191–200 of 392 posts
I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. If you have FU money, your view on working at a FAANG vs building a startup can change. You will find it easier to know what you truly LOVE.
In the mid 90s, Microsoft was buying up talent left and right, in whatever area they wanted to go into. My field is databases, and I developed expertise in the integration of query languages with programming languages. I got an obscenely lucrative offer from Microsoft, and decided to turn it down. It was a dumb decision, financially, but actually worked out fine on that front. However, I'm sure that Microsoft enticed many promising software developers to work for them instead of startups. (A few names do come to mind.)
This problem was completely solvable then, and the same technique would work now. The problem is that VCs don't want to solve it. They want software developers cheap. They give miniscule amounts of equity, and bias the terms so that those tiny stock option grants almost never pay off very well, (e.g. liquidation preferences). Except, perhaps, for the chief architect, and one or two very senior developers, we are viewed as disposable, interchangeable cogs.
There are great reasons to work for a startup, other than equity. I am very happy with my 25 years doing just that. But equity is definitely a factor. Contrary to what they would have you believe, VCs are extremely risk-averse, certainly compared to the developers who are sacrificing the best years of their lives for their companies and the chance of a financial win.
I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. If you have FU money, your view on working at a FAANG vs building a startup can change. You will find it easier to know what you truly LOVE.
$1M is not FU money for someone in a major metropolitan US city with kids.
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This is a good summation of the current challenges with startups that are attempting to compete on technical merit. I know this first hand as I started a computer vision company right around 2012 when the "AI" boom was really picking up steam. I would never dream today of starting a very technical company because every major will poach your talent (happened to me), invest in your competitors or attempt to acquire you…
So there are actually three tech revolutions going on in parallel: 1) Kuberentes 2) Microservices. 3) AI All of them are based on open source, and all of them are permissionless (I.e. the startup does not need permission from a big company, e.g. an app store owner). They also erode the build-in advantages of big tech: 1) Kubernetes erode cloud lock-in on compute/storage. 2) AI is best serve on the edge. I would say t…
Microservices are unix pipes but slower.
AI is linear algebra that costs x1000 because of the brand name.
There is no revolution in software. We are just building crud as high and as fast as we can because the quality of developers tends to zero as the number of developers increases.
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> Suppose I have a company idea, maybe an early prototype and manage to raise $2MM at $10MM post-money valuation. The investors have a 20% stake for their investment. The rich technically have less personal risk -- that's because, well, they're rich. GP arguably took more personal risk, took less pay, and created the machinery that made the company profitable. If you want to say that the original $2M is paid out befo…
Do you read any of the latter in my argument above as to why liquidation preferences exist? It seems to me that you built and eviscerated a strawman right in front of us.
The liquidity preferences could certainly be structured in a fairer fashion. Just because it’s currently structured this way doesn’t mean that it needs to be always or that it’s a great model ( it’s not unless you’re a VC, which is basically the point).
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> Fuck being an employee for a startup so they can bleed you dry. Could not agree more, and this is my stance which I will happily share with anyone who cares to listen. I was first employee (and only engineer) at a startup which dangled 'equity' in front of me but didn't deliver. Contract was so full of gotchas that the path to me seeing some sort of actual payoff was astronomically unlikely. 90 day exercise windows…
Liquidation preferences for investors putting actual cash into a business exist for a reason. Suppose I have a company idea, maybe an early prototype and manage to raise $2MM at $10MM post-money valuation. The investors have a 20% stake for their investment. If I decide the next day, “Nah, it’s not going to work; let’s close the company and distribute the assets to the shareholders,” it would be manifestly unfair for…
I don't have statistics, but I believe the more common scenario is that the company gets acquired, and the return on investment is not the 10x or 1000x or 1000000x the VCs hoped for, so they recoup their original investment. Leaving the engineers with options worth nothing.
I view liquidation preferences as VCs offloading risk to employees because they can.
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So there are actually three tech revolutions going on in parallel: 1) Kuberentes 2) Microservices. 3) AI All of them are based on open source, and all of them are permissionless (I.e. the startup does not need permission from a big company, e.g. an app store owner). They also erode the build-in advantages of big tech: 1) Kubernetes erode cloud lock-in on compute/storage. 2) AI is best serve on the edge. I would say t…
Kubernetes is a solution worse than the problem. Microservices are unix pipes but slower. AI is linear algebra that costs x1000 because of the brand name. There is no revolution in software. We are just building crud as high and as fast as we can because the quality of developers tends to zero as the number of developers increases.
Strongly agree with this. I just did about seven weeks of interviewing in NYC for senior iOS roles, at both startups and big tech companies. To be frank, it was a total shitshow. Especially on the startup side. Here’s some of the bullshit I faced interviewing at early stage companies before accepting an offer literally 2.5x as high as the (multiple) offers that startups made. 1. Shitty equity: one startup wanted me t…
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> I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. [edited to protect your feelings] Are you saying that simple introspection is hard? I completely disagree, because separating extrinsic motivation (I do this for money) from intrinsic motivation (I do this for fun) really isn't that hard.
Instead of being rude, you could try to formulate your point without attacking a straw man.
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> Fuck being an employee for a startup so they can bleed you dry. Could not agree more, and this is my stance which I will happily share with anyone who cares to listen. I was first employee (and only engineer) at a startup which dangled 'equity' in front of me but didn't deliver. Contract was so full of gotchas that the path to me seeing some sort of actual payoff was astronomically unlikely. 90 day exercise windows…
Liquidation preferences for investors putting actual cash into a business exist for a reason. Suppose I have a company idea, maybe an early prototype and manage to raise $2MM at $10MM post-money valuation. The investors have a 20% stake for their investment. If I decide the next day, “Nah, it’s not going to work; let’s close the company and distribute the assets to the shareholders,” it would be manifestly unfair for…