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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

#291

Post by pg »

dools wrote: post #288
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 j…

Last batch the median age was 27.

http://blog.statwing.com/a-statistical-portrait-of-a-y-combi...

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

#292

Post by drx »

rdl wrote: post #118

I don't think benefits are the main reason to work anywhere -- doing meaningful work and working with great people far exceeds financial benefit, and salary/bonus/equity should dominate fringe benefits. However, why do benefits packages need to be uniform? I personally hate having "benefits" in my compensation which come out of my salary which I don't really want. Sometimes companies get tax savings (i.e. they can de…

> I pay $118/mo for better coverage than ~any company I've seen

Could you please elaborate on this?

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

#293

Post by sybhn »

oijaf888 wrote: post #268
sybhn wrote: post #92

A side question on his net calculation, how did he end up with 63% tax rate? anyone care to elaborate

Just using rough numbers: 33% federal income tax 6.2% on the first 113K for Social Security 1.45% for Medicare 9.3% for CA state income tax Plus any local taxes? Gets to about 50% there. I know in NYC when the company I was with sold, my total tax rate was 52% on it.

right, i would expect 50% to go to the tax man, unless waiting long enough to get into long term capital gain. His 63% threw me off there, sounds like France!

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

#294

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayhooray wrote: post #140
michaelochurch wrote: post #7

The 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'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 the fact that their employees aren't able to cash in on the prestige of being YC and will therefore expect hard currency." Well said. It's actually infuriating when one joins a…

[deleted]

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

#295

Post by jebblue »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #165

I clicked through to his LinkedIn resume (always on the look out for solid DevOps types). I think it is great that Michael understands exactly what he wants in terms of a compensation package. And for a variety of reasons, its pretty clear that a "startup" isn't going to meet those needs. So he's currently "Contractor at Self-Employed" which is also fine because you really do have a lot of flexibility as a contractor…

>> reading his list is a lot of capital to invest in a single employee

That single employee with his background represents millions of dollars per year in revenue, he should be asking for more and you should get a clue.

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

#296

Post by herdrick »

meerita wrote: post #147

The panorama in Spain for many startups: - 30k/year (minus all the taxes) ~21/23k/y - 28 days for holidays. - No health insurances (free health insurance on the country) - No conferences - No pluses. Profitable companies: a bit more of money, but not that much: 35K/year. About shares, as usual: the promise. some of them makes you sign something but to opt those you need to stay around 5 years, wait to be IPO or you c…

How much does a house cost where those startups are?

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

#297

Post by lazyjones »

philco wrote: post #236

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…

> Going to an early stage startup as a non-founder is learning

Really? So startups do not need any experienced developers and architects? It's the other way round, the founders usually need to do the learning (fast!) and they'd better hire experienced people who can teach them something.

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

#298

Post by temphn »

confluence wrote: post #247

I'll repost a previous comment for the benefit of the HN community concerning exactly this situation for start-up employees from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362 (great discussion there btw), for those who missed it the first time around (hope that's ok): ... Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It…

"Relentlessly cynical", you sound like a great person to hire!

Someone like you shouldn't work for a startup. Go and work for a big company, go poison the atmosphere there. It's just not a good fit on both ends. If they're cheating you so bad, if it's so obviously a bad deal, why do you even care? In your view, startups suck and no one makes a lot of money or learns anything, so you aren't missing much.

Go work at Oracle and be happy with your 401k.

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

#299

Post by dchichkov »

throwawayhooray wrote: post #140
michaelochurch wrote: post #7

The 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'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 the fact that their employees aren't able to cash in on the prestige of being YC and will therefore expect hard currency." Well said. It's actually infuriating when one joins a…

I guess, there is some correlation between being worthy of YC club and successfully negotiating yourself a founder title. That's probably one of the reasons, why somebody with a non-founder title can't get in that easily.

Saying that, such situation is likely to has negative outcome for the company. A conflict in the founding team and high likelihood of significant contributors leaving the company and abandoning projects can't be good.

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

#300

Post by yen223 »

temphn wrote: post #298
confluence wrote: post #247

I'll repost a previous comment for the benefit of the HN community concerning exactly this situation for start-up employees from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362 (great discussion there btw), for those who missed it the first time around (hope that's ok): ... Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It…

"Relentlessly cynical", you sound like a great person to hire! Someone like you shouldn't work for a startup. Go and work for a big company, go poison the atmosphere there. It's just not a good fit on both ends. If they're cheating you so bad, if it's so obviously a bad deal, why do you even care? In your view, startups suck and no one makes a lot of money or learns anything, so you aren't missing much. Go work at Or…

Wanting to be compensated for work done is now "poisoning the atmosphere"? Jesus Christ...
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