Downsides to working at a tech giant • Hacker News Board

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#471

Post by sjg007 » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 6:19 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #172

keithwhor wrote: post #90

The 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…

This assumes all entrepreneurs would want to work for or even be hired by a tech giant.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#472

Post by ping_pong » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 6:23 AM UTC

This article is garbage.

Over the last 8 years or so, FANG stock has gone through the roof. Most FANG engineers are multi-millionaires if they have been there going back 8 years. I have a friend whose Facebook stock doubled in the last 3 years and she will have been paid over 3M over 4 years.

Meanwhile, I have a friend who has been bouncing around startups, making zero in equity (because they all failed) and he gave up a job at Google. His equity would have been worth over 2M had he stayed.

I myself worked at a YC startup that had a large exit, and only made about $80k over 4 years (most of the money went to the founders even though I was employee 40). I then joined one of the unicorns and also made about 250k in equity over 5 years. Had I concentrated on my FANG interviews more, I would have made much much much more money over the last 5 years.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#473

Post by harshaw » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 6:23 AM UTC

Startups don't necessarily have good management or the core values necessary to help weather changes. You will have problems and if you don't have either really good management or something like the Amazon leadership principles it's likely you will fail. Also, at least for many of the startups where I worked there was no appreciation for the lessons of the lean startup movement (or appreciation of the lessons of Steve Blank).

That would be my reason to consider big tech, or at least a company with solid values. Unfortunately in my career I learned a lot at startups but don't have anything financial to show from it.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#474

Post by Hermitian909 » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 6:44 AM UTC

dd36 wrote: post #470

jorblumesea wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 si…

I’m intrigued by your idea of alternative compensation. Care to expand? Are you thinking like bonuses for growth? Deferred bonuses?

Not OP but I've been thinking about this as cofounder of a "hard tech" company. If we live long enough that we're in a position to hire real talent we can't compete on total yearly comp. The business just won't be able to afford a 500k a year engineer for years.

However right now FAANG companies generally do not offer either the following:

- Reduced work weeks

- Remote work

I've talked to several staff and principle engineers who've told me that for the right company they'd take a massive paycut to work remotely 3-4 days a week. I've had the opportunity to work a 3 day week while making enough to support myself and I have to say, it's incredibly freeing. I don't think this is a sensible offering for anything below a Staff engineer, but it could be a promising path to get truly top talent.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#475

Post by mancerayder » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

milofeynman wrote: post #325

cosmodisk wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit sad how the rest of the world don't put such reward for dev jobs.Even here, in London,I'd need to be a quant to pull such a salary.

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

And NYC. Finance IT management jobs at the senior levels pay a solid 3-500, senior devs 200+, with some sort of bonus structure being common. Then there are increasingly tech companies (something that used be pretty rare even 10 years ago), and for the tired, there are university and hospital IT jobs.

However, rent is through the roof, on par with San Francisco. And a city with its own set of challenges.

From what I hear and read, Seattle seems like one of the best bangs for the buck. As for myself, the lack of sunlight would make me want to live in London (at least I can fly two hours and see the Sun).

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#476

Post by mancerayder » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

ptx wrote: post #393

elfexec wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pessimism in this thread really bothers me. It's the demographics. The HN population skews extremely old and older people are generally more pessimistic, cynical and risk averse. Also, there is a large amount of traditional media workers on HN and they, for obvious reasons, are not fans of the tech industry since the tech industry is eating their lunch. Don't let the thread get you down. It's a skewed and biase…

"Extremely old" compared to the general population? Are you saying HN mostly consists of retired Cobol programmers?

I'm going to be cynical and say, maybe >32 was the cut-off point in the OP's message.

"OK, Boomer."

There's something to be said about assuming a that very large volume of mostly-anonymous messages on the Internet can be deteremined by the OP to be old. That sounds like ... something a young person might say.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#477

Post by jmondi » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 7:03 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #320

camelspade wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who/what is a “sub-FAANG SWE”? Are you suggesting software engineers who don’t work at one of the FAANG’s are subpar? Apologies if I’m misunderstanding.

I think it's more referring to compensation. If you're only offering half the pay of some of the alternatives, you're simply not going to get a shot at most of the highest-skilled job seekers. They will, sensibly, tend to go work for the highest-paying employers. Free market for labor and all that.

What about all the skilled software engineers that DON'T want to live in SF.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#478

Post by dmix » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 7:19 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #51

dmix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just cringed at the thought of some BigCo software company project management tracking obsessive approach being pigeonholed onto a startup. Or the various other ‘processes’ that built up continually over the years at BigCo to minimize any sort of risk at the expense of speed and flexibility. The bigger benefit is working with really smart people. I think you’re over valuing the utility of a lot of the stuff that go…

GP comment never said "processes," so I'm not sure why you're focusing on that. They said "best practices", which is totally different.

Sorry I just think I wanted to go on a rant at all the big software co "project managers" that got hired into startups I worked at and ruined everything.

That wasn't a proper response to OP's comment.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#479

Post by yaih » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

Valuation and share prices of FAANGs (and Microsoft) started really taking off 2-3 years after the financial crisis of 2008. There are two theories: a lot of money could suddenly be borrowed at near zero cost and needed a place to go, prompting a lot of investors to invest in big tech in the hope of better than average returns. Alternate theory: all big tech companies just simultaneously, suddenly became lot better companies and lot better investments sometime around 2011. I tend to side with the first theory.

Recently, it also became easier to do stock buybacks, leading to another big bounce in share prices.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/17/investing/stock-buybacks-...

So I wonder if the real problem lies elsewhere - the out of control monetary policies practiced by various central banks.

Or maybe my statements are just completely wrong. If so, I would like to know if someone has done any kind of analysis on this.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#480

Post by _qwfv » Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 7:24 AM 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.

Yup. It's almost axiomatic that you are being paid less than you are worth to your company. This is a foundational piece of the capitalist mode of production.

I wish there were more software cooperatives, or worker owned businesses out there.