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Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

tech.mit.edu

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Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#21

Post by digitalzombie »

Start ups are not for everybody.

It's horrible and most of the time they will work you to death because it's a "start up" environment. They will try to get you to invest as much time of your life as possible.

Do not trade your life for money.

I thought you could learn new skills in start up because they usually are lean in money so you end up wearing multiple hats. That's good until you realize that most of the people that is in charge of technology are full of it. They buy in MongoDB hype or NodeJS hype without fully understanding the trade off.

You're better off learning new skills on your own time.

If you don't like big company cause of their crazy interview such as Google you can always try medium size companies.

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#22

Post by metronius »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #9

Perhaps I am wrong, but this seems like horrible advice. For example, while working for a big co, you could come across a problem that you want to solve with a startup. If you are a kid just out of college, you probably don't have enough experience to work on anything but a consumer facing startup - and those have very low odds of success, despite a few big unicorns we all know about

I think so, spending one year in big company is really good experience. You will learn how to work in large teams.

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#23

Post by foobarian »

smt88 wrote: post #16
vasilipupkin wrote: post #9

Perhaps I am wrong, but this seems like horrible advice. For example, while working for a big co, you could come across a problem that you want to solve with a startup. If you are a kid just out of college, you probably don't have enough experience to work on anything but a consumer facing startup - and those have very low odds of success, despite a few big unicorns we all know about

I don't think you can make a blanket statement about it, but there is a good reason to work for a small company or startup: you get to write more of the stack. At large companies, you often end up working on a tiny piece of a module, and then you work you way up. You don't learn much that way. There are companies that try to give you more control, but no one is going to throw you into the deep end at those companies.…

> At large companies, you often end up working on a tiny piece of a module, and then you work you way up. You don't learn much that way.

At large companies, you end up working on a stack written by someone out of college 10 years ago when the company was a startup, cursing them and wondering wtf they were thinking. :-)

Maybe the learning there is a meta-lesson instead of some direct technology. Understanding that a large codebase has a life of its own; how to resist rewriting stuff if it doesn't benefit the business; how to test legacy code; etc.

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#25

Post by pen2l »

rjdagost wrote: post #8

Sam is obviously not a disinterested party here. Don't join a big company- start a new investment for him to participate in or join one of his existing investments and help to make it a success. But in my experience nothing opens doors for you like having solid experience at a well known and well respected company. If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hir…

Don't join big company, join small company.

So that when small company gets acquired later on by the big company, Sam makes a lot of money.

YC companies acquired by google: BufferBox, Flutter, TalkBin, the Fridge, Bump, reMail, Omnisio, Appjet, Zenter

YC companies acquired by facebook: Carsabi, Midnox, Parse,Sendoid, GazeHawk, Divvyshot, Parakey

etc.

edit: upon reflection, my comment probably reads somewhat flippant. That's a pity, but it's a pity too the crass manner in which Sam says the things he says in his YC campaign tours.

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#26

Post by dmritard96 »

bootload wrote: post #2

"Y Combinator usually invests $120 thousand in its startups, but Altman revealed during the Q-and-A that they have plans for helping startups requiring more money. “We have some news coming on that," different type(s) of startups being funded?

hardware

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#27

Post by vasilipupkin »

rianjs wrote: post #19
outworlder wrote: post #14

Maybe the 'MIT students' are a different enough population that the advice has to be specifically tailored for them. Somehow, I doubt it. I think the average MIT graduate is just as naive (and inexperienced) as graduates from other universities. If so, then most should join big, established companies. Startup life is not for everyone. Some people might do better (even financially) staying at more stable companies. Th…

> Some people might do better (even financially) staying at more stable companies. I would venture to say that MOST people will do better financially if they stay at a large, established company. A new grad might think their 0.05% equity stake will make them rich, but most startups fail, and even the ones that don't are rarely homeruns. Established companies with deep pockets often pay better, and grant their employe…

well, to be fair, we are talking about those people who are willing to trade off security for a chance of building something great and a small chance of a huge payoff. Not everyone is suited for this sort of thing. But even among those who are, I think they would benefit from working for a big co for some amount of time before embarking on their startup venture

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#28

Post by graycat »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #10
gaius wrote: post #6

Advice from a VC is offered for their benefit, not yours.

Not just from VCs, I could have saved my self a lot of anguish if I had realised this when I was younger.

Old advice: "Always look for the hidden agenda".

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#29

Post by UK-AL »

thirdtruck wrote: post #13
static_noise wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is life having a secure check coming every month?

They're still a happy fantasy, given how easy it is to let go here in the States.

The only real security is the amount of cash in your bank account. Startups aren't good at that either, unless you hit the jackpot.

Re: Y Combinator partners tell MIT students to steer clear of big-name companies

#30

Post by oskarth »

Are YC biased? Of course they are. That doesn't mean they aren't right. Paul Graham used to think working for a big company for a few years was a good thing [for someone who at some point wants to start a company], but he has since (5-10 years ago) changed his mind.

In an essay I wrote a couple years ago I advised graduating seniors to work for a couple years for another company before starting their own. I'd modify that now. Work for another company if you want to, but only for a small one, and if you want to start your own startup, go ahead. (http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html)

I encourage you to read the whole essay if you want to understand why they say what they say, rather than cynically dismiss it as bias.

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