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Why you should join a big company first

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Re: Why you should join a big company first

#41

Post by altcognito »

pg wrote: post #13

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one p…

As a developer, any job where you get to do a deep variety of tasks is likely going to be good early in your career. I worked at a small company that allowed me to learn how to manage production servers and write code that ran millions of dollars worth of business.

It was hard. But I learned a lot (and made some mistakes). The problem? It was a small company, and there was no depth. There are limits to how far you can go on your own generally speaking. (in particular if the company is not expanding/hiring)

I never really got into the business side of things, but something similar applies. If you want to learn a lot about how business is done, you're going to have to get in on the very early stages, getting your hands dirty, curating customers, and seeing how/participating in how the business plan is put together.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#42

Post by pg »

mjn wrote: post #25
pg wrote: post #13

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one p…

> So if you want to focus on other things besides work, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup. Or, alternately: if you're a rational agent interested in maximizing risk-adjusted returns, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup.

Depends how good you are. If you're very good, you have better expected value working for yourself than averaging your work together with a bunch of other people. If not you're better off working for someone else.

(You're making a common statistical mistake here. You're concluding that because 1/x startups succeed, the odds of each person's startup succeeding is 1/x. You can see this clearly if you ask what the probability is that someone is over 6 feet tall. Although 1/x people are, the probability for each person is either 1 or 0. And while no one's chances of succeeding are 1, the startup case is closer to the height example than to rolling dice. Someone like the young Bill Gates would have a much higher probability of succeeding than a person selected at random.)

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#43

Post by ktd »

sergiosgc wrote: post #15

The time window for playing the startup game is very short. Fresh out of college you don't have as many financial responsibilities as a few years down the road. Take that financial freedom as a license to risk working at or launching a startup. You won't be able to do it when you have a mortgage, two kids to feed and clothe, and college savings on the horizon.

Not everyone has a mortgage and kids later on in life.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#44

Post by sillysaurus2 »

ivv wrote: post #40
mrmaddog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your thoughts on joining a big company vs joining a startup (as opposed to starting a company yourself)? On average, it seems one would still learn faster and be able to take on many new roles as an employee at a startup, but an employe also is in a chaotic world that he or she doesn't completely control (and often working with incomplete information). Do you think this trade-off is worth it? And, since I'm…

Joining, not launching, a start-up is what the article's author is actually comparing to a corp job: "Should I join Microsoft or a startup?" Financially and over the long term, a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.

a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.

And yet you won't get rich. The chances of getting rich as an employee of a startup are admittedly small, but nonzero.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#45

Post by parris »

I feel like getting a job at a larger company as an engineer is easier than getting a job at a startup anyways. Sure when you start your own thing there are no rules, but any startup with a couple senior engineers that have had to train up some employees from scratch know how much work it is. If you are joining a large company then you have a better opportunity to learn from more people. Your support base is larger.

Side note: who can you actually hire within your network if you join/start a startup? I thought I knew people, but every time I've ever asked if anyone wants a referral for (enter reputable startup brand here using awesome tech) I get no responses among my network. Every good engineer I know right now actually has a job that they like.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#46

Post by [deleted] »

staunch wrote: post #37
pg wrote: post #13

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one p…

The strongest reason that it's bad advice is that existing companies are very hard to quit for most people. The comforts they provide are so compelling that few escape, even when they might quite desperately want to. Existing companies almost(!) completely satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And beyond simply being compelling, they're extremely consuming , of time and energy. Just imagine how many more great startup…

[deleted]

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#47

Post by beachstartup »

pg wrote: post #13

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one p…

> A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner

sure, when things turn out positive, people wish they would have made the decision sooner.

also - wished they had quit their corporate job sooner, or wished they'd never taken the corporate job to begin with? big difference.

either way i'm willing to bet that out of most people who failed to receive funding, then ran out of money and had to find another job, generally under less than ideal conditions, are glad they've got some corporate experience on the resume.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#48

Post by emiliobumachar »

pg wrote: post #13

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one p…

"I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer."

Do you usually keep in touch with the ones who fail?

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#49

Post by mjn »

pg wrote: post #42
mjn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you want to focus on other things besides work, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup. Or, alternately: if you're a rational agent interested in maximizing risk-adjusted returns, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup.

Depends how good you are. If you're very good, you have better expected value working for yourself than averaging your work together with a bunch of other people. If not you're better off working for someone else. (You're making a common statistical mistake here. You're concluding that because 1/x startups succeed, the odds of each person's startup succeeding is 1/x. You can see this clearly if you ask what the proba…

Of course, most people who think they are two standard deviations above the mean in expected returns, are not in fact that much out of the ordinary (monetarily, anyway). So the a priori expected return also needs to adjust for the risk that your self-assessment is incorrect.

You are making a common mistake inherent in backwards-looking risk assessment, considering the Bill Gates example after Bill Gates is already massively wealthy. Prior to Bill Gates founding Microsoft, or even in its early years, his main advantages were in coming from a wealthy family, and few people bet on his company getting exceptionally huge (as evidenced by the early Microsoft market cap, which was not exactly tens of billions). I would argue the ultimate outcome there, whether Bill Gates "succeeds" into $50b or "fails" into a mere $10m, is closer to rolling dice, and not reliably predictable.

In any case, Bill Gates was a trust-fund kid with a multi-million inheritance backstopping him, so is excluded from the field of consideration I'm positing here, which is what decision is best for kids who come from less-wealthy families.

Re: Why you should join a big company first

#50

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #46
staunch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strongest reason that it's bad advice is that existing companies are very hard to quit for most people. The comforts they provide are so compelling that few escape, even when they might quite desperately want to. Existing companies almost(!) completely satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And beyond simply being compelling, they're extremely consuming , of time and energy. Just imagine how many more great startup…

[deleted]

[deleted]
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