291–300 of 342 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your Human Resources people don't play a significant role in purchasing your human resources, something has gone wrong.
Give me a break. In most companies, "human resources" exists primarily to cut people's health insurance benefits.
Work at a large, established organization and earn your fair market rate at a 40 hour work week, and start your own company on the side if you want to get rich folks. I'd never work for any startup again unless I was the founder.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that is just poor stereotyping. Most of the software developers I've worked with in my career have had very good social skills, those that didn't, were poor developers as well... So are they bad negotiators because of they lack negotiating ability, or actual ability? Is there data on the social skills of IT, HR, Gender breakdown etc... Perhaps what you are refering to is a U.S (?) phenomenon?
The correct answer is that developers do not have, and are resistant to, unionization. As individuals they'll always have very little bargaining power, and most developers are pretty easily replaceable (especially before they're hired).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has anyone stopped to think what a massive failing of the startup part of the industry this is? Practically everything I read online indicates that if you consider your stock options to have any value at all even in a moderately successful company, you are a major sucker and about to get exploited. Surely this must reduce the quality of the talent pool available to new startups, as the experienced developers conclude…
We came to this conclusion as well; we decided to do bonuses based on Y/Y revenue growth rather than equity. The bonuses are not capped. This allows us to: 1) Justly reward our employees to the upside (with cash, delivered semi-anually) if things go according to plan 2) Automatically controls costs if we don't perform as a team 3) Achieve upside fairness across early vs late employees since we can adjust the bonus %…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has anyone stopped to think what a massive failing of the startup part of the industry this is? Practically everything I read online indicates that if you consider your stock options to have any value at all even in a moderately successful company, you are a major sucker and about to get exploited. Surely this must reduce the quality of the talent pool available to new startups, as the experienced developers conclude…
> Has anyone stopped to think what a massive failing of the startup part of the industry this is? The failing is not that the employee equity math rarely works out, it's that the "industry" is so focused on equity. It often falls short as a recruiting tool (a significant number of prospective employees are clued in to the fact that it's likely to be worthless) and it's usually a poor retention tool as well (just look…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We came to this conclusion as well; we decided to do bonuses based on Y/Y revenue growth rather than equity. The bonuses are not capped. This allows us to: 1) Justly reward our employees to the upside (with cash, delivered semi-anually) if things go according to plan 2) Automatically controls costs if we don't perform as a team 3) Achieve upside fairness across early vs late employees since we can adjust the bonus %…
Cool :-). I worked at a very successful company that used a similar model: flat 50% of profits paid to employees as bonus. This worked fantastically well in the short term. Now, 10 years later, the company is still very successful but the upside has all shifted to the owners due to departures, renegotiations, and new hires not getting the same terms. So at 3 years it looked very pro-employee but at 10 years it looks…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
overperformance is far more dangerous (in large companies) than underperformance. Why? Can you explain.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... The Gervais Principle is a fascinating series of articles that explain why this is the case and also give a lot of insight into corporate America. It's a great read.
"Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser."
If you are working long hours and aren't rapidly negotiating your way up and into serious equity then you are marking yourself as a sucker. Don't be surprised if they continue to exploit you.
I've worked at two startups, including one YC. Both were acquired by larger tech companies. I was employee #3 at one and rebuilt most of a broken codebase in the other. I got nothing out of either WRT options. I agree with the author on point 4 but I don't think more options are the answer, I should have just asked for a higher salary I would have been better off. Startup-bucks are even worse than a lottery ticket, b…
There is also a major information asymmetry. They know the ins-and-outs of the stock types and likely acquisition scenarios. It is not likely you are going to go over the company financials and corporate documents during the interview process. You just have to hope they treat you fairly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... The Gervais Principle is a fascinating series of articles that explain why this is the case and also give a lot of insight into corporate America. It's a great read.
A very relevant line from this article: "Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser." If you are working long hours and aren't rapidly negotiating your way up and into serious equity then you are marking yourself as a sucker. Don't be surprised if they continue to exploit you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Has anyone stopped to think what a massive failing of the startup part of the industry this is? The failing is not that the employee equity math rarely works out, it's that the "industry" is so focused on equity. It often falls short as a recruiting tool (a significant number of prospective employees are clued in to the fact that it's likely to be worthless) and it's usually a poor retention tool as well (just look…
How is $120k/year to live in a top 5 most expensive city in the world to work harder than 95% of the people on the planet on a boring CRUD app winning the lottery in any stretch of the imagination? That sounds terrible.
Getting that first job on your resume can be quite a trick.
Just before he emphasizes, with italics, that this is only "compelling in some cases".
Because of the circumstances in which I got dumped into the job market, I started out with a sysadmin job with some programming, which I turned into more programming, but it was not a great start, and it was only through unique coincidence (about the only person in the community with serious Lisp Machine and UNIX(TM) experience) and connections that I got my first really good job.