281–290 of 430 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is/was a significant Mormon contingent in the Ruby community, all the way up to Matz. I've worked with a lot of Mormons in tech. You may have too and not realized it. In my experience, they tend to not put an emphasis on it, it's a more private thing.
I meant the pharma company in SLC.
Are there VC firms that invest labor instead of direct capital? It seems they could have a group of amazing, employed devs ready to hit the ground running, then continue on if the VC firm continues to invest. They could train the next tier of tech talent when the company could pay more competitive salaries, then step back to go to the next investment. This VC firm could give real equity in the firm to the techies, me…
That said, good VCs often have vast formal and informal networks of folks they can tap to work with a specific start up. Whether that talent is reliably good or not is a different issue.
Do it because the startup excites you, and be okay with things if the startup fails and you are out of a job. Because the economics likely won’t work out, you’ll have to derive value in other ways.
This is compellingly well-written but wrong, in my opinion. There's been a steady trickle of articles on the top of Hacker News that make essentially the same argument: your odds of choosing a successful startup are miniscule (2% in this one). I think this does people considering startups a disservice. The conditional chance of picking a successful company to join is way higher than 2%, or whatever the median success…
> Even at $500k/yr, it's 20 years—a whole working life—to make it to $10m Just one nitpick here, FAANG companies have 2-5x’d in the last five years so with $250k of equity in this example would have had an actual comp of $750k-1.5m/year which would leave you set-for-life rich in just 5-10 years no matter which one you chose. If you have access to a FAANG job and are optimizing for expected return you have to ask your…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how that is an issue. Exercising options is a form of income. Why not pay tax on income?
When you exercise startup options: 1. Usually there is no liquid market, so for lack of a better term, the valuation is made up. 2. Related to point one, with no liquid market, there is no option to sell the options the raise the money to pay the taxes. 3. There are often restrictions (e.g. lockup periods) that legally restrict you for selling from a specific period. You are forced to take on the risk that the stock…
The main issue with option is the lack of liquidity.
One may have to put down quite a bit of cash down in order to exercise, and that is a problem, even if in practice, it is usually good value for the option holder.
But most people either 1) do not have a lot of cash on hand, or 2) do not have the appetite to tie their hard-earned cash to anything illiquid-that-maybe-could-go-to-zero.
Many people find value in the experience whether we got paid or not. I'd rather work my ass off for a startup than spend money on an MBA.
I've been a part of five startups. One of them (and the financial collapse) resulted in ruining me financially in 2009, but it was my choice. No one told me to take the job.
Three were mine (two failed, one is in hypothesis mode). The other was with a millionaire and it also failed. I learned to look at things differently because of all of those experiences and my value as a consultant today is because of those experiences.
I know you can get screwed over by sketchy founders and unscrupulous venture capitalists. You should absolutely understand where you stand going in. Stock options are 100% worthless unless you have a startup that succeeds and you have a founder that is honest in their intentions. Even real equity can be diluted, so that's no guarantee.
But there are always cases where the first few hundred employees make a life's worth of wealth in a few years.
I hate these articles bitching about the startup world. If you're gonna bitch, maybe go take a job at a nice safe boring mega-corporation that will maybe just destroy your soul. You'll get paid on time and you'll work 40hr weeks, have PTO, health benefits. If that's what you want, then just go do that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what's also missing from the equation here is the fact that part of the reason which startup compensation is not competitive is because FAANG salaries have been set in such a way to attract talent which might otherwise go to startups.
How true to do suspect the following hypothesis is: FAANG overpays for top talent they do not need purely to keep it out of the hands of startups and competitors who do have a present concrete need for the top-shelf talent pool?
you only work for a startup if 2 conditions hold
1) the pay is sufficient for your needs (and this is not just in an immediate sense of making ends meet, but also a long term sense of being able to save for future goals / retirement).
2) the job is something you really want to do and you cannot get that experience elsewhere at a more established company.
i.e. if 2 doesn't hold, why would you take less pay than elsewhere?
if 1 doesn't hold, you are making a bad long term financial decision for yourself, by essentially accumulating an actual or virtual debt (need to makeup retirement contributions or other savings) that you will have to pay back in the future.
the #2 point can lead to earning more money in the long term even if the startup fails (i.e. the personal growth can outweigh experience you'd get elsewhere), but this is far from guaranteed. But even then, you shouldn't put yourself in "debt" to do that.
I generally agree, having worked for a number of startups most of the concerns seem valid; however, there is a unique arrangement that has benefited me: As a Canadian, I can generally make a higher wage working for an American startup than working for anything local. Usually I can expect 1.5x to 2x over the mean local rate for my skills and experience; and since I don't _need_ health benefits and I enjoy guaranteed p…
Not sure if it's a difference in culture but my small team (a mix of Canadians and Americans) is super respectful of people's personal time. e.g. no texting during after-work hours even with tight and critical deadlines. You're also free to run a personal errand during work as long as you deliver on your tasks at the end of the day. And since it is an interesting work with lots of learning opportunities, a lower pay (compared to an American startup) is a nice trade-off for me if I get a more relaxed work environment. Although I'm sure this is not true of all startups in either country.
I'd love to connect with you and share experiences. Feel free to message me on Discord (Tag in my profile).