Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

software.rajivprab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 278 posts

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#241

Post by laser »

pyrophane wrote: post #228
a13n wrote: post #222

It's interesting that this post is falling off the front page so quickly. At the time of writing it has 537 points and is 8 hours old. There are many above it with much fewer points, that are much older (eg. 127 points, 12 hours). It makes me wonder if YC intentionally penalizes posts like these, because ideas like these make it harder for their portfolio companies to hire employees.

I believe it penalizes articles that have a large number of comments relative to votes.

That doesn't hold explanatory power in this case, look at the points, comments, and age. For "Modeling a Wealth Tax", "Canon's Cloud..." and "If founders treated...": https://www.dropbox.com/s/vk1i2q8mlbs5x2s/Screen%20Shot%2020...

I'm also suspicious, although most suspect as sibling comment to yours suggests, that it's likely something automated rather than malicious. Perhaps there's too few comments?

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#242

Post by [deleted] »

lkbm wrote: post #66
seibelj wrote: post #3

Valid reasons to work for a startup: - You are a cofounder. - You have little experience and you are using this to break into the industry, and get experience on many different technologies ("wear many hats"). - They are working on a very specific problem or using a specific technology that you strongly desire to work on and it's difficult to do it anywhere else. - You want to work a certain way (remote, on the beach…

Main reason: it's more fun. I could be a cog in a giant corporate machine, or I can have a measurable impact where I work. I can stay in my lane and do my specific job tasks, or I can run around putting out fires and helping wherever help is needed. I mindlessly build the specific design product handed me, or I can guide my own work in accordance to the needs of our customers and the business. I can follow policy and…

[deleted]

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#243

Post by rsanek »

alecbenzer wrote: post #45
brd529 wrote: post #8

Bravo bravo bravo! This piece neatly encapsulates all the problems with ISOs. The biggest one is mentioned at the beginning - information asymmetry. I don’t really understand why most companies, especially small ones less than 100 people, can’t be transparent about their cap table with employees. I do think the culture around 90 day exercise Windows is changing. Here is a list of companies with extended windows [1].…

AFAIK the 90 day thing was more of a legal thing than something the companies themselves wanted to enforce?

No, by law ISOs just convert to NSOs at 90 days. Startups themselves decided to expire them, there is nothing preventing them simply allowing them to change. You get worse tax treatment, of course, but at least you get to retain the ability to participate in the upside.

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#244

Post by rsanek »

brd529 wrote: post #105
alecbenzer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the 90 day thing was more of a legal thing than something the companies themselves wanted to enforce?

It's true that a company can't issue ISOs if the termination window is more than 90 days, they have to be NSOs instead. IMO the downside of the NSOs (pay tax immediately upon exercise instead of at next year's tax deadline - ISOs don't actually change the amount of tax that is due, just the timing of when you pay it) is small compared to the very real risk that your options will go poof if you don't have the cash to…

Startups can easily opt to convert ISOs to NSOs after the 90 days -- but of course, they typically do not.

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#245

Post by nicoburns »

Justsignedup wrote: post #62
skrebbel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I'm getting tired of this drum HN keeps beating about startups not offering a good work/life balance. Some startups don't, true. Some FAANGs don't either, what's the difference? I know plenty of startups that have a sane working culture as a key point of differentiation in the job market.

Critical. I have been part of multiple startups that have fantastic work/life balance. In one case I'd get meetings like "hey, I know you have a kid and all, but we're hitting a deadline soon. Just to let you know next week you're probably gonna have to put in extra hours. But I didn't want to sneak it on you. Let me know if there are any days you can't work extra so I can make sure the other days are covered by some…

Am I reading that right that you consider 7.5 hrs or 8.5hrs a day to be not very many hours? (Not counting suggests that they might otherwise expect you to do more than that).

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#246

Post by Naracion »

rmellow wrote: post #205
jchallis wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chromecast screensaver is the background on the TV in my Airbnb. Multiple guests have told me how much that screensaver makes them feel at home when they travel, and makes the world a little less strange.

Fun fact: those screensaver photos are taken by Google employees! Can't find a source for that, but have many times corroborated that through a Google search. Peter Norvig is one of them.

I'm unsure which screensaver photos we're talking about--but if it's the nature photography (and others that you can choose from) which play when nothing is casting to Chromecast, then I have at least one instance where I have seen photos by a person I know is a photographer and not a Google employee (Trey Ratcliff).

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#247

Post by nicoburns »

marcinzm wrote: post #60
drchopchop wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can be important, especially if you've been "under-titled" at your previous job and need to reset yourself on the career ladder. It's a lot easier to go from senior -> lead -> VP -> CTO by jumping into the startup world than it is to climb the ladder at a megacorp.

Sure but everyone knows the titles are inflated so it only matters if you plan to stay in startups perpetually. Megacorps won't pay any attention to your inflated title. edit: And I've seen interviewers pause at such titles and comment "are you sure you want to work here, we can't offer you as nice of a title." So it may count against you even.

The title game is a funny one. I work at a small startup where I replaced the outgoing technical founder (who used the title CTO). I manage a small team and am responsible for all the of the tech at the company. I could choose any title that I want, but thus far I've stuck with "Lead Developer" because it seems to be a well defined role. Whereas titles like CTO or VP Engineering seem pretty meaningless outside of much larger companies.

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#248

Post by nicoburns »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #54
nogabebop23 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to add another valid (yet totally invalid) point: You want an impressive job title. At an established company you're going to be a Software Developer or Engineer level n; at a startup you can easily be Lead, Director of or even a VP if that's important to you.

Is there such thing as an impressive title, in software development, if the company is unheard-of? This is a sector where people with no relevant formal education and three years on-the-job experience sometimes get called senior .

To be fair, "senior" doesn't seem to be particularly high up the ladder of job titles at tech companies these days. You get titles like "lead", "principle", and "staff", which are all considered more senior than senior.

At the end of the day, job titles are mostly for getting past recruiters. Interviewers (if they're any good) will judge you on your actual experience and capabilities.

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#249

Post by jacques_chester »

a13n wrote: post #147
mdorazio wrote: post #69

Always absent in these kinds of essays/posts is the reason why startups are able to get away with this. If it didn't work, obviously the options games would have stopped a long time ago. A lot of people don't want to admit that there's a small army of young, naive employees who are enamored with startups and are perfectly willing to sign up for below-market salary and extremely unfavorable options terms in exchange f…

Options aren't a game. They're preferable to employees, for tax reasons. If startups gave employees shares, then employees would have to pay taxes on those shares, even though they're illiquid - so you're paying taxes on something you can't even sell! Options solve this problem well, by delaying the tax burden until the equity is actually worth something. If it ends up worth nothing, you don't exercise your options a…

> If startups gave employees shares, then employees would have to pay taxes on those shares, even though they're illiquid - so you're paying taxes on something you can't even sell!

Executives get gross-ups, so the tax thing is basically a smokescreen.

Re: If founders treated their investors the same way they treated their employees

#250

Post by doopy1 »

seibelj wrote: post #3

Valid reasons to work for a startup: - You are a cofounder. - You have little experience and you are using this to break into the industry, and get experience on many different technologies ("wear many hats"). - They are working on a very specific problem or using a specific technology that you strongly desire to work on and it's difficult to do it anywhere else. - You want to work a certain way (remote, on the beach…

I work at a startup, not a co-founder, salary is not amazing, but pretty good - most I've ever made. Work life balance is also the best I've ever had. Just my data point.
Post reply on HN