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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

jwz.org

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Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#61

Post by dskhatri »

prawn wrote: post #11

I'm glad he finished with a note for the people who actually get something out of hard work on their personal project because I doubt I'm alone in getting a lot of personal satisfaction in performing like that. It's not all the time that I pull an all-nighter or a couple of weeks of hard slog, but I often feel better for them. And I'd rather be doing that for myself on a side project or in the start-up lottery or wit…

I appreciated the final words too. I've noticed an increase in the number of people offering advice about how to do things "right", followed by comment streams about why that's wrong, and "right" would be doing things a different way. But what's right for one person is not for another. I too find myself working super hard on projects that may seem worthless to some, trading off my sleep once in a while. It makes me feel good.

Maybe, rather than give advice, authors should do more of simply describing their experiences, and let the readers make inferences for themselves.

Edit. Deleted the first word (Amen). Another growing practice, and one that I am guilty of in this case, is the overzealous use of showy phrases solely to draw attention.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#62

Post by EGreg »

This is the comment I left on Uncrunched:

(PS: if you feel inclined to downvote, cool -- but I would like to know the reason. Maybe you can reply and tell me why you seem to disagree.)

LOL Mike. Our company gets things done without having to live like slaves.

There is a reason http://qbix.com/about has pictures of all of us in nature. It’s subtle but it all fits together with our company’s vision. We want to have fun and enjoy LIVING LIFE as we enjoy creating the tools that improve other people’s lives.

Yes, we work hard. And we create things together. But with the internet, 3G, and Wifi we are able to work from anywhere! This is more than can be said for any other industry, and we are lucky to be around in this time when we can travel and still get things done. Not only that, but the geographical constraints are now loosened. Not too long ago you could only choose among engineers that live nearby. Today you can hire engineers that do great work even if they live halfway around the world, and you can connect over the internet, Skype, and a host of other tools that just work.

We are building more of these tools. We believe in liberating people from their computers and focusing on just living their lives and getting things done. We love freedom. We want it for others, and we want it for ourselves.

It takes a careful system and a focus on process, but it can be done. With the right tools, the right guidelines and habits, we can be productive without sleeping under desks.

After all, you have one life, and work is a part of it. We have a motto: people live lives, companies create products.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#63

Post by pelemele »

someone13 wrote: post #6

Some people may not enjoy the green-on-black text, so this might be of use: http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff

The color scheme is not random. He is probably an old timer like me remembering old green/black monochrome 14" monitors.

http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-i...

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#64

Post by staunch »

It's the height of ridiculousness for someone who retired, at like age 30 to run a nightclub, after working at a startup to say it's a "con". What kind of terrible "con" turns the victim into a millionaire.

There are far more startup employees that have become rich than founders or investors. Tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Of course they don't get as much money as the founders or investors, but how is that anything other than perfectly fair?

Empirically it does require extremely hard work to make a startup successful. You can't point to any major success like Netscape or Google that didn't involve someone at some point sleeping under a desk. That's really all Arriington is saying, and it's quite obviously correct.

For some people it might be no better than playing the lottery, but for other people their odds are going to be very high. Someone like Bill Gates would have been hugely successful as a McDonald's franchisee or anything else he chose to do.

Just because some people are delusional about their odds doesn't make it a con.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#65

Post by 9oliYQjP »

dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I've not seen eye to eye with PG on everything he has written. But this particular essay is one of my favourites of his. PG laid out an upper bound, which he later clarifies:

"If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health."

And his upper limit for hours worked was 2x that of a corporate employee. Taken literally, this could be 80 hours per week, or 16 hour days. PG is not advocating this lifestyle in his essay. He's saying that it's theoretically possible but at the cost of your good health. Arrington says to hell with your health: quit the whining and work through the pain. This is not an upper bound but in fact an average that he's trying to push.

That's why I despise the Arrington article but don't take issue with PG's.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#66

Post by vaksel »

staunch wrote: post #64

It's the height of ridiculousness for someone who retired, at like age 30 to run a nightclub, after working at a startup to say it's a "con". What kind of terrible "con" turns the victim into a millionaire. There are far more startup employees that have become rich than founders or investors. Tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Of course they don't get as much money as the founders or investors, but how is that an…

for an employee to get rich at a startup...and by which I mean $1 million cashout(which isn't really all that rich anyways)...the company would need to sell for $100mm...and much more likely, the number is closer to $250mm...since employees tend to get ~ half a percent of equity..and that's early employees...so the number is even lower for those that come in later.

So sure, there are billion dollar companies where employees get millions...but those are rare...almost as rare as the number of people who make millions playing the lottery

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#67

Post by Vivtek »

pelemele wrote: post #63
someone13 wrote: post #6

Some people may not enjoy the green-on-black text, so this might be of use: http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff

The color scheme is not random. He is probably an old timer like me remembering old green/black monochrome 14" monitors. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-i...

Green and black monitors didn't rip my retinas to shreds. This does. I think he just does it because he can, part of the whole jwz f-bomber persona.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#68

Post by cdibona »

bl4k wrote: post #26

wait, does jwz really expect us to believe that he doesn't know who arrington is? I mean, the techcrunch conference afterparty two years ago was at his night club .. and I am pretty sure i saw both of them there.

I've booked/had people book the DNA and it's not uncommon to go through someone other than Jamie. So, yes, it's possible.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#69

Post by someone13 »

pelemele wrote: post #63
someone13 wrote: post #6

Some people may not enjoy the green-on-black text, so this might be of use: http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff

The color scheme is not random. He is probably an old timer like me remembering old green/black monochrome 14" monitors. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-i...

Oh, of course - I own one myself! But it's rather hard on the eyes, so I keep the Readability bookmarklet around :-)

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#70

Post by steve8918 »

ghshephard wrote: post #52
guelo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working 80 hour weeks grinding out a startup or 3 is still the most probable way of banking a decent retirement fund Seems doubtful to me. Does anyone have statistics on how many non-founder VC funded engineers have made even $1 million off of equity? I'm going to guess it's less than 1:20,000 employees, a suckers bet. If you're willing to work hard you have a much better chance by starting your own boot-strapped n…

Depends on what time period we are talking about - if over 4 years, then $1 million is a handsome return for an early stage (non founding, first 10) engineer at a successful startup. If over 8 years, then $1 million equity return works out to be $125K/year - not as exciting. I'd suggest the odds for a $1million equity return over eight years is closer to 1/20. Still lousy odds, but a great engineer can shift them by…

I know engineers that have made over $250k/yr total compensation (including salary, bonus, and stock options) over the last 2 years alone. And this is for a well established post-IPO company (not Google). I think their take home just from monthly vesting stock was roughly $150k over 2 years.

I still remember the thread where someone asked about how much people made out on an exit, and it seemed like firmly 80% of the people who responded said that they got screwed by the founders or VC, and only one said that he made enough for a downpayment on a house. So to me, 5% odds to make $1MM over 8 years seems really high.

It would be an interesting statistic to see how many startups have been started since 2008 and what their success rate has been.

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