Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#201

Post by copyleftdj » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #10

> What's changed? Largely, the make up of the audience in HN. I sincerely doubt that the hard core of people doing startups, thinking of doing a startup, or just very interested in the topic has gone away or changed attitude very much. But the profile of HN has grown. It's a miracle that it's still an interesting and curious group, but from comments I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of peopl…

>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.

For me what hn use to be an interaction between art and tech in the theme of hackers & painters. Tech along is not so interesting IMHO unless it's in the context of art and/or humanity.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#202

Post by osigurdson » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

>> When senior engineers can make $300K+ at established companies

If your goal is to make a good salary at a stable company, I don't think a startup is a good choice. Doing a startup is like trying to become a rock star (though chances of success are probably 10X better).

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#203

Post by ghastmaster » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #39

benjaminwootton wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

When prices rise through inflation, without equal income rises, low interest rate takes on a new meaning.

If it takes more hours of labor to purchase the same thing, it requires lower interest rates to borrow.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#204

Post by greenie_beans » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

buncha cookie cutter folks on here who feel safe with their high compensation while they sit at their standing desk and drink their hot green tea. then they pick up their child from private school and kiss their wife who secretly finds them incredibly boring.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#205

Post by p_j_w » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #182

aqme28 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the company preferred to hire experienced ex-FAANG managers for those roles.

Everyone: Big Tech ruins news/social media/small businesses/democracy! Also everyone: FAANG employees are better than everyone else!

I dont think FAANG employees are better than everyone else, but these two things don’t sound mutually exclusive.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#206

Post by escapecharacter » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #20

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #14

Concerning > 4. The industry has matured. The low-hanging fruit of the mobile/web era has largely been picked, making truly innovative opportunities harder to find. I disagree: In my feeling truly innovative opportunities are still rather easy to find. I feel what rather changed is that with VC becoming big and mainstream, investors have become more risk-averse in investing into innovative ideas (that they don't real…

> Perhaps also society has become more conservative, so selling a really innovative product to a customer has become harder. Customers are more locked into existing products. Network effects, switching costs, familiarity and branding, staff training (for businesses) and learning something new....

Strongly agree here that there is platform lock-in; all the large platforms are playing subtle games to make it harder to explore new services outside them.

To some people this might look like consumers are more conservative, but really it's just hidden dark patterns keeping them in the big platforms.

I really wish the US government was more pro-business competition; they're merely pro-business in terms of ensuring existing winners continue to win. Across the pond, the EU seems to get this with measures like GDPR which make it actually easier to port between platforms.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#207

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #182

aqme28 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the company preferred to hire experienced ex-FAANG managers for those roles.

Everyone: Big Tech ruins news/social media/small businesses/democracy! Also everyone: FAANG employees are better than everyone else!

> Also everyone: FAANG employees are better than everyone else!

Rather: FAANG employees are pushed into startups by VCs.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#208

Post by escapecharacter » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

InkCanon wrote: post #59

On the last point: "The industry has matured. The low-hanging fruit of the mobile/web era has largely been picked, making truly innovative opportunities harder to find." It is a repeating pattern in history that people think technology and science have reached a dead end. Michelsen (falsely attributed to Kelvin) declared principles of physics were already established before quantum mechanics. Watson said there was de…

People also believe fall into this trap with political philosophy! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#209

Post by ecshafer » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

ragnot wrote: post #150

itake wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tracks. I think the real value employees get is riding the rocketship in their career. Early engineers often have first dibs on higher level roles, like CTO or director over people that join late. Your initial grant might not be great, but being director at such a company is huge

You'll find that outside the startup, the director/vp/cto title doesn't translate. Larger companies will often write you off as being "not experienced" enough which is often code for "you don't look old enough for this position". Unlike engineering and the startup world, big companies want you to look the part not just know the part.

A CTO of a startup might be coding day to day, making technology decisions, and have a team or two underneath them. In F500 or Corpro world, this is more like a engineering manager or tech lead. In most big companies a manager does zero coding and rarely makes a tech decision, you go up to a director level, they might have 100-200 people under them, direct reports are almost all managers, and they never touch tech. Go higher up to VP or CTO levels and they are just so divorced from code that it doesn't make sense why a CTO in a startup would translate.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#210

Post by _heimdall » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 2:30 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #17

I 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've worked at a few startups now but never do it for the equity. I do take equity, but as far as I'm concerned its more a signal that I'm "invested" and have a stake in the game.

I work at startups because I prefer the type of work generally found there. I like smaller teams, I enjoy having to learn new things, and I (usually) enjoy how quickly projects and direction can change.

For anyone considering a startup I'd say to just consider equity a lottery ticket for a decent bonus. It will probably not amount to anything, and it probably won't be worth what many expect, but it can be a nice bonus if you like the job and team regardless of an exit.