and morality. Morality is completely gray for almost everyone. I understand where you are coming from, but retroactively punishing people who are associated with a business who only recently (last 2 years) had bad publicity is why people are scared to actually have public opinions about anything. Even typing this comment will be misinterpreted in 30 years.

Palantir is in an untenable position to defend since it engages in government contracts. You could also roast Lockheed Martin and a huge list of others for similar things. Palantir is a personal example Garry can use to get a point across.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#458

Post by barrkel » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #366

milofeynman wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the US does not pull such salaries. That's pretty exclusive Silicon Valley / Seattle.

You can easily make $100-$120k in Houston and that’s still much higher than London salaries. I had offers for $135k in Connecticut, offers for $90k in Kansas City.. still vastly better than London and the rent is a hell of a lot cheaper.

£90k is around benchmark senior dev pay in London (band I'd say is £80k to £95k). I make a bunch more than that.

London is a global city though and you'll always feel somewhat poor in this town unless you can compete with various foreign kleptocrats using it as a land bank, and that takes 8+ digits wealth.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#459

Post by bartread » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:30 AM UTC

garry wrote: post #274

bartread wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be: Google's annual revenue for 2018 was $136.22 billion[1], which yields $1,315,512 revenue per employee. Controlling for employee growth from 2018 to 2019 (they only had 85,050 employees at the end of Q1 2018[2]) and assuming linear growth and revenue earn through the year, that gives an average number of employees of 94,300 over the year (I realise this is an oversimplification), and revenue per employee of…

You're absolutely right — I annualized net revenue which I interpreted as "net" but certainly is not profit. I've corrected this and will put a note about it. I'm sorry for the mistake. I'll do better next time.

No stress: thanks for posting the correction.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#460

Post by freddie_mercury » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #446

freddie_mercury wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FAANG pay has gone through the roof while startup pay has not That's because FAANGs have been profitable and startups haven't, in general. There's no rule of the universe saying startups have to be unprofitable. A profitable startup can, in fact, pay through the roof.

> A profitable startup can, in fact, pay through the roof. But most startups don't become profitable, most startups fail. IMO, you should basically assume that any stock options a startup offers you are worth zero. Decide if you want the offer based on the base pay and how interesting/stimulating the work is.

Sure. Upon re-reading my comment I wasn't very clear. What I meant was along the lines of: the past decade VCs have convinced startups that they don't need to be profitable for many years. That's a pretty recent aberration. It took Google less than 3 years to become profitable, for instance.

I think the argument is less between "startups" and "tech giants" and more between "profitable companies" and "unprofitable companies". Profitable companies can also grow quickly, after all.