Earlier quoted context omitted.
10% agree Marcus!
Only 10%?
Maybe the other 90% is already spoken for, by investors and shareholders?
Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
191–200 of 431 posts
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#192Most engineers figured out that the options/stocks of startups are worthless.
9 times out of 10 the company sells, performs a reduction in force, or goes under before they vest. 1 time out of 1000 the company is worth something and remains operable over a 5 year period. Rules of thumb for the green engineers: - Take salary/health insurance over stock in almost all cases. - At some companies employees who are greener and greedier will fight/sabotage all their peers to get rid of them, is this t…
What about if the valuation was super low when you received the options agreement?
For instance, if I got $5,000 worth of options when the company was “worth” 1 million, is that a safe bet to buy into?
Like surely the founder would be able to sell the company for 1 million dollars instead of crashing and burning… right?
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of people who are here because they are generically interested in tech topics and not specifically startups This is certainly me. Generally interested in tech (and many of the other things that HNers seem to be interested in these days), but no real interest in startups. Hope I am not ruining HN for the old timers. I started using this place a lot more in…
This was always me, and I've been here 15 years. It was pretty much a tech forum then (arguably more then than now, there's much more discussion of culture war issues now, even when stories are flagged it's ever-present in the comments). I think the time when HN was primarily startups was much further back and much briefer than most people nostalgically remember.
I mean, it’s not called Startup News. There’s a group that assumes real hackers all want to do startups (and the site is run by some of those), but that isn’t really the culture. We mythologize Woz and Gates and Page, but also K&R and Knuth and Dijkstra.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#194I think a lot of very accurate reasons have been covered by others. These are my key points:
* COL in most areas has skyrocketed, housing and healthcare have both ballooned in cost massively. This has meant I'm much less likely to take risks that would put either of these at risk.
* My ideas aren't unique. I'm 99.9995% sure that the ideas I have floating around in my head for a startup are already covered by someone much more capable than I to execute them. Given that the main reason startups fail is a lack of market, and I'm definitely not the sort of person that can just make a market appear overnight... Yeah definitely not feeling like taking a risk on something likely either already served or which needs someone who can communicate to prospective customers why such a market should exist.
* I'm not interested in cashing out. My goal if I'm growing a business is to have something I enjoy and cherish. Not just to sell and cash out. (I say this now naively )
TLDR: The risk reward ratio in my estimation only favors the ultra wealthy, or unicorn engineers right now. I'm smart but I'm not that smart. My goal right now is to get enough money I can retire and work on projects I want to. If that means one of them becomes a startup, I'm good with that. But, I'm also not expecting to IPO or get VC backing if that happens.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you join early, got plenty of stock options and the startup turns into a unicorn, those millions are totally possible. GP comment argues correctly that there's no guarantee that employee stock options will return a profit even in the case of successful exits. Valuation multiples, senior debt, clawback options (see Skype exit [0]), fractional stocks being rounded down to zero after stock splits have all been impl…
This is why I joined AWS 9 years ago, and left the startup world. I own (still?) 15% of a company as a founding engineer (with no voting rights). As part of a raise, the company sold its IP to another company for a 0.5% stake in that company. So now I own 15% of 0.5%....... I just didn't understand the business side of all this at the start. As I understand it, the raise wouldn't have happened and the original compan…
15% of 0.5% of a billion dollar company is just over $700,000. That's not FU money, but that's a down payment on a 3.5MM home.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#196I think several factors have changed over time, which have made the startup landscape—and for us mere mortals who dream about it—less exciting:
- Massive consolidation in tech: Large tech companies can easily acquire and neutralize potential competitors by offering founders a few million dollars, leading to fewer truly groundbreaking success stories.
- The evolving role of accelerators and VCs: They’ve turned startups into something akin to product management roles within their own agendas. Whether it’s cloud, AI, or the next big trend, founders often end up building what investors want rather than pursuing their own unique visions.
- A lack of truly groundbreaking ideas: We don’t see as many revolutionary concepts anymore—the kind that once gave birth to companies like Google or Amazon. This is likely tied to the investor-driven focus mentioned above.
- A shift in cultural expectations: Perhaps we—or at least the HN audience—are becoming more like Europe, with an increasing expectation that governments will take care of us, whether through healthcare or other social services. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does shift the mindset around risk and entrepreneurship.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interest rates are like a dial which turns economic activity up and down. I’ve always understood that in theory but it’s the first time I’ve actually lived through it and it’s wild. A few years of higher rates and half of the tech industry and the people who buy tech seems to be on hold. It makes me realise how vacuous the last decade was and how a lot of our jobs and businesses existed because of dirt cheap money. I…
If you were older, you would still consider current rates low and recent past an obscurity that couldn't last long. I can say that definitely about Europe, ie here in Switzerland interest rates used to be around 7% for quite some time and economy was doing fine, then it dropped to negative and afterwards people complained when they rose to 1-2%. 0.4% now, not complaining.
If you're that old, you probably already have a house when it was much cheaper relative to income levels. Now, a tiny shift in interests rates affects not only the general economy, but people paying back mortgages which can take a significant chunk out of your income.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#198I think the bigger issue is that most of the financial upsides of startups were illusory Unless you're a founder, you're unlikely to make any money, and predatory VC/backers using convertibles/senior debt to turn your equity into Zimbabwean dollars. Thats before any stats are calculated for lasting long enough to either IPO, make money or get bought out. As someone who did successfully exit, the stories of multiple-m…
I was the second engineer (series A) at a company that IPO’d at a unicorn valuation. By all rights that’s a great outcome. I made about as much in that exit as I would have if I were just at a FAANG instead
Not everyone is in a position to work for a FAANG - they don't support working in all areas in all countries, often have formal education requirements and generally will be less flexible hours-wise than working for yourself.
If you don't want to leave where you are, a full time or side-project web startup can be started and bootstrapped with barely any prior requirements that you can't teach yourself and could be a good option.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that puzzles me is the early "only eating Ramen and pulling all nighters" startup founder story. I suppose nobody believes this anymore, fortunately. I mean... we all agree, it would seem, this is not the path to getting rich for most people. And it's unhealthy and stressful, so it's also not the best way to work. So it has to come down to "the mission". You must be doing something so amazing, so innovative…
Or you think you’re special. You know it’s risky and many people fail, but you’ve got the right idea, intelligence, work ethic, etc. It might even be true sometimes. I’m sure success isn’t randomly distributed. The trouble is figuring out if you really do have it or if it’s self delusion.
I'm not saying it's completely random. It's very likely a combination of skill [1] and luck, with luck being the bigger factor. So even if you're "special", you're unlikely to make it.
[1] And possibly contacts, or safety net, or wealthy family and/or friends.
Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith
#200[deleted]