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There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

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Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#131

Post by azemetre »

Qwertious wrote: post #73
namdnay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah I think we've stumbled on something here.. Spotify seem to be the source/example of all these new management fads. I remember having to sit through that hand-drawn sketch video (is there a name for these things?) describing how Spotify does SAFe (if you don't know what this is, pretend you never read it and continue your life as usual, please) and how awesome it is and why we all need to do it.

What sort of thing is SAFe? Is it some sort of unsuccessful corporate pantomime of a successful practice?

Opinions are my own, but it’s basically a worst version of agile (safe = scaled agile framework) that removes all autonomy from teams and gives upper management/leadership more power in making decisions at the team level.

If you never heard of Allen Holub look him up on YouTube/Twitter. He’s one of the same voices when it comes to agile frameworks.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#132

Post by Uehreka »

nojvek wrote: post #77

When I was at PowerBI in Microsoft, all the execs hailed it as Startup within Microsoft. Come work here instead of Uber. I worked like a dog, sometimes till 2am in morning. My manager would routinely ask us to come on weekends. I was naive, I thought we are growing customer base, this is what a startup looks like. The ultimate realization was in a startup you have equity, a decent amount in a good startup. At Microso…

This is also an issue I’ve seen with companies that began as startups, but then transitioned into the “big company” phase: Founders and early employees complain that “when we were getting started, we could’ve gotten this feature done in a week! What’s taking so long?” There tends to be frustration that employees won’t work nights and weekends, even though their work could “turn this company into the next Amazon!”

When you bring up the fact that the difference is that they have equity and you don’t, and that they would materially benefit from growth but you wouldn’t, they tend to get grumpy. But they never do have a better answer.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#133

Post by scruple »

ashtonkem wrote: post #99
onion2k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity is what builds wealth. In exceptional circumstances, yes. In most circumstances equity in a startup ends up being worthless, even in the event of exit. Starting your own startup, or joining a startup as a very early employee can make you rich; anything else and you might as well be buying lottery tickets. That's not to denigrate startups in any way . Working in a startup is amazing. It's just not how you get r…

Even when they’re not worthless, most startup options end up being worth less than the salary that one could’ve gotten at a non-startup. Last time I looked into it, and it was a while ago, the median startup option package was exercised for a profit of $30k, not nothing but far less than what one could’ve gotten at a large company like ... Microsoft. Arguably the existence of several different types of stock options…

> most startup options end up being worth less than the salary that one could’ve gotten at a non-startup

I took a lower salary to work at a startup I "believed" in. We were eventually acquired and my options were in the low six-figures when exercised. I worked there for 6 years. If I average the options profit and add it to my base salary, I'd have still been underpaid in the local area for my skills and experience level. And that's to say nothing of what the event did to my taxes that year.

> Nothing is worth working like a dog though. That’s always a bad trade.

I never worked like a dog for the place in my story, at least. It had a very sane work/life balance.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#134

Post by stuff4ben »

wwww4all wrote: post #102
nojvek wrote: post #77

When I was at PowerBI in Microsoft, all the execs hailed it as Startup within Microsoft. Come work here instead of Uber. I worked like a dog, sometimes till 2am in morning. My manager would routinely ask us to come on weekends. I was naive, I thought we are growing customer base, this is what a startup looks like. The ultimate realization was in a startup you have equity, a decent amount in a good startup. At Microso…

Most engineers at startups get very little equity and most end up worthless due to dilution or failure. Even if engineers hit the startup lottery, the payout for most are not that much. Very few end with multi million dollar payouts. Statistically, financials are better with big company offers for most engineers. Some engineers that get in early with a unicorn can hit the jackpot. This is mostly combination of timing…

Yes, while financially you may be better with BigCorp, there are some benefits of startups that I experienced first hand. First is the experience of being a fast-moving startup and the comradeship that you build with your colleagues. I'm still friends with people I worked with at my first startup 15 years ago. Second is the learning experience of being around very smart people. I learned so much in my 4 years at my first startup. From how startups work (and that my equity was worthless) to how to do modern (at the time) development in Java. Finally, as someone mentioned earlier, you get to see how your work moves the needle. That feedback cycle is addictive! Also, you can see when you screw up the opposite happen (I once personally caused a loss of a couple hundred dollars in revenue due to a bad SQL query).

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#136

Post by westurner »

Swizec wrote: post #122
marcinzm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Time is the most valuable commodity you have, don't squander it for lottery tickets and empty promises. That goes the other way around too, the only way to have massive amounts of free time without going FIRE is to win the lottery. So why not throw the dice once or twice when you're young and then settle into a stable corporate job if it doesn't pay out?

Modern Silicon Valley lets you do both. Why not throw the dice and still make around $200k cash? As a [good] engineer you can have your cake and eat it too. Sure it won’t make you a billionaire but you can live a comfy life, maybe win the lottery, and retire at 50 if the lottery fails.

Living and working elsewhere with the wages of the region reduces expenses and opportunities; but the wealth of educational resources online [1][2] does make it feasible to even bootstrap a company on the side. Do you need to borrow money to scale quickly enough to pay expenses with sufficient cash flow for the foreseeable future?

Income sources: Passive income, Content, Equity that's potentially worth nothing, a backtested diversified portfolio (Golden Butterfly or All Weather Portfolio and why?) of sustainable investments, Business models [3]; Software implementations of solutions to businesses, organizations, and/or consumers' opportunities

Single-payer / Universal Healthcare is a looming family expense for many entrepreneurs; many of whom do get into entrepreneurship later in life.

Small businesses make up a significant portion of GDP. Small businesses have to have to accept risk.

There's still opportunity in the world.

[1] Startup School > Curriculum https://www.startupschool.org/curriculum

[2] https://www.ycombinator.com/library

[3] "Business models based on the compiled list at [HN]" https://gist.github.com/ndarville/4295324

From "Why companies lose their best innovators (2019)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23887903 :

> "Intrapreneurial." What does that even mean? The employee, within their specialized department, spends resources (time, money, equipment) on something that their superior managers have not allocated funding for because they want: (a) recognition; (b) job security; (c) to save resources such as time and money; (d) to work on something else instead of this wasteful process; (e) more money.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#137

Post by DamnYuppie »

nojvek wrote: post #77

When I was at PowerBI in Microsoft, all the execs hailed it as Startup within Microsoft. Come work here instead of Uber. I worked like a dog, sometimes till 2am in morning. My manager would routinely ask us to come on weekends. I was naive, I thought we are growing customer base, this is what a startup looks like. The ultimate realization was in a startup you have equity, a decent amount in a good startup. At Microso…

Equity can also be bought with your excess capital for you work. At the current market salary for developers it should be quite obtainable to live well below your income and invest a sizeable portion of it in the markets, either stock or realestate. Do this for 10 years and about 20 years later you will have many millions of dollars.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#138

Post by nonplussed »

aerosmile wrote: post #126

The predominant sentiment in the comments is that equity is worthless, which very well may be a fair statement. It would also explain why relatively few people decide to start companies, let alone do it back to back several times after getting burned over and over again. But those same people will then argue that founders should not get 10x more equity than employees [0] (which, for the record, may or may not be just…

I can't stress the the "ideally successful" part enough. I've worked at a couple startups where the entrepreneur was serial but this was their first "success". I felt I learned very little. Both companies reached a comfortable point and then the founder didn't know what to do beyond that.

I came to understand why there's a lot of stories of VCs forcing out the founder and bringing in a new CEO who had experience in growing a company.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#139

Post by dbattaglia »

I worked for a "startup within a Big Co." for a few months, set up as an "innovation lab" for a big stuffy 3-letter HR tech / payroll vendor everyone knows (at least in the US). It wasn't bad, and I felt like they really tried to make things feel all fun and "silicon alley" (I'm in NYC), but boy did that whole facade disappear once you realized you need to use on corporate VPN to view things on the public internet and a second one to connect to source control. Or when the companies patent lawyer comes by to talk to the team about the importance of patenting every last little idea you have.

I don't even blame them either, they are a huge company that can't just change the way they fundamentally do business. But it does make the whole thing feel a bit artificial. I'm sure for startups that are acquired it's a bit different but in the end the same result.

Re: There’s no such thing as “a startup within a big company”

#140

Post by cambalache »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #96
virgilp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I worked for Adobe, one of the executives there (Mark Randall, serial entrepreneur that was "acquired" by the company, awesome guy) launched the "Red box" initiative that eventually become https://www.kickbox.org/ . The red box was essentially a "toolbox" that he created on how to build a startup (set of training materials + $1000USD credit card that you could use however you wish), and the purpose was to get e…

“except that I knew that I didn't get to keep any upside. L Same at my company. They have similar programs but you also don’t get any stake in the outcome and are still controlled by executives who in the end get the credit. Same for hackathons they tried to organize. The idea quickly turned from fun projects basically into overtime to check off Jura tickets quickly but with the addition of free pizza. I think leader…

It is astounding to me how smart, conscientious adults can be manipulated with kindergarten-level tactics.

I dont know if psychopathy (or the whole dark triad?) can be quantitatively measured but I would not be surprised in the least if after the mean value, any % of incremental in psychopathy is way better than its equivalent in IQ to survive and thrive in the corporate world.

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