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A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

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Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#11

Post by throwaway230511 »

questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

This is one of those HN-isms that I think isn't right at all. Having worked at early stage companies, growth-stage companies, and in big tech:

1. What is the risk? From where I'm sitting, layoffs seem to be happening at all company sizes. At least early stage cos typically are pretty transparent internally so you know where the business stands.

2. Compensation is lower than $BigTechCo, no doubt about it, but it's competitive with other companies for folks early in their career.

3. Early stage companies are more fun! Ask your friends, you'll find that the $BigTechCo ones dislike their job but feel the weight of the golden handcuffs, and the $EarlyStageStartup ones love their jobs (but wish they could get $BigTechCo money for it!). Personally after the nth re-org, project cancellation, and executive temper tantrum I was ready to leave $BigTechCo.

4. You don't get founder equity, but the first 10 employees certainly get $LifeChanging outcomes on >B+ exits.

5. I worked the same number of hours at $ShittyBigCompany, $ExcitingEarlyStageStartup, $FamousBigTechCo, and current $GrowhtStageStartup (in fact, maybe a bit less now that I have kids). YMMV!

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#12

Post by cj »

questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

> It's literally the worst deal you can take

I joined a YC company as a 1st employee (and also did YC as a founder).

I agree working at an early stage (especially But (depending on the company size and the founders) it can also be an amazing crash course in how to build a company if you aspire to build your own company one day.

Being part of a tiny startup gives you visibility into things that work (and more importantly, things that don't work) when you go on to start your own company one day.

If starting your own company is what you aspire to do, joining a very small startup is a free way to learn a lot of lessons about how (and how not to) run/build a company. For some people that can be priceless. For others, it's not.

I also think there's a good argument to be made for working in Big Tech for a few years (e.g. maximize salary potential) if you aspire to start a company, especially if you don't have savings to fall back on.

It really depends what you're optimizing for.

Edit: FWIW, I was definitely underpaid by the YC startup as a 1st employee and didn't make any money on stock options and worked crazy hours with barely any vacation time. But I learned so much during those 2 years. It was an amazing way to see first hand how companies thrive or fail - it's way better to learn the hard lessons as an employee via observation compared to as a founder making the mistakes first-hand. It was also exciting and fun. The one fear I have is that this experience may not be reproducible in a remote setting. Almost all of what I learned by being an early employee at a YC company were things I observed sitting in the same room as the founders 10 hours a day (as a developer). I don't think it would have been nearly as rewarding if I had been working remote the whole time.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#13

Post by WinLychee »

throwaway230511 wrote: post #11
questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

This is one of those HN-isms that I think isn't right at all. Having worked at early stage companies, growth-stage companies, and in big tech: 1. What is the risk? From where I'm sitting, layoffs seem to be happening at all company sizes. At least early stage cos typically are pretty transparent internally so you know where the business stands. 2. Compensation is lower than $BigTechCo, no doubt about it, but it's com…

Agree that the risk is overblown. Apart from the sometimes frantic pace, startups also have more flexibility for different personalities. In a small company things aren't standardized and there's room for uniqueness.

#4 to me is uncertain. I view startup equity as slightly better than a lottery ticket, but unlikely to beat RSUs in a public company unless you get super lucky.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#14

Post by throwaway230511 »

WinLychee wrote: post #13
throwaway230511 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those HN-isms that I think isn't right at all. Having worked at early stage companies, growth-stage companies, and in big tech: 1. What is the risk? From where I'm sitting, layoffs seem to be happening at all company sizes. At least early stage cos typically are pretty transparent internally so you know where the business stands. 2. Compensation is lower than $BigTechCo, no doubt about it, but it's com…

Agree that the risk is overblown. Apart from the sometimes frantic pace, startups also have more flexibility for different personalities. In a small company things aren't standardized and there's room for uniqueness. #4 to me is uncertain. I view startup equity as slightly better than a lottery ticket, but unlikely to beat RSUs in a public company unless you get super lucky.

Sure, but that's the "upside" that OP is talking about ("Very little upside for the risk they take"). Upside is a best case thing!

In terms of expected value, completely agree that it does not match BigTechCo total comp.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#16

Post by ShamelessC »

pimlottc wrote: post #15

To be more clear, Work At A Startup (or WaaS) [0] is a job posting service run by Y Combinator. I wasn’t familiar with it and it took me a while to what they were talking about since the name is so plain. 0: https://www.workatastartup.com/

Yeah, terrible name for that.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#17

Post by sokoloff »

cj wrote: post #12
questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

> It's literally the worst deal you can take I joined a YC company as a 1st employee (and also did YC as a founder). I agree working at an early stage (especially But (depending on the company size and the founders) it can also be an amazing crash course in how to build a company if you aspire to build your own company one day. Being part of a tiny startup gives you visibility into things that work (and more importan…

I think there's a good case to be made that being the first non-founder in a startup is one of the worst risk-reward profiles in the industry. The people who got there before you have far more upside (which is entirely fair, but still mathematically true) and the people who join later as the company grows and evolves have a lower risk profile.

I agree that you can learn a ton by being the first non-founder into a startup. You can learn even more and have more upside by being a founder.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#18

Post by questime »

cj wrote: post #12
questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

> It's literally the worst deal you can take I joined a YC company as a 1st employee (and also did YC as a founder). I agree working at an early stage (especially But (depending on the company size and the founders) it can also be an amazing crash course in how to build a company if you aspire to build your own company one day. Being part of a tiny startup gives you visibility into things that work (and more importan…

Nope, the best way to learn to start your own thing is to start your own thing - I know several successful YC founders who would never join a random YC startup to be an early employee since the risk/return is so bad. A lot of YC founders are random 20 something who may not even have a network, or very often they are terrible mentors.

These same successful YC founders hired a bunch of people saying the same stuff you are saying even though they would never take that deal. It's stuff you say to the plebs (to hire them for cheap) but the social proof/networks are better at late stage startups and FAANG.

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#19

Post by questime »

throwaway230511 wrote: post #11
questime wrote: post #3

Early employees have to work like crazy and get very little upside for the risk they take. It's literally the worst deal you can take, and in this economy it's just a bad idea - I imagine most of the candidates at WaaS right now are college grads who couldn't find a job.

This is one of those HN-isms that I think isn't right at all. Having worked at early stage companies, growth-stage companies, and in big tech: 1. What is the risk? From where I'm sitting, layoffs seem to be happening at all company sizes. At least early stage cos typically are pretty transparent internally so you know where the business stands. 2. Compensation is lower than $BigTechCo, no doubt about it, but it's com…

1. The risk is you've wasted your time being underpaid at a shitty organization run by people who you can't really learn anything from.

2. It's not close to competitive, YC backed companies are cash starved before they raise their first real round.

3. It's more fun if things go well (1/10 chance even after you are YC backed)

4. Odds of this are astronomically low and even lower outside the Fed's ZIRP.

I've worked at multiple size organizations too except for pre seed/seed companies because it seems awful - the Founders are just some random Berkeley kids without product market fit. All the people who I know who are in the same space would never take that deal. What percentage of VCs or Founders do you think take that deal?

Re: A rarely mentioned benefit of YC is Work At A Startup

#20

Post by misiax »

This is actually a spot on comment recalling the true startup/software mindset.

I miss the old days of building software just for the pure joy of hacking things together to create value, first for myself.

The physics of software/SaaS market became severely disturbed in the last decade by free marketing money pushing the most shiny products as wide as possible without making the technical side work first (Looking at you, Clickup).

We strongly need hackers to become motivated and concentrated again to build great new things. Far from FAANGs and far from GPT-is-the-answer theme.

Just two-three hackers working together late nights over shared pizzas on something smart.

Building is the answer. And even likely so in the current reality of failing corporate promises which will take us into 2024 or even 2025 easily. The new, adjusted financial forecasts for public companies are just being published (these won’t be nice) and we are still to reach the bottom in demand for software developers.

Let’s not waste this time and build something great.

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