My experience as the first employee of a Y Combinator startup

Employee compensation from startups depends on many factors including how much they value employees, but it's really important for prospective startup employees to understand that you'll probably work longer hours, have more responsibility, and earn less than if you keep your day job.

Someone with experience in a great "normal" job may be surprised that the compensation, including equity, of a first employee is usually significantly less than what they're already earning. A first employee is taking a risk in opportunity cost by accepting a lower salary, but the risk should have an associated reward, namely equity. However, if a company has to do well just for the employee to break even with the opportunity cost, joining a startup doesn't seem like a sound choice. And not just in terms of money, but also general wealth and quality of life.

Further, the hours conserved by remaining at the day job can be used to build your own product. When the risk-level is acceptable, leave the day job for your own startup where you can maintain control and keep a meaningful equity percentage.

There are benefits to being a startup employee, such as the exposure to growing a company and the opportunity to join a support network and work with good people. Those things have value, but not always enough to offset the opportunity cost of either keeping the day job or founding your own startup.

Personally, I'd still consider joining a startup as an employee if it was a great match.

As a side note, RethinkDB has done a great job with posting a mapping of position/experience to compensation. They set compensation expectations before a prospective employee has even applied.

Nice post. I think I would have a hard time pulling the trigger so quickly after meeting someone, but it sounds like serendipity.

Obviously it's not bad in and of itself, it's just an additional layer of homogeneity that a prospective teammate will consider before applying.

The 90+ hour workweeks are already a big red flag to anyone with a spouse and/or children. It's hard to get along at work when everyone else is comfortable contributing in ways that you can't match directly. No one wants to be the odd man out in a high pressure work environment.

Edit: Fwiw I am also a white 20something male! I have always worked in relatively diverse environments and I have enjoyed it and would look for the same in my next employer.

I've had some weeks where I've pulled 90+ hours, but my normal week is more like 70 hours.

It's not bad that they're white - it's bad if they're three identical clones.