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Startup employees don't earn more

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Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#141

Post by freshyill »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #77
dohoho wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, I worked in government as an engineer before I moved to a startup doing something completely different. If you're ok with being a slave and fighting the very people you're working for to get the benefits you need to live a decent life then yeah government work is for you. That mindset that we're in a tech bubble is what I was worried about when I took on a city position but it's just fear. I thought it would hap…

Yeah but govt jobs pay a pension. Its the largest fraction of the federal budget. That doesn't happen in Silicon Valley.

Who needs a secure retirement when there's a 0.002% chance that the startup you're working at won't fail, Google will buy it, and you'll end up a millionaire?

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#142

Post by mattlutze »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #109
segmondy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, someone gives a company $1million and you claim that the person is playing with dreams, time and skills? Give us a break. No startup has to accept investor money. If you don't want their million, don't take it. Bootstrap with your own cash. The reality is that going into startup for money is a big risk, it's a big gamble. Go in for the fun, go in to learn new things, play with new tech, go in to avoid ( big comp…

> Do it for the for the fun and if you make money great, if you don't, you come out with new experience. Long before fullstack became a buzz word, I earned my badges due to startup. I coded, I did design, I touched the DB, I setup the servers, wired the network, setup the firewalls. It was hella fun, I made $0. But my experiences from then still serves me till this very day. You can have these experiences at a large…

I've passed on opportunities to move to other places because there's a level of insulation in the corporation I work for, where we're able to experiment and fail with projects that, were I or my team to do in a lean startup environment, would very possibly mean the end of our venture.

There are some really, really cool things happening at a lot of startups, and some of the shining stars are making waves at the moment (e.g. High-quality all-electric cars for the common family, affordable full-home automation, autonomous for-hire fleets at the tap of a screen).

But I also think there's a reason a lot of the real innovation and advancements in information technology have come out of the research laboratories at big corporations, and that's because they have the liquidity to absorb experimentation that goes nowhere without the risk of bankruptcy, and it's certainly an attractive place to go invent some awesome stuff.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#143

Post by ptero »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

There are bubbles, for sure; tech is probably bubbly more frequently than other areas.

But IMO the salaries and benefits of government and many other non-industry workers form one of the biggest bubbles right now (an average public school teacher with seniority paid 120-200k if our local paper is to be believed and that is not in the most expensive area on the East Coast).

This bubble may overstretch public finances and pop or slowly deflate via retirements, but given the choice of two bubble areas I will choose tech over mail delivery as even after a pop the skills (I think) are easier to apply elsewhere.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#144

Post by nathan_f77 »

dangero wrote: post #119

The thing I wish someone spelled out to me when I started my startup employment journey over ten years ago is that you need to pick the right company. Most startup equity ends up being worthless, so you need to think of yourself as a venture capitalist. Will this company really be the next big thing? Do I believe in them or am I just excited that they want to hire me? Looking back I wasted far too much time working f…

I think you've nailed it. If you're an employee at a startup, you should be doing the same amount of research as a VC, if not much more. A VC is only investing a bunch of cash that they can afford to lose, and probably only a little bit of their own money. As an employee, you're investing maybe 5 years of your life that you can never get back.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#145

Post by collyw »

I was looking for a job last year, and had a number of startups contact me as my 14 years of experience were interesting for them.

"We can't afford to pay much because we are a startup" came up on a number of occasions. Sorry, but I already get paid poorly relative to other engineers because I am in Spain, and I am not a charity.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#146

Post by tim333 »

Noseshine wrote: post #135
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Here is somebody who agrees with you. The presentation (boo author) is not earth-shattering but still interesting enough (watch at 1.5 times speed). You don't need to accept everything, just take it as an interesting personal report based on his unique experiences. I think I even found this video here on HN just a few days ago. I think the video is especially valuable to young people getting started in SV, those olde…

I saw that talk and thought his points were interesting. His take on the Wall Street thing is that the kind of people who would have gone to Wall Street to try to make it big trading bonds are now heading to SV to try to get rich.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#147

Post by xiaoma »

mtviewdave wrote: post #43
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. On the contrary, people love to claim Silicon Valley is in a tech bubble and have been doing so continuously since 2011.

There have been loud screams of "Bubble!" since at least 2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmNDym6CvQ

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#148

Post by parent5446 »

parent5446 wrote: post #35

This is just a minor annoyance, but the header image of this article, which has been used in other articles [0], is CC-BY 2.0 licensed [1], and yet is not attributed to the original author at all. (Perhaps even more interesting is that it looks like it's being used to depict a startup company environment, even though it's actually a hostel in Amsterdam during the Wikimedia Foundation's annual international hackathon.…

Follow-up: I contacted them, and they added the attribution, so all is well!

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#149

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Comparing what happened on Wall Street in 2008 to what is happening in Silicon Valley is just not even in the same realm. The scale, for one, is not even close. And do you have any evidence to backup what you're saying other than your own anecdote which is surprisingly lacking in details? You just sound generally disgruntled about a startup experience.

I am really not concerned for all of the startup employees that are making six figure salaries, putting them easily in the top 5% of earners in the world. These people have the freedom to do so much more than what most workers do. They are not victims.

Now, if we want to talk about how the work that Silicon Valley is doing will displace non-tech workers, then yes, that is a discussion that is worth talking about.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#150

Post by AstralStorm »

jwatte wrote: post #100
rlanday wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, many people believe the value of money in non-linear but most of those people believe that the marginal utility of each additional dollars diminishes as your wealth increases, rather than increasing. I.e. even if you might earn more money on average at a startup (which the article claims isn’t the case), it still wouldn’t be worth it because it’s better to earn a decent salary from a big company with high probabi…

With $1M net worth (expect $40k/year annuity,) you'd have to live frugally to be truly independent, especially of you have a family. With $5M net worth, you could live well, independently. A 9-5 is unlikely to let you save $1M, much less $5M, unless you're high level in a big company. If you're very early in a big success, you can get there. However, in many ways, employee 15 and up is the worst of both worlds. Small…

Caveat lector: author is talking about USA.
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