Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#141

Post by comp_throw7 » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

tehlike wrote: post #137

md_ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can, I guess. That’s generally L8 income; it’d be pretty unusually to make it to that level in seven years. FAANG pays well, but if you check what I’m saying against Levels.fyi, that’s a pretty exceptional situation for someone with that little experience.

There are more people in L7/8 in FB than they are in google. and it's possible to do 8 in 7-8 years. Decent amount of people do 6 in 2.5, 7 in 4.5

Sorry, is the claim here that there are a "decent amount" of fresh grads who get promoted 3 times in 2.5 years to reach Staff (E6) at FB? That doesn't pass the smell test. "Has happened at least once in the history of the company", maybe. "Happens frequently enough to use as a meaningful benchmark", no.

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#142

Post by saranormous » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

oakfr wrote: post #91

sskates wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try to answer the question without divulging how anyone individually did. I took a look at the initial 4 year option grants for the first 10 engineers (this doesn't count refreshers or other follow on grants). The average value at $50/share (yesterday's opening price) is just over $10M. The group varied in experience from just out of school to a few years working when they joined. I feel we were a good d…

While I am happy for your company and for your first 10 employees (congrats, really), I am not sure that looking at their return teaches us much. Joining a fresh startup as employee #10 (or less) is somewhat of a gamble (even at YC). The following data would put things in perspective: 1. How do the average first 10 employees of a YC startup do? 2. How did the following cohorts in your company do? I am not trying to b…

startups aren’t a game of averages. the averages are definitely worse than the FAANGs. choosing well (and getting lucky) are paths to “definitely better.”

It also depends on what your professional goals are (growth, leadership, impact, fun, next opportunities) assuming they are not only monetary.

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#143

Post by somtoxhi » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

Congrats! What do you think is the best way for software engineers to find early stage start-up doing impactful things?

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#144

Post by Jugurtha » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

sskates wrote: post #126

Jugurtha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your answers... > As an example, we've gotten more press in the last 24 hours then we have in all of Amplitude's existence. The spike is certainly welcome. Would you attribute this to the product being invisible to consumers (not something to talk about), or that the company has focused more on the product and revenue until going public, and now it will "do press" (if this is too "forward-looking", a ge…

It's very difficult to impossible to measure the impact of PR on the company. I can say that broadly we've not been well known since we started Amplitude and it's driven me crazy as CEO. There are a lot of conversations about product data we just never end up in as a result. We didn't have someone managing it internally until recently. We just hired some phenomenal communications people and they've done an outstandin…

Thanks for taking the time. This thread has been more valuable than any interview you gave. The CNBC one[0] sucked as they invited you but you did not get the chance to speak. I don't know what they were thinking.

- [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/09/28/amplitude-ceo-on-going...

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#145

Post by moneywoes » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

Please tell us the story of getting your first customer

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#146

Post by Jugurtha » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

sskates wrote: post #122

Jugurtha wrote: post #27

Congratulations, In addition to claudiulodro's question about whether the employees, especially the early ones, made a good chunk. - Could you explain the reasons you took it public? What were the parameters and different tradeoffs? Did you want to take it public? Was there a consensus? What were the conversations about that? - How long have you been preparing for and do you have a playbook for this? - Who did you hi…

Alright, I'm back 24 hours later to finish out my responses! RE going public- yes, there was a lot of alignment between everyone internally about the advantages of being a public company. The main downsides are 1) cost 2) distraction to the rest of the company. Huge credit to our CFO Hoang and the internal team for getting it done in record time which minimized the distraction. The main debate was whether to do a dir…

Thanks again.

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#147

Post by moneywoes » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

Hermitian909 wrote: post #83

caseyf7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While joining a FAANG in the past was most likely the richest path, that may not be true today.

For the actual top tier of compensation in tech (out of FAANG only Netflix is a part of that band) I think it still is. This year I've seen multiple engineers get ~500k offers for 4-6 yoe with no particular specialty, just general competence. High end of Staff appears bumping into the million dollar range once bonuses come around at some of these places.

Are these only in SF? What sort of companies

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#148

Post by silexia » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

sskates wrote: post #107

Holy cow, we're still going 16 hours later! I'm on a flight back to SF today but I'll keep answering questions as I have time. The questions here are so thoughtful (even more than some of the ones I get from public market investors) so I'll keep going!

I read your https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001866692/000119312... executive compensation section and was curious about the hire of Ms. Johnson in November 2020 and the massive option grant. Can you explain the reasoning here? It appears she got more than any of your older employees? Is this because half of Amplitude's revenue is spent on sales and marketing? I guess that might make sense.

Also, congratulations on reaching the rare high nine figure net worth club! :)

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#149

Post by tehlike » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 3:57 AM UTC

comp_throw7 wrote: post #141

tehlike wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more people in L7/8 in FB than they are in google. and it's possible to do 8 in 7-8 years. Decent amount of people do 6 in 2.5, 7 in 4.5

Sorry, is the claim here that there are a "decent amount" of fresh grads who get promoted 3 times in 2.5 years to reach Staff (E6) at FB? That doesn't pass the smell test. "Has happened at least once in the history of the company", maybe. "Happens frequently enough to use as a meaningful benchmark", no.

Welcome to give a try.

Re: Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

#150

Post by md_ » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

tehlike wrote: post #149

comp_throw7 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, is the claim here that there are a "decent amount" of fresh grads who get promoted 3 times in 2.5 years to reach Staff (E6) at FB? That doesn't pass the smell test. "Has happened at least once in the history of the company", maybe. "Happens frequently enough to use as a meaningful benchmark", no.

Welcome to give a try.

At this point I don’t understand what’s being argued about. Are you saying you have anecdotes that this happens? Yeah, probably. I have some, too.

Are you saying the median total comp for a 7-year total experience Facebook engineer is $1m? If so, what’s your source? (Or what are you claiming? The top decile? The top quartile? Etc.)