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Working for a startup makes less sense

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Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#311

Post by yoz-y »

irjustin wrote: post #83
yoz-y wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had kind of the opposite experience. At the startup we were really sluggish it was hard to learn anything because we were jumping into any possible business opportunity before even thinking about ROI because money was always tight. 80% of the time was wasted supporting clients and fixing bugs that were due to the fact that the product was shipped too early. I think the biggest difference is money. A well funded…

> were due to the fact that the product was shipped too early. Can you explain more about this? The mantra is generally ship early and iterate fast. How come the tech team was spending 80% in a bugs rat race? The earlier statement of "80% of the time was wasted supporting clients" seems perfect? i.e. what else should you be doing other than supporting clients who are willing to pay with features and bug fixes? Feel l…

Initially the startup was a service company which later pivoted into customer medical product. Previous contracts were upheld, while new were piling on even after pivot. Note that this is in France, a lot of funding comes from 'collaboration' contracts between laboratories and companies, often including up to 5 different entities. All this means that you are stuck in a whirlpool of quarterly meetings. With a tiny team if your product needs even very little support for each client it piles up. On top of that this was a medical, connected, product, people have different expectations for devices with a stamp on them.

So now you have a team with about 2.5 collaboration projects per engineer, who are at the same time the tech support and SREs. With several new products in a pipeline. All of it wrapped in a bow of medical certification.

One think that startups should have in my opinion is focus. If you have enough funding to go for a moonshot drop everything else and go for it. Don't spend too much time hedging because you will never get to the goal. If it doesn't work out, too bad, but at least do everything you can to get there. Especially when cash strapped.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#312

Post by [deleted] »

abacadaba wrote: post #307
marvin wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 million is 40.000 dollars per year indefinitely, by the 4% rule, with a small risk of ruin that you'll most likely see coming years in advance. It should be possible to live in the Bay Area on that, given that the place still has cashiers, cleaning personnel and maintenance workers. It won't be a middle-class lifestyle, but you'd have to make _some_ sacrifices in order to indefinitely work at whatever you want in t…

Never having visited myself, this is what I don't get about the bay area. How is it still a functioning city? How far out do you have to live to be able to afford rent on a non-tech bro salary?

[deleted]

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#313

Post by lotsofpulp »

marvin wrote: post #291
lotsofpulp wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the remaining 30 years of life you have low ability to earn income, but face higher taxes and healthcare spend. To me, FU money is passive investments which yield a couple hundred thousand a year from businesses that can keep up with inflation.

1 million is 40.000 dollars per year indefinitely, by the 4% rule, with a small risk of ruin that you'll most likely see coming years in advance. It should be possible to live in the Bay Area on that, given that the place still has cashiers, cleaning personnel and maintenance workers. It won't be a middle-class lifestyle, but you'd have to make _some_ sacrifices in order to indefinitely work at whatever you want in t…

> It should be possible to live in the Bay Area on that, given that the place still has cashiers, cleaning personnel and maintenance workers.

There’s no reason pay for cashiers, cleaning personnel, and maintenance workers can’t rise, or to meet the demand of labor with a little bit of automation also. Making $40k per year as a cashier means $80k as a couple or roommates.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#314

Post by hadiz »

senordevnyc wrote: post #212
hadiz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where is this? also, how many years of experience?

Not going to disclose the company. Smaller public tech company. 10+ yoe.

right, wasn't looking for the company actually, by "where" I meant the location, which I think is NYC based on your handle! Congrats, that's a great gig!

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#315

Post by DebtDeflation »

sokoloff wrote: post #202
geophile wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often does something like this happen? I don't have statistics, but I believe the more common scenario is that the company gets acquired, and the return on investment is not the 10x or 1000x or 1000000x the VCs hoped for, so they recoup their original investment. Leaving the engineers with options worth nothing. I view liquidation preferences as VCs offloading risk to employees because they can.

IMO, it doesn’t happen in part because the liquidation preferences are present. If they weren’t there, a great many startup founders would find their highest expected value play to be to close up, distribute the funds, and go back to working for someone else. Maybe not the day after funding, but 3, 6, or 18 months in. “This isn’t working out, but I can cash out from the cash left in the bank.” Just like the “declare…

> a great many startup founders would find their highest expected value play to be to close up, distribute the funds, and go back to working for someone else

This is absolutely correct and it SPEAKS VOLUMES about the reality of the startup world, even apart from this discussion on liquidation preferences. I'd recommend anyone looking at working for a startup to consider the above and then consider the fact that as an employee they'd be in an even worse position than those founders before turning down that far more lucrative offer from BigTechCo.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#316

Post by DebtDeflation »

senordevnyc wrote: post #175
paulmendoza wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find big companies to be incredibly frustrating. It is so hard to get anything done. As a result I have gravitated towards startups. I know I have made less money but I love the daily feeling of having an impact. I think startups are great for junior employees because you learn so much so quickly. Eventually if you want to be successful in startups you need to start your own startup. The payout on 25% ownership at…

I'm hopeful that there's a middle ground. The company I chose is on the smaller side (think Dropbox, Snap, Twitter, etc) but still public. My team is even smaller, I'll be one of a handful of iOS devs on the product I work on. But we'll see, it might suck!

>I'm hopeful that there's a middle ground.

There absolutely is. I'm not sure why so many here seem to think that the only options are: BA startup, FAANG, Fortune 500 megacorp.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#317

Post by someguydave »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #295
swiftcoder wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There ought to be a sizable subset of highly skilled engineers who have achieved financial independence and would enjoy tackling a challenging problem in a startup. The flip side of this equation is that those same engineers can tackle pretty much any challenging problem they choose, while continuing to take home those massive paycheques from a big tech firm. Big tech operates in almost every part of industry simul…

But not all engineers want to work at FAANG, there are some that are entrepreneurial at heart and would love to work on their own idea as a founder/co-founder.

Why do those engineers even need a cofounder? Why should they share a big chunk of equity with someone without the skills needed to launch?

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#318

Post by goatinaboat »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #89
lpolovets wrote: post #49

My experience: engineering at Startup #1 for 2 years, then Google for 3 years, then Startup #2 for 4 years, and now I've been working with seed stage companies as a VC for the last 7 years. The amount I earned as an engineer was highest at Startup #1 (got lucky!), significantly lower at Google, and a little lower than that at Startup #2. Startup #2 is still chugging along, which could eventually make it on par with o…

I've noticed the same thing in biotech startups. Some people are meant to be part of smaller, bootstrapping companies and others are meant to be part of more established, good business corporations. The most interesting people are the ones who get in early and stick with it, growing along with the company.

The most interesting people are the ones who get in early and stick with it, growing along with the company

It’s pretty rare for this to actually happen in my experience. Generally an early engineer will grow and be ready to take up the role of VP Engineering or even CTO and instead the VC’s will parachute in one of their cronies once the hard work has already been done.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#319

Post by senordevnyc »

hadiz wrote: post #314
senordevnyc wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to disclose the company. Smaller public tech company. 10+ yoe.

right, wasn't looking for the company actually, by "where" I meant the location, which I think is NYC based on your handle! Congrats, that's a great gig!

Ah yes, NYC. Thanks! I seriously couldn't be more excited :)

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#320

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #155
scarmig wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you have an engineer who could be working at BigTechCo; she works at your company a year, and then that raise you specify happens. Engineer continues to work there for three more years. Company amounts to little, acquired for $2MM, engineer gets nothing. Of course, everyone is disappointed. But it's still unfair for that engineer who gave up half a million dollars or more to work at the startup to get nothing…

Why is it unfair? The engineer was part of a team that collectively destroyed economic value. What is the fair portion of bonus on top of salary that they should be rewarded with for that performance? By all means understand it; I’ll never argue against that, but I find liquidation preferences quite reasonable.

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