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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

#281

Post by nilkn »

bearmf wrote: post #258
swilk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmm do all your finance friends around $1mil per year? This is huge even for finance.

I've noticed a tendency of people outside of finance to exaggerate the salaries inside of finance.

You're right: $1m/year is very rare overall even for the world of finance. And I assure you someone with that salary on Wall Street is working 80 hours a week at minimum and has been for quite some time.

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

#282

Post by guptaneil »

mikeash wrote: post #253
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…

Why concentrate on benefits. Being less generous with everything is a good filter for hiring candidates that are genuinely interested in what the startup's doing! Pay your employees poorly, and you're guaranteed to only get the ones who really believe in your company. You're virtually guaranteed success, right?

If you take any comment to its absolute extreme, it will stop making sense. If you consider my comment from the more reasonable stance that startups have limited resources compared to large companies and come with extra risks for employees, the fewer benefits can be valuable for dissuading people who might not otherwise be good culture fits.

For example, a 45 year old father who might be screwed if the startup shuts down 2 months later probably should not be applying to startups. However, a young recent college grad will have a much easier time bouncing back if the startup shuts down, simply because she has fewer responsibilities than the father. As a result, a lot of those benefits that the father is looking for are also less important to the recent college grad.

Of course, the startup should give the best possible benefits it can afford. But I don't see anything wrong with the startup focusing its limited resources on finding the employees that are better fits.

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

#283

Post by hmahncke »

donall wrote: post #71
mmt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Health insurance is a goddamn mess and a company can't expect to get it right in an afternoon, but it is important. How about just throwing money at the problem and outsourcing to someone like Trinet? Even if the company doesn't contribute much to premiums, I've always liked, as an employee, having Trinet.

I have had a series of bad experiences with Trinet. Not so bad that it's ruined my life, but bad like "I can't believe this is the best we can do for HR". I like the idea of outsourcing that sort of thing so we can focus on the hacking, but I feel like that particular space is ripe for disruption (to use a clichéd term).

We've been generally happy with TriNet, and it's worth having a great benefit package and an HR call center. It's not free, but I think the math works out about the same way free meals do.

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

#284

Post by trustfundbaby »

can someone explain this to me please?

> The YCombinator company probably didn't care enough to have their lawyer draw up the paperwork so that their employees can execute on their stock options from the first day to avoid AMT.

what does "executing" on stock options mean? how does it work with vesting?

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

#285

Post by danielweber »

seeingfurther wrote: post #279
danielweber wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By saying "including founders" you make it seem so fair. After all, if there is any benefit, founders should get it, right? But, founders obviously cannot have anti-dilution prevention. When a company is founded, by definition the founders have 100% of it, and the only way they can raise money is by diluting. If two founders and three VC reps are sitting around the board table discussing the next round of funding, if…

I'm not a VC so I can't say I've sat around in the above scenario a million times but I don't think a series B or C involves giving stock grants to founders just to keep their % high and avoid the impact of dilution. (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Every round they get diluted, they've just started out with more. I think the founder advantage might come in to play when a B or C actually liquidates founder shares.…

It's not a matter of course, but if anyone sitting around the board room table has found their investment dwindle away, they will get grants enough to have them stick around.

If you aren't around that board room table, you are SOL.

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

#286

Post by MaysonL »

RyJones wrote: post #130
reaclmbs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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?

It isn't even life-changing money. It's most of a house here in Seattle, or a quarter of a house in the valley. That's nice, but not life-changing.

It could well be life-changing, depending on your circumstances and condition.

There are parts of the US where it's a big house and almost enough to retire on, if you're lazy and willing to live cheap. It's definitely a few years of runway, if you've got an idea you want to explore. It's definitely a no-loan college education.

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

#287

Post by rayiner »

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…

I think that, as a young engineer, you also have to ask yourself why you want to work at a start-up. Is it to get rich? In that case you should be working somewhere that can teach you the ropes on your way to launching your own start-up (and even then you might be better served working somewhere you can get some domain expertise to separate you from all the fresh college grads). Is it to learn a lot and get a lot of responsibility? In that case you might consider small engineering firms that have moved out of the start-up stage and have real revenues coming in and can offer market salaries and full benefits. You won't get meaningful equity at a place like this, but you won't get that at most start-ups either. If you want to get in on the ground level of a growing organization, consider companies that aren't going the usual angel/VC route. I worked at a "out of the founder's basement" start-up that had some cost-plus contracts, and so could offer market salaries and benefits immediately. Again, no real equity in a situation like that, but on the flip side you know you'll still have a job in a year. And don't overlook working at a big faceless corporation just because it's not cool. Big organizations have the resources to actually train you, they have internal tracks for your career progression, they offer pretty good job security, etc.

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

#288

Post by dools »

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…

You do skew quite young in your choice of founder, though don't you?

I didn't see anything in the article state that you guys were explicitly advising founders to do these things. One of the first things the OP says is:

"YC seems to be a cult which is quite adept at turning college students into millionaires while creating billions of dollars of wealth for Venture Capitalists."

So the outcomes he's referring to may just be a direct result of the level of prior business experience amongst people you accept into the program.

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

#289

Post by onan_barbarian »

You have to wonder about someone who has interviewed with "about a dozen" YC companies and turned them all down for the same reason.

If the pattern is that obvious, what's he doing going back for interviews 4..12?

In a shock development, apparently YC companies don't slaver over "senior" employees who have stuff like this in their profiles: "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"."

Wow, you can really feel the passion.

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

#290

Post by khuey »

danielweber wrote: post #259
seeingfurther wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody gets anti-dilution protection. Including founders.

By saying "including founders" you make it seem so fair. After all, if there is any benefit, founders should get it, right? But, founders obviously cannot have anti-dilution prevention. When a company is founded, by definition the founders have 100% of it, and the only way they can raise money is by diluting. If two founders and three VC reps are sitting around the board table discussing the next round of funding, if…

Well it could work if the amount of stock is effectively fixed at creation time. Everyone I've ever talked to who doesn't already know how stock works is very surprised that more stock can be conjured out of nowhere. They always assume that new stock is formed by subdividing the existing stock (splitting) and that investors get shares that used to belong to the founders.
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