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Y Combinator's Message to Founders

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Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#61

Post by throwanem »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #52
SkipperCat wrote: post #3

Companies that have a good ideas and provide needed product/services will survive. I think the era of stupid money chasing silly ideas are over. Same thing happened at the end of the dot-com era.

>I think the era of stupid money chasing silly ideas are over. Same thing happened at the end of the dot-com era. It's called the Business Cycle. Those days are not over, they're merely hibernating

Hibernating? They've been the order of the day since 1987. Sure, there's booms and crashes, but that's why we call it a cycle.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#63

Post by benjaminjosephw »

bachmeier wrote: post #54
aresant wrote: post #18

Dagnabit. Here we go again - this is a fantastic, pragmatic amendment to those notes -> https://dalton.substack.com/p/letter-to-myself-in-late-2008?... For a taste: "Doing multiple small layoffs is a form of cascading failure. Do one layoff, but much much deeper than seems correct. Do it decisively. Do it so that you get profitable. In your case that is something like a 70% cut, not a 5-10% cut. Yes you read that rig…

> a 70% cut...Cutting once and cutting hard allows you to reassure the people that are still here that you are truly profitable If your employees are dumb enough that they interpret a 70% cut of the workforce as a sign that your company is stable, you're doomed. It's hard to imagine the dumbest person in the world interpreting that as a sign of stability.

It's a sign that you intend the company to survive.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#64

Post by chernevik »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #20

I am currently graduating with a CS degree and interpreting this as a warning to not accept the offer from the exciting startup and instead accept the offer from the big corporate fintech company. Is there any reason I could be wrong?

Take the job where you will learn the most. If that's a startup and it dies no one will hold it against you. If you're good you'll probably be able to find something even in a lousy economy.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#65

Post by mehphp »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #20

I am currently graduating with a CS degree and interpreting this as a warning to not accept the offer from the exciting startup and instead accept the offer from the big corporate fintech company. Is there any reason I could be wrong?

As others have said, now is the time to be risky. If you think that startup will hang around for a bit (1 - 2 years) that will be more than enough experience for you to land the next job. I'm not telling you to job hop, but it is completely normally to only stay at a position for 2 years (or less).

I personally would choose the one that would help me grow more as an engineer and IMHO, you can get pigeonholed much more easily at a big corp than at a startup.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#67

Post by sirius87 »

bachmeier wrote: post #54
aresant wrote: post #18

Dagnabit. Here we go again - this is a fantastic, pragmatic amendment to those notes -> https://dalton.substack.com/p/letter-to-myself-in-late-2008?... For a taste: "Doing multiple small layoffs is a form of cascading failure. Do one layoff, but much much deeper than seems correct. Do it decisively. Do it so that you get profitable. In your case that is something like a 70% cut, not a 5-10% cut. Yes you read that rig…

> a 70% cut...Cutting once and cutting hard allows you to reassure the people that are still here that you are truly profitable If your employees are dumb enough that they interpret a 70% cut of the workforce as a sign that your company is stable, you're doomed. It's hard to imagine the dumbest person in the world interpreting that as a sign of stability.

As someone who has witnessed such a deep layoff and was left in the 30%, I began job hunting and moved on soon after.

When I eventually quit, senior management then explained how I was part of their grand comeback plans and offered a salary bump, and in my mind, all I could think of was how they were trying to balance a cost equation.

People far more talented than me had landed pink slips, presumably because of how "expensive" they were for their "output".

That may be the right call for longevity of the business, but I could easily be the one being disposed after my valuable output is put to use and my expense-output is reconsidered.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#68

Post by tester756 »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #20

I am currently graduating with a CS degree and interpreting this as a warning to not accept the offer from the exciting startup and instead accept the offer from the big corporate fintech company. Is there any reason I could be wrong?

I'd be careful taking opinion about startups vs corpo from HN, bias as hell.

I've been reading about how corpos are bad for years and my experience is completely different from what people say

My personal opinion on corpos is:

_____________

pros:

working on real and complex tech products that actually make huge $$ instead of burning VCs cash on yet another food/car/room/dating app

strong execution (it definitely doesnt feel like it is moving slowly, waiting a few weeks for simple decisions)

good $$$

way stronger brand on CV

contact with people who define industry

you can change teams and do something different, you don't have to change company because huge corpos probably do "everything" (im simplifying)

___________

cons:

your impact is small, there are hundreds or thousands of people involved

your exposure to whole development process (from getting requirements, to initial architecture, development, then just support) is small because you'll probably be thrown into existing project

___________

As others suggested - at the beginning small company / startup? where you are touching everything and doing various stuff may be very helpful to learn, but it's not like corpos are bad and you should avoid them as hard as you can

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#69

Post by throwanem »

rubidium wrote: post #35
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #20

I am currently graduating with a CS degree and interpreting this as a warning to not accept the offer from the exciting startup and instead accept the offer from the big corporate fintech company. Is there any reason I could be wrong?

It depends on your appetite for risk. But fintech means you’ll have a job in 2 years (likely). Nothing is guaranteed.

Finance means that, probably. Fintech isn't the same ballgame.

Work for a startup and you'll have an embarrassment of riches for learning opportunities. Work in finance and you'll likely need to take some initiative, and earn and deploy some political capital, to make your own.

Right now, though, it's time to be looking for a safe port above all else. If you're young and good, you won't have trouble ending up with a compelling story to tell about your time with BigCo. In the meantime you want to think about how much worrying you'd like to do about where your next check's coming from.

Re: Y Combinator's Message to Founders

#70

Post by corrral »

bachmeier wrote: post #54
aresant wrote: post #18

Dagnabit. Here we go again - this is a fantastic, pragmatic amendment to those notes -> https://dalton.substack.com/p/letter-to-myself-in-late-2008?... For a taste: "Doing multiple small layoffs is a form of cascading failure. Do one layoff, but much much deeper than seems correct. Do it decisively. Do it so that you get profitable. In your case that is something like a 70% cut, not a 5-10% cut. Yes you read that rig…

> a 70% cut...Cutting once and cutting hard allows you to reassure the people that are still here that you are truly profitable If your employees are dumb enough that they interpret a 70% cut of the workforce as a sign that your company is stable, you're doomed. It's hard to imagine the dumbest person in the world interpreting that as a sign of stability.

I'd just assume the company's already dead and someone's trying to suck some remaining value out of it or make a hail-mary acquisition deal to bail out their investor pals (at no return to employee stock holders, I'm sure) if that happened. I'd be working on my résumé on the "work" day when that's announced, for sure.
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