Here is a direct link to the blog post for future visitors: http://founderdating.com/your-career-is-a-mess/
Thanks! Getting up early makes you do silly things...
Your career is a mess
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Re: Your career is a mess
#12I agree with most of what the post says -- entrepreneurs today rarely have a "clean" linear history, and that's actually pretty cool. I disagree with one point: At Bloomberg Beta, we have backed founders who we know have jobs other than the startup we are investing in — and that’s fine. So long as we share an understanding of how much time they are devoting, and have transparency into all their other roles so we know…
Starting a rapid growth, venture-backed startup (which is the route YC tends to lead towards) may be incompatible with other jobs, but there are plenty of forms of startup or entrepreneurship that are. As the article mentioned, GitHub was started in the founders' spare time while they were employed elsewhere. Plenty of startups bootstrap themselves through consulting - it slows you down, but it also reduces risk whic…
Starting a product != launching a startup.
37 Signals guys didn't need to build a brand new company while they were building a brand new product. GitHub delayed organizational build-up for as long as possible. Scaling an org is a pretty daunting task http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/08/the-similarities-between-bui...
Re: Your career is a mess
#13I am living this very picture right now. I'm currently interviewing with multiple companies, and based on the discussions I'm having, I'm convinced that our resumes are going to change in the next {X} years, where X My resume is very similar to my LinkedIn profile. The primary basis of which is a chronological listing of my employers (or my own self-employed work.) A better picture would be to present it with descending chronological/parallel projects.
The employer-based presentation used to imply something that doesn't seem to matter all that much anymore. For some, it's still a signal -- I'm sure Google or NASA looks pretty good on a resume, for example -- but for the most part, I find that I'm answering questions about project work. The employer is nearly irrelevant, save for some specific scenarios.
Given the transient nature of our industry, I think the actual employer details are going to become secondary in importance. To the point that representation of your background on LinkedIn will be project-based, not employer-based.
Re: Your career is a mess
#14[deleted]
Re: Your career is a mess
#15I agree with most of what the post says -- entrepreneurs today rarely have a "clean" linear history, and that's actually pretty cool. I disagree with one point: At Bloomberg Beta, we have backed founders who we know have jobs other than the startup we are investing in — and that’s fine. So long as we share an understanding of how much time they are devoting, and have transparency into all their other roles so we know…
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Re: Your career is a mess
#16Didn't Bloomberg have a hiring clause that said that they pretty much owned everything you did, even if you did it in your own time? Or has that finally changed? My understanding is that NYS does not have the same protections that CA does, which is why tech is a hopeless endeavor in NY.
Re: Your career is a mess
#17Hard to disagree with the observation that people are putting more and more irons in the fire, but I disagree with the author's solution - asking people to disclose everything they are working on at all times is a bad idea.
The nature of this new world is that most things we dabble in at the very early stages end up fizzling. Like an author with a new book, people will be less likely to take important risks if they know they'll be scrutinized from the beginning.
Re: Your career is a mess
#18[deleted]
Re: Your career is a mess
#19With a bit of effort you can have a LinkedIn profile with a portfolio of projects. It's just a bit more typing and people are often too busy (or lazy :-)) to do it.
Also, a lot of times people want to make their profiles attractive to employers and employers want to see you working in one place for a long time (because they don't want people jumping ship in a few months).
Re: Your career is a mess
#20> At Bloomberg Beta, we have backed founders who we know have jobs other than the startup we are investing in — and that's fine. So long as we share an understanding of how much time they are devoting, and have transparency into all their other roles so we know there are no conflicts, we think having multiple interests is healthy.
I won't comment on the author's general observations and conclusions, some of which I don't agree with, but this provides yet more evidence that there is currently far more capital chasing too few startups.
Can businesses emerge out of side projects? Absolutely. But a $75 million fund that invests explicitly "for financial return" funding part-time founders, actually believing that it can be certain that no conflicts exist or could develop, and that said founders can accurately predict and commit to specific time allocations?
In my opinion, this shows just how desperate some investors are to develop dealflow.