Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
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Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#2A lot of peoples eyes glaze over when they go into startups because they hear all the success stories. It can definitely happen in this field, but most people don't realize what it takes. I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it.
Edit: and I guess on one hand innovation and providing jobs is good but for everyone to want to do it now is a little crazy.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#3A lot of peoples eyes glaze over when they go into startups because they hear all the success stories. It can definitely happen in this field, but most people don't realize what it takes. I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it. Edit: and I guess on one hand innovation and providing jobs is good but for everyone to want to do it now is a little crazy.
>> I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it.
I don't think that's true, it just looks that way inside our tech bubble. If I look at the 100 people I know best (all in their early/mid twenties) only myself and 3-4 others have started businesses. I've stuck at it for about 5 years now, the others only lasted between 1 month and 4 months. I don't know for sure but I believe most businesses that are started are still local service businesses (barber, butcher, convenience store etc.) which you wouldn't think from reading the tech press everyday.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#4A lot of peoples eyes glaze over when they go into startups because they hear all the success stories. It can definitely happen in this field, but most people don't realize what it takes. I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it. Edit: and I guess on one hand innovation and providing jobs is good but for everyone to want to do it now is a little crazy.
>> I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it.
I think it is fantastic that people want to create companies. After all entrepreneurs take risks to create jobs, value and wealth.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#5It goes without saying that you won't get personally rich from any contract or investment without running the numbers.
However, many employees consider it pretty enriching to work in a start-up environment for $200k+/year of salary and stock options, where the stock option portion is generally going up.
If you actually join early enough to get 0.25% of a company, like immediately post VC raise, usually the "success" scenario you talk about is not selling for 3x the current valuation. (I wonder how many companies that sell for that are actually "failures" but with well-connected VCs that can make a sale.)
And can we stop talking about "success" like a lottery? There are many Bay Area companies with actual business models making good revenue and growing it steadily into the multiple millions. I'm sure the early employees will make out just fine. I'm sure the founders would be interested in applying this "you're basically rolling the dice" model of business to their companies.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#6I already brought some Indignation Sauce to this topic: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-yo...
Mark Suster is right about the financials. You won't get rich.
I will go further. The VC-istan startup promise is empty. You probably won't get investor contact unless you negotiate for it. Why would they help you get the connections needed to be a founder, when the alternative is that you not get those and never be a competitive threat?
Many of these VC-istan firms develop horrible cultures as the engineers realize they won't get the leadership opportunities they were promised, because those are going to go out to entice new hires. You get a lot of ill-advised code throw-outs that exist only because someone was promised, in hiring, that he'd have that authority... so he uses it on the first day without even knowing what's being tossed.
I don't think you should use "learning" as justification for taking a bad deal. Not if you don't know the people, because how do you know if you're going to learn anything?
In general, higher pay tends to lead to higher-quality projects, not for the obvious reasons, but for this: your salary is how much it costs your boss to waste your damn time.
If you're a founder or a key hire and you trust the people involved, it's different but, in general, don't use "these are my learning years" to justify an awful deal.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#7A lot of peoples eyes glaze over when they go into startups because they hear all the success stories. It can definitely happen in this field, but most people don't realize what it takes. I hate that starting a company is becoming almost trendy now and everyone is trying it. Edit: and I guess on one hand innovation and providing jobs is good but for everyone to want to do it now is a little crazy.
Honestly, as soon as you've started a company and actually worked at it for a little while, you realize how little that means. A company is a legal entity; it's easy and (can be) cheap to establish. Building a business is a totally different matter, and I don't think people understand how different the two are.
My guess is that most rational people who attempt the former learn to respect the latter, and either do a better job the second time (or, rarely, figure it out the first time) or decide they're better off working for someone else.
Of course, that formula fails as soon as some gasbag gets VC money for spouting the right spin... but hopefully that's a very, very small minority. :)
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#8I'm learning at my current job and it just keeps coming. I hate to admit it but the amount you need to learn just to get an idea of what you didn't know before you knew it is staggering. If you're young enough, I say learn as much as you can. Don't waste those few years at companies that won't develop you as a person. You can only push so many cogs before you get jaded.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#9It goes without saying that you won't get personally rich from any contract or investment without running the numbers . However, many employees consider it pretty enriching to work in a start-up environment for $200k+/year of salary and stock options, where the stock option portion is generally going up. If you actually join early enough to get 0.25% of a company, like immediately post VC raise, usually the "success"…
Startup jobs at $200k are fairly rare, and not really accessible unless you're an executive implant. At least in New York, very few startup boards will sign off on an engineer salary at that level.
0.25 percent of a post-A company is pretty weak sauce. You should value equity at a fraction of what investors do. First, investors are diversified. You're not. Second, their stake gets the VCs control and an excuse to hand out executive positions to their underachieving, middle-aged friends. Yours doesn't. Third, your equity comes with a cliff and I can name a couple startups that are notorious for firing people days before cliff.
Re: Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
#10It goes without saying that you won't get personally rich from any contract or investment without running the numbers . However, many employees consider it pretty enriching to work in a start-up environment for $200k+/year of salary and stock options, where the stock option portion is generally going up. If you actually join early enough to get 0.25% of a company, like immediately post VC raise, usually the "success"…
Startup jobs at $200k are fairly rare, and not really accessible unless you're an executive implant. At least in New York, very few startup boards will sign off on an engineer salary at that level. 0.25 percent of a post-A company is pretty weak sauce. You should value equity at a fraction of what investors do. First, investors are diversified. You're not. Second, their stake gets the VCs control and an excuse to han…
To clarify, I meant $200k including the current value of the stock options that vest in a year.
I'm also writing with engineers in mind rather than executives, and based on Bay Area salaries.