The thought that in the US your health insurance depends on your workplace makes me a little sick inside.
Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
91–100 of 360 posts
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#92A side question on his net calculation, how did he end up with 63% tax rate? anyone care to elaborate
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#93From the Author's bio: "I'm just this guy who used to enjoy tech, now I would rather build bicycles. I still work in the tech industry, for the money, but I no longer call myself a "technologist"." So points well made that a guy with children, in mid-career, and without much of a passion for the field he's working in finds a Y-Combinator offer to be less compelling than a more traditional package. But I'm not sure wh…
> "I'm just this guy who used to enjoy tech, now I would rather build bicycles. I still work in the tech industry, for the money, but I no longer call myself a "technologist"."
Actually, I love that. If our company was a little further along and I could afford to hire him I'd make an approach.
I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things, it's a tool we use. I prefer to have a techie who is able to feel the tactile quality in the process of bicycle building (bespoke frame-building through to just getting your hands dirty piecing components together) as I'd hope such an eye would course through everything that person did.
If he's a tech guy with 20 years experience, and that eye for a quality build and the aesthetic utility in a bicycle, then I'd be keen to see whether his work reflects it.
Companies go through phases, and the beg, borrow and steal... and poor package and renumeration... is the first phase and we should all seek to get beyond that quickly.
A business should be sustainable. To me that means that the costs of the business should be able to be fully met and not externalised: a good package for good people is part of that. As soon as it's possible to, that should be in place... because if we're not building a sustainable business then what are we doing?
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#94The prestige asset generated by YC is interesting, because I bet it's going to have an unintended consequence of increasing the social difference between founders and employees. If you're a YC founder, you're in the club. You were picked. It's great if you succeed; if you fail, you have a network. If you're a YC employee, you're just an employee of a small startup. YC founders seem, at least from this, to be blind to…
I agree with all you say here. I've been disappointed with the response when I have commented on such matters in the past. Responses are typically along the lines of, "I guess you're just not good enough" and "Not all of us just care about money."
I was honestly surprised to find replies along these lines in the comments of the blog post, given the author's very well reasoned explanation of his position and the psychology of people like him in skill/experience/obligations.
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#95[deleted]
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#96The prestige asset generated by YC is interesting, because I bet it's going to have an unintended consequence of increasing the social difference between founders and employees. If you're a YC founder, you're in the club. You were picked. It's great if you succeed; if you fail, you have a network. If you're a YC employee, you're just an employee of a small startup. YC founders seem, at least from this, to be blind to…
>if you fail, you have a network What is the factual basis for this statement ? Its not like this network will clothe & feed you & find you your next gig when your startup goes south. There are several yc alumni who, after their startup went bust, also went bust.
I'm not sure about this. Your network's primary purpose is to help find you your next gig. Who are the YC alumni that "went bust"? I would be interested in talking to them.
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never said it was entitled to want to be paid the market value. Entitlement is a personality trait, not an aspect of rationality or reasoning.
You basically (literally) said exactly that. "Entitlement" is not a personality trait, "acting entitled" is, and even then it's only a negative if you aren't entitled to whatever you're "acting entitled" about. "Entitlement" is literally nothing more than having the "right to something." And as a human, you are absolutely entitled to being paid exactly what you are worth.
> you are absolutely entitled to being paid exactly what you are worth.
Sure, whatever. But what you're not entitled to is being worth something in the first place.
If you can't recognize your own fortune in enjoying and being passionate about something which, as a side effect, makes you valuable to companies, I don't really see this discussion going anywhere from here.
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#98Just curious on the part where he says that the stock is most likely worthless. Are there any hard numbers on the average outcome of YC startups, and startups in general? I mean, all else being equal, what is the expected value of 0.5% of the equity of the average startup at stage X these days?
It all depends. Dilution is a real killer. You may have 0.5% today, but what about after Series B? Or, heaven forbid, a down-round? Even if you sustained no dilution, 0.5% of $100M is only $500K. Don't get me wrong, $500K is nice, but by no means is that life-changing money.
$500k is life-changing money, but not FU-money. You think that not having to worry about rent and food and medical bills wouldn't change your life?
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the risk isn't being compensated, I'm with you on that point. That's Bullshit! But the... "founders have a much greater risk/reward ratio than employees", that is not a fallacy in most cases. In my own case, I've been working for 18 months with no salary and I don't consider myself unique. Most founders go down the same long long road before they bring on their first employee. I've learned that most employees (if…
> "dismiss the amount of risk founders take on to get a company to the point of even being able to make their first hire." I don't think this is really the issue. The issue is that the economics of startups don't really work if you expect below-market salaries to be a thing. Founders shoulder tremendous risk and (the smart ones) live on starvation-level salaries for months, if not years, before they bring on their fi…
I agree, the risk vs reward has to be fair and make sense. Below market salary AND very little equity is just plain wrong. You better be curing cancer, going to space or some intangible that makes that sort of equation worthwhile. Most startups don't. Space X comes to mind though :-)
Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup
#100From the Author's bio: "I'm just this guy who used to enjoy tech, now I would rather build bicycles. I still work in the tech industry, for the money, but I no longer call myself a "technologist"." So points well made that a guy with children, in mid-career, and without much of a passion for the field he's working in finds a Y-Combinator offer to be less compelling than a more traditional package. But I'm not sure wh…
Listen, I know that once we turn forty we're all put out to pasture in the Great Programmer Iceberg and left to fend for ourselves but: I think the takeaway is, you're not building something sustainable if you can't attract people with kids. Kids are a very natural and common lifecycle event for people over the age of 25. In terms of dollars and cents, the notion that you're building a team of "world class talent" th…
This is so well stated. It's something I (age 34, married, no kid(s) (yet)) think about a lot. I live and work in a city (San Francisco) and in an industry (web developer) where being 10 years older than the median age of my neighbors and colleagues feels like a liability. I feel like I've just figured a few important things out and I'm already past my prime.