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Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

mhalligan.com

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Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#231

Post by walshemj »

swilk wrote: post #45
nilkn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's his tone which comes off as entitled to me. Very, very entitled. He sounds like one cocky dude to me. Let's all take a moment to reflect on a few things. For instance, we are pretty lucky to be passionate about something which just happens to be pretty good at producing a lot of monetary value for companies, and consequently it's not too hard for us to convince companies to pay us a lot and give us great benefit…

All my finance friends make about 10x what my engineer friends make and work equally hard. If you compare engineers to lawyers, doctors, and executives we are very much underpaid.

yep same in the uk the average GP (family doctor) makes $180k which is far higher than the Average engineer makes.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#232

Post by pg »

vinceguidry wrote: post #217
pg wrote: post #133

This entire thesis is a red herring. I doubt we've ever had a conversation with a startup about what sort of benefits they should offer. Since the startups in a position to hire lots of people will presumably have raised money from later stage investors, if anyone is giving them advice about this, it would probably be them. FWIW, if anyone did ask my advice about what benefits to offer, I'd tell them to err on the si…

I would have assumed that a deep conversation on hiring would be part of the YC program, as it is indeed non-trivial yet essential, but from this post and re-reading the "What happens at Y Combinator" page, it appears that YC is mostly geared towards getting founders funding. There just isn't enough time in the day to convey everything.

It's not so much that we don't have time as that hiring is not the startups' focus at the early stage where we spend most time with them. We mostly talk about what to build and how to get users.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#233

Post by [deleted] »

guptaneil wrote: post #175
pg wrote: post #133

This entire thesis is a red herring. I doubt we've ever had a conversation with a startup about what sort of benefits they should offer. Since the startups in a position to hire lots of people will presumably have raised money from later stage investors, if anyone is giving them advice about this, it would probably be them. FWIW, if anyone did ask my advice about what benefits to offer, I'd tell them to err on the si…

I'd argue that being less generous with benefits is a good filter for hiring candidates that are genuinely interested in what the startup's doing (which is crucial in early employees) rather than somebody who's just looking for another job, like the author. Edit: To clarify, there is huge difference between offering no benefits and offering fewer benefits than a large company. I'm not advocating treating employees li…

[deleted]

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#234

Post by coolsunglasses »

dopamean wrote: post #151
coolsunglasses wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been contracting for a long time, I know the risks and it's not just about the money. It's about the self ownership. Of course it's better for the company, they want the ability to coerce the employee and hold their livelihood/healthcare hostage. With my arrangement, I keep the same healthcare plan no matter who I'm working for or what I'm doing.

> I've been contracting for a long time Didn't you just say you are 24?

I'd call 4 out of 6 years working self-employed a long time for a 24 year old.

Your snark isn't appreciated.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#235

Post by argonaut »

guptaneil wrote: post #211
argonaut wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call BS. Sure, you could spin it that way. You could also spin it the other way: a startup that doesn't offer benefits doesn't care about making their employees' lives easier, and thus not offering benefits is a negative signal to potential employees.

Just because a startup doesn't offer lots of monetary benefits doesn't mean it doesn't respect its employees. Generally, the advantage of a startup is that you get far greater independence and autonomy than in a large corporation. You have to personally weigh what matters to you more: money or independence. My point was that startups should favor employees who want independence more than money because as it has been…

What does money have to do with independence? Can't you richly reward autonomous engineers? Are you suggesting there is an inverse correlation between independence and benefits? Are you suggesting there is a mutually exclusive zero-sum relationship between attention paid to benefits and attention paid to independence? All of these are unfounded assumptions.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#236

Post by philco »

I don't think he gets it. The choice is clear, do you want to earn, or do you want to learn? Going to an early stage startup as a non-founder is learning...you don't have the upside of a founder, but you're exposed to a lot of really cool shit.

You want to earn? Then go earn where people will pay you what you want?

The post had nothing to do with benefits, it had everything to do with money. IF you want to make money, and you don't care about the problems you're solving, and you don't care about learning, then go work for Oracle.

Stop bitching.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#237

Post by etchalon »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #234
dopamean wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been contracting for a long time Didn't you just say you are 24?

I'd call 4 out of 6 years working self-employed a long time for a 24 year old. Your snark isn't appreciated.

A long time for a 24 year old, yes.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#238

Post by technotony »

michaelochurch wrote: post #229
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a losing proposition, financially speaking. But it sure is a lot more fun and satisfying working at a startup than a large corporation. Maybe. However, I think most us know people that love working for Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, et al. Frankly, I think your independence claim is overstated—financial support is crucial. Shigeru Miyamoto emphasized this perspective in a 2012 New Yorker profile: “There’s a…

There’re many reasons to found a startup, very few to work for one. There are good startups out there. I'm almost notorious for startup-bashing because so many of them have awful cultures, but there are decent small/new companies out there. You'll probably have to look outside of VC-istan. VC-istan seems to appeal to the Clueless (see: MacLeod hierarchy) young who will jump at the chance to work "at a startup!" witho…

How's he doing with that offer? Is he at least paying market salary?

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#239

Post by kyllo »

Schwolop wrote: post #164
buro9 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

> I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things Absolutely agreed. I just wrote about this recently[1], arguing that to be the best programmer, you really need to do something else as a specialty, and have programming simply as your trade. Programming is a value enhancer on another skill, and (in my opinion) is less value if it's the only thing you can offer. Effectively, your skill caps out at some point, a…

That's easier said than done. Programming is such a hard and specialized field, that very few people can be fully competent at it and have another field of business expertise. There are two general paths to that:

1. Study CS in school, get employed as a programmer in an unrelated industry and attempt to absorb industry knowledge from your coworkers outside the IT department (easier to do at a small company). Industry knowledge will inform your code projects and put them in context, but your job is still to write code and not to participate in business decisions.

2. Study business admin or econ in school, get employed in marketing or operations, and attempt to learn programming on the side. You can use programming skills to write personal automation scripts and maybe some internal productivity apps to share with your colleagues, but will not be asked or trusted to work on any production codebase as that is not part of your job description, and they already hired dedicated programmers to do that. You do not have a lot of time to work on coding anyway, because you have other responsibilities.

Things can get more fuzzy at a small company where people tend to wear more hats. But at most big companies, job descriptions are pretty specialized, and programming either is your job or it isn't.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#240

Post by danielweber »

michaelochurch wrote: post #226
guptaneil wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that being less generous with benefits is a good filter for hiring candidates that are genuinely interested in what the startup's doing (which is crucial in early employees) rather than somebody who's just looking for another job, like the author. Edit: To clarify, there is huge difference between offering no benefits and offering fewer benefits than a large company. I'm not advocating treating employees li…

Health insurance is non-negotiable and shouldn't have an employee contribution. The rest of the benefits are more negotiable. 401k becomes important in your 30s when you start realizing that you're not going to be young forever. Conference budget is a nice-to-have but conferences shouldn't come out of your vacation-- that's a fuck-you if they do. Regarding compensation: the total package should be enough that people…

God, you reminded me of a start-up where the independently wealthy CEO kept on bitching out loud in the office, three years after the fact, about early-round employees that demanded health insurance (but were willing to work for peanuts).
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