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SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

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Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#81

Post by quartesixte »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #30
tenpies wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do Elon's companies: https://www.engadget.com/tesla-sues-engineer-dojo-trade-secr... https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-lawsuit-supercomputer-... https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/tesla-sues-former-employee... --- I think the key is that these startups aren't competing with SpaceX, but are rather SpaceX-adjacent. There is also a uniqueness to the industry that SpaceX operates in, in that everyone is basically t…

The two big ones, Relativity and Firefly, are definitely direct competitors. As to the lawsuits, generally don't take any of your employers code or data with you when you leave, and you'll be fine.

It helps that rocketry is 1) kind of a solved problem 2) a lot of unsolved problems get solved by NASA scientists so is open sourced 3) the laws of physics demand that certain outcomes.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#82

Post by bee_rider »

kortilla wrote: post #76
jiggawatts wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks marketing people that decided to double down despite the clear distaste of the general public at their relentless tracking.

Is this the clear distaste of the general public or an overreaction with bad regulation by a government authority? It’s been how many years now and GDPR has done very little to improve anything despite the cookie prompts on websites everywhere? At this point they are as useful as TOS (not) with the annoyance of seeing one every website.

I like the banner, it lets me know to turn back.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#83

Post by speakfreely »

ethanbond wrote: post #62
airstrike wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also much more probable to become a multi millionaire through a startup than a FAANG

It definitely is not. The 99.999% case for startups is you walk away with nothing, and that’s true even if you’re good enough to crush it at FAANG. Crush it at FAANG for a few years and don’t spend like crazy and you’ll be a multimillionaire.

The definition of multimillionaire is a bit vague here, but I would assume the OP was referring to being in deca-millionaire territory. That is much more rare to accomplish at a FAANG company.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#84

Post by PeterisP »

mjevans wrote: post #77
PeterisP wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsers can't tell if a cookie is a generic setting ("chose Yes/No on a banner") or a uniquely identifiable one; and they can't tell if a cookie is functionally required (ID for a logged-in session) or not (ID to track random visitors). The distinction is legal, not technical; so it has to be enforced by legal, not technical means.

Firefox COULD default to cookies off (with an in menu widget to force them on for non-automatic handling), and if any forum submission happens _ask_ if the end user wants to accept the site's cookies.

Looking at a typical site, a reasonable user might want to accept one (or perhaps a couple) of many dozens of cookies a site attempts to set. Choosing it manually per site per cookie is difficult but perhaps theoretically possible, however even that still requires cooperation from the site to honestly identify that this one is the cookie which is functionally required, and these fifty are for ad tracking, and ensuring that cooperation still requires legal means and can't be done with purely technical ones.

Furthermore, there is the important distinction about multiple uses of the same data. There are uniquely identifiable cookies that are functionally required for one purpose but the site may want to use it for other purposes as well (e.g. share that data with heir "trusted partners" for targeted advertising) for which user may reasonably want to refuse permission, so a browser accepting a cookie doesn't imply such permission and something extra is required.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#85

Post by haxton »

echelon wrote: post #3

I wish it was more like this at existing companies. Why everyone isn't leaving Adobe, Meta, and Google to found their own AI / generative media startups astounds me. If you work in our incredibly lucrative field, you may be able to afford a few quarters of leaning into risk. Startups are like a brush fire. Old incumbents have so much legacy code and cruft that nimble upstarts killing them is healthy . The "SpaceX dia…

Actually just quit my job at Meta to do just that. So you're not far off, I think you'll be surprised at how many ex-FAANG startups you'll see in the comings months.

At least in our blind chat it seems there are several other like-minded people.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#86

Post by tarr11 »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #71
echelon wrote: post #3

I wish it was more like this at existing companies. Why everyone isn't leaving Adobe, Meta, and Google to found their own AI / generative media startups astounds me. If you work in our incredibly lucrative field, you may be able to afford a few quarters of leaning into risk. Startups are like a brush fire. Old incumbents have so much legacy code and cruft that nimble upstarts killing them is healthy . The "SpaceX dia…

Ex-Netflixer here. I've come to appreciate that equity for your time !== equity for your money. Take cash in excess of your burn rate in-hand over equity any day. Then take that excess cash and buy equity. Compared to taking a $250k base and $250k equity offer from a startup, it's substantially better to take a $500k cash in-hand offer from FAANG and use your extra $250k to cut angel checks. Some early-stage startups…

How have the returns been?

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#87

Post by lukeschlather »

kortilla wrote: post #76
jiggawatts wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks marketing people that decided to double down despite the clear distaste of the general public at their relentless tracking.

Is this the clear distaste of the general public or an overreaction with bad regulation by a government authority? It’s been how many years now and GDPR has done very little to improve anything despite the cookie prompts on websites everywhere? At this point they are as useful as TOS (not) with the annoyance of seeing one every website.

The properly GDPR compliant cookie banners allow you to itemize certain items on the website's TOS that you may choose to accept or not accept. Website TOS are very useful for the company operating the website and the cookie rules allow you as a visitor to get some of that usefulness back.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#88

Post by xvector »

speakfreely wrote: post #83
ethanbond wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely is not. The 99.999% case for startups is you walk away with nothing, and that’s true even if you’re good enough to crush it at FAANG. Crush it at FAANG for a few years and don’t spend like crazy and you’ll be a multimillionaire.

The definition of multimillionaire is a bit vague here, but I would assume the OP was referring to being in deca-millionaire territory. That is much more rare to accomplish at a FAANG company.

The average SWE at FAANG can become a deca-millionaire over the course of 20-25 working years.

Starting from $0, this requires saving $125k a year for 21 years to reach $10.06M at an 11.88% interest rate, which is the S&P500 average. Well within the capability of any senior SWE @ FAANG, and it only takes 4 years to get to senior.

But then capital gains taxes hit.

Anyways, yes, a startup employee on the other hand can become a deca-millionaire in a year or two.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#89

Post by chatmasta »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #71
echelon wrote: post #3

I wish it was more like this at existing companies. Why everyone isn't leaving Adobe, Meta, and Google to found their own AI / generative media startups astounds me. If you work in our incredibly lucrative field, you may be able to afford a few quarters of leaning into risk. Startups are like a brush fire. Old incumbents have so much legacy code and cruft that nimble upstarts killing them is healthy . The "SpaceX dia…

Ex-Netflixer here. I've come to appreciate that equity for your time !== equity for your money. Take cash in excess of your burn rate in-hand over equity any day. Then take that excess cash and buy equity. Compared to taking a $250k base and $250k equity offer from a startup, it's substantially better to take a $500k cash in-hand offer from FAANG and use your extra $250k to cut angel checks. Some early-stage startups…

As a startup founder who doesn't pay himself much, IMO people either care about money or they don't. Depends what you're optimizing for. But if you're obsessed with cash you shouldn't start a company IMO. You're better off working for "FAANG" or whatever the cash obsessed optimizers are calling it these days.

I mean obviously if you start a company you want to optimize for it making profit, but the original goal should be, primarily, totally disconnected from money. Any monetary benefits should be a side effect of providing value. In the most ideal world, your equity turns into cash 10-15 years later, but you shouldn't set out with that being your goal.

My perspective on this is coming from someone who made easy money on a ridiculous business selling proxies to SEO spammers in college, and I didn't know what to do with the money (I spent it all on worthless shit). I've learned I'm much happier when I'm meeting some minimal survival baseline while trying to build a sustainable organization that produces a useful product.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#90

Post by moneywoes »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #71
echelon wrote: post #3

I wish it was more like this at existing companies. Why everyone isn't leaving Adobe, Meta, and Google to found their own AI / generative media startups astounds me. If you work in our incredibly lucrative field, you may be able to afford a few quarters of leaning into risk. Startups are like a brush fire. Old incumbents have so much legacy code and cruft that nimble upstarts killing them is healthy . The "SpaceX dia…

Ex-Netflixer here. I've come to appreciate that equity for your time !== equity for your money. Take cash in excess of your burn rate in-hand over equity any day. Then take that excess cash and buy equity. Compared to taking a $250k base and $250k equity offer from a startup, it's substantially better to take a $500k cash in-hand offer from FAANG and use your extra $250k to cut angel checks. Some early-stage startups…

Are you apart of an angel network how do you do DD, seems akin to a lottery no?
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