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Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

mhalligan.com

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Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#301

Post by eruditely »

mikeash wrote: post #246
llimllib wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working for an established company will give you a far better expected financial outcome at lower risk. Tiny, tiny nit: that final phrase is redundant. Calculating an expected financial outcome includes the risk. Agree with everything you're saying.

The risk also needs to be considered separately, though. For example, which of these is better compensation? $100,000/year or Each year, there is a 0.1% chance that you will be paid $1 billion. Simple math tells us that the second one has a 10x higher expected financial outcome. But few people would actually consider that to be better compensation. Lower risk is better, to an extent that can outweigh a higher expecte…

However the expected value may be that much, you are not "rolled" for that outcome. You have one life not a distribution of lives.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#302

Post by bearmf »

vhiremath4 wrote: post #24
nthj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). That's how “market rate“ works. A profession's salary has nothing to do with what you deserve and everything to do with how your specific combination of skills are valued by the free market.

I agree. I didn't phrase my comment correctly. I suppose what I'm really amazed by is the fact that those people don't seem to understand why I'm not angry about my situation. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've been lucky enough to have parents who have exposed me to extreme poverty at a young age (several trips to India). There are just too many wrongs in the world for someone like me to be complaining about not…

It is ridiculous that people judge whether you should or should not be angry/happy/sad etc. with your situation. It is impossible to judge correctly, all people need different things to be happy. Assuming that money is the universal measure of happiness is usually wrong. That is probably why you sound happier than the guy in the OP.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#303

Post by bearmf »

rohern wrote: post #143

I think the most interesting question raised by this article is, "Why are the smart people graduating from college willing to get shafted by startups?" Why are schools failing to teach engineers about caring for their own careers? I do not think most business majors would put up with kind of crap. They are all taught to negotiate for salary and to get high earnings early as a basis for later demands. They also unders…

Negotiating for salary is useless for a business major who cannot get a job. You are also vastly overestimating their average intellectual capabilities with respect to options vesting rules.

CS graduates have it very good right now, much, much better than business majors.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#304

Post by coolsunglasses »

etchalon wrote: post #254
coolsunglasses wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long did you contract for before you quit and decided it was somehow easier to found your own company?

On and off for the better part of a decade. And let me be clear, "founding my own company" wasn't "easier". It was infinitely harder, though ultimately more rewarding for me.

I'm contracting specifically so that I can allocate time flexibly in order to found my own company.

You're essentially scorning me for taking my own path towards what you did.

Baffling hypocrisy.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#305

Post by etchalon »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #304
etchalon wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On and off for the better part of a decade. And let me be clear, "founding my own company" wasn't "easier". It was infinitely harder, though ultimately more rewarding for me.

I'm contracting specifically so that I can allocate time flexibly in order to found my own company. You're essentially scorning me for taking my own path towards what you did. Baffling hypocrisy.

I'm not scorning you, whatsoever. I was just discussing why I came to the conclusion that being a contractor makes one no more or less "free" than being salaried, in practical terms anyway.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#306

Post by jmandzik »

kyllo wrote: post #239
Schwolop wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things Absolutely agreed. I just wrote about this recently[1], arguing that to be the best programmer, you really need to do something else as a specialty, and have programming simply as your trade. Programming is a value enhancer on another skill, and (in my opinion) is less value if it's the only thing you can offer. Effectively, your skill caps out at some point, a…

That's easier said than done. Programming is such a hard and specialized field, that very few people can be fully competent at it and have another field of business expertise. There are two general paths to that: 1. Study CS in school, get employed as a programmer in an unrelated industry and attempt to absorb industry knowledge from your coworkers outside the IT department (easier to do at a small company). Industry…

For what its worth I think you're creating a false dichotomy here. I literally studied Econ in undergrad and quickly landed at a telco as a dev. My 'on the side' self education of programming landed me a software engineer role because the analytics that came with my non-traditional developer skills made for good problem solving cred. 8 years later, I'm wearing architecture/analysis/developer hats on a daily basis with a senior title.

The point is this comment serves as a microcosm of this thread; a faceoff between stereotypes of a boring, big company with benefits and sexy startup with lottery ticket potential. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. There really is work, even outside of the Valley, that solves real (fun!) problems with real compensation. To assume only two paths to whatever personal definition of success in this field is limiting your options.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#307

Post by ChuckMcM »

jebblue wrote: post #295
ChuckMcM wrote: post #165

I clicked through to his LinkedIn resume (always on the look out for solid DevOps types). I think it is great that Michael understands exactly what he wants in terms of a compensation package. And for a variety of reasons, its pretty clear that a "startup" isn't going to meet those needs. So he's currently "Contractor at Self-Employed" which is also fine because you really do have a lot of flexibility as a contractor…

>> reading his list is a lot of capital to invest in a single employee That single employee with his background represents millions of dollars per year in revenue, he should be asking for more and you should get a clue.

Did you read his rant? He's currently self employed and interviewing. I am not unsympathetic to his cause, or his angst. But I don't understand your assertion that he should be asking for even more compensation than he is, how does asking for even more salary helps him out here, could you say more about that? What exactly would be different if I were "more clued" ?

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#308

Post by donall »

chimeracoder wrote: post #84
donall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a series of bad experiences with Trinet. Not so bad that it's ruined my life, but bad like "I can't believe this is the best we can do for HR". I like the idea of outsourcing that sort of thing so we can focus on the hacking, but I feel like that particular space is ripe for disruption (to use a clichéd term).

Out of curiosity, what kind of bad experiences did you have? What were you disappointed with?

Without getting into details, there was some significant mismanagement of my user account, resulting in incorrect tax being withheld until I noticed the problem and notified them about it. After an unreasonable amount of time spent resolving the problem with a number of different people on their end, the end result was a large tax bill that I had not budgeted for.

There have also been other less significant issues, mostly regarding my status as a foreign employee. I speculate that it stems from a lack of properly engineered software on their end. In all cases, my problems would have been fixed by some logic along the lines of "If (employee.status == X && !taxesApplied.include(correctTaxes)) then trigger alert Y". Perhaps I'm too much of an engineer, but I find it hard to believe that a company that focusses solely on HR can even operate without this kind of automated check.

Re: Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

#310

Post by kamaal »

temphn wrote: post #298
confluence wrote: post #247

I'll repost a previous comment for the benefit of the HN community concerning exactly this situation for start-up employees from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362 (great discussion there btw), for those who missed it the first time around (hope that's ok): ... Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It…

"Relentlessly cynical", you sound like a great person to hire! Someone like you shouldn't work for a startup. Go and work for a big company, go poison the atmosphere there. It's just not a good fit on both ends. If they're cheating you so bad, if it's so obviously a bad deal, why do you even care? In your view, startups suck and no one makes a lot of money or learns anything, so you aren't missing much. Go work at Or…

Something tells me you like Serfdom too.
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