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Downsides to working at a tech giant

blog.garrytan.com

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Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#371

Post by garry »

doublement wrote: post #233
keithwhor wrote: post #90

The pessimism in this thread really bothers me. I’ve read anecdotes on entrepreneurship being on the decline, but it pains me to read so many negative takes on startups. We’re actively training our young people to avoid taking risks, and it’s going to fuck us — especially if some of those young people have the ambition be early employees at, say, a startup that takes on climate change in a big way. Look — the fact th…

> Don’t work at startups to make $200M. Work at startups because you’ll work with people who have risk profiles that are much more likely to generate outsized returns as a group. What's the point of that if those "group returns" are allocated almost entirely to the founders and the investors? If you think it's not about the money, it's worth checking to see if you're being suckered by someone who realizes that it is…

I generally recommend people think about it as two things: Learning or Earning.

If you are learning, you are getting something out of the situation even if it's not well paid. Don't stay there forever, or stay until you stop learning.

Then when it's time to earn: go work at a tech giant if you must, but also consider starting one yourself. Or if you can tell a startup is a rocket ship and have a chance to join, don't ask about whether you have a window seat, just do it, because those are often the best risk-adjusted returns you can get. Post-product-market-fit is an amazing time. (The trick is it is hard to tell if it's a rocket ship, of course.)

In the learn phase, I don't think it has to be about the money (though of course people have their individual needs). But in the earn phase, it is definitely about capturing the value you create.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#372

Post by garry »

TuringNYC wrote: post #338
garry wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate this, and am trying to take this to heart. But it is also possible to survive. And if you do that, you don't merely survive, you thrive— that's what product market fit looks like. I've been lucky to see it dozen of times first hand, and it's nothing short of magical. When founders and teams pursue something without product market fit, it's a high cost to pay and a terrible outcome for most everyone. This…

>> But it is also possible to survive. I think there is a big gap in how different people see this. You are right, it is possible to survive. It is also possible to fail. For some people, that is fine -- they can call up an uncle, or a friend (Thiel) and land another job quickly that pays good medical benefits. For others, an 20/80, or even 50/50 or 80/20 survive/fail just does not cut it. Perhaps they have crushing…

Yeah, I know. I had this problem too. I had $40K in credit card debt and $40K in student loans, when I got that offer. I probably should have mentioned that too. Having debt is a huge crushing weight and definitely prevents you from taking the risks needed to capitalize on opportunity given you.

It really did, for me, as well.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#373

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Would it be overreaching to say that no two startup experiences are the same and therefore, generalizing startups vs. tech giants is not an adequate analysis for deciding whether to join a startup?

I'd guess it would be enlightening to compare 'the strangest day ever at my startup' vs. 'the strangest day ever at my tech giant'. Do you have an anecdote?

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#374

Post by garry »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #347
garry wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the note! I appreciate the feedback. These things are crazy rare. I didn't do a good job of explaining then how weird this experience was. In the moment it felt like any other startup. Peter was great and well known but not outrageously famous the way he is today. I also didn't do a good job of doing an intro on this idea that tech startups are taking over all of the economy. There are some things that I j…

> I was making a joke about Google eating all of the world's revenue, but it didn't land. Sorry about that. Honestly, I found it slightly offensive.

Sorry about that. Lots of other companies are going to make money, and that's a good thing.

It's certainly a bad thing for large tech firms to take out increasingly large portions of global profits. It also might be a secular trend without end.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#375

Post by garry »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #353
garry wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up poor as the child of refugee immigrants. I was food insecure. My dad was an alcoholic. Being obsessed with computers was literally the thing that changed my life. That's just my experience, YMMV.

> That's just my experience, YMMV. The vast majority of people like that aren't (and don't) getting into Stanford, period, because impressive-to-admissions-committee folks are usually children of other impressive people (not always, usually). I don't think it's possible to interpret this as anything but "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps".

I guess I was one of those middle class scholarship kids. There were lots of them around and they were my friends. The private school kids honestly tended to keep to themselves. It's a part of my Stanford experience I found most jarring.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#376

Post by kev009 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #345
Apocryphon wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not known for paying great, either. So one wonders if it really is just Google and Facebook pumping the market up.

My theory (I could be wrong) is that both Google and Facebook and startups trying to emulate them are trying to exclusively hire from the same dozen elite universities. That would explain the salaries.

SRE has a lot of people without degrees. I don't know if SWE is still an ivory tower but just SRE salaries at G and FB can debunk this theory.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#377

Post by garry »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #52
pathseeker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In fact, I'll just give you 1000 shares of Apple stock, there's no risk to you". And you said no. That's not the same. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

In the video Garry mentioned that Thiel offered him a check for his salary. Not quite no risk, but effectively so. He'd be able to go back to MS after 6 months/1 year no problem and would have only lost out on some vesting. He probably would be able to go back to a better position which often happens.

The director of my product unit took me out for coffee and basically said as much. Congrats on the move, and if you ever want to come back, email me directly.

It was one of the classiest things that ever happened to me in my business career.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#378

Post by TuringNYC »

garry wrote: post #372
TuringNYC wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But it is also possible to survive. I think there is a big gap in how different people see this. You are right, it is possible to survive. It is also possible to fail. For some people, that is fine -- they can call up an uncle, or a friend (Thiel) and land another job quickly that pays good medical benefits. For others, an 20/80, or even 50/50 or 80/20 survive/fail just does not cut it. Perhaps they have crushing…

Yeah, I know. I had this problem too. I had $40K in credit card debt and $40K in student loans, when I got that offer. I probably should have mentioned that too. Having debt is a huge crushing weight and definitely prevents you from taking the risks needed to capitalize on opportunity given you. It really did, for me, as well.

Thanks for that detail. I believe every decision needs to be made in the context of what I know at that time -- and what I decide is the best way to go forward at that time. If I gain new information later, and I can adjust great.

But if it works poorly later on, I dont look at it negatively, because short of having a time-machine it does not help me be a better person. Constantly improving the judgement framework is a good thing, but there is no point regretting a mistake you could not have seen differently.

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#379

Post by grzm »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #365
KaiserPro wrote: post #310

The problem is that people seem to think that one must drink the coolaid to do well. I have worked for both small, large, internationals and startups. A startup is a massive risk. 99.5% of them fail, of that 0.5%, >50% are acquired which is a spectacularly brutal experience. Odds are, your startup will fail, and take you with it. (especially as those of you in the US have to think about health insurance.) Most of the…

Begging your forgiveness, it's Kool-Aid.

Acksually, it was Flavor Aid, but who’s counting except us pedants?

Re: Downsides to working at a tech giant

#380

Post by elfexec »

keithwhor wrote: post #90

The pessimism in this thread really bothers me. I’ve read anecdotes on entrepreneurship being on the decline, but it pains me to read so many negative takes on startups. We’re actively training our young people to avoid taking risks, and it’s going to fuck us — especially if some of those young people have the ambition be early employees at, say, a startup that takes on climate change in a big way. Look — the fact th…

> The pessimism in this thread really bothers me.

It's the demographics. The HN population skews extremely old and older people are generally more pessimistic, cynical and risk averse. Also, there is a large amount of traditional media workers on HN and they, for obvious reasons, are not fans of the tech industry since the tech industry is eating their lunch.

Don't let the thread get you down. It's a skewed and biased representation that isn't based on the real world.

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