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Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

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Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#401

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Glyptodon wrote: post #290

A lot of the comments here boil down to "FAANG" is a better deal. But lots of people literally want FAANG to go extinct and won't work for them. Which means you work where? Startup pay usually beats what random business pay for SWE work. Probably there's some kind of third track, but it's less obvious to me.

Speaking for myself (and this will likely show up on their application audits making me an infeasible), I'd give up some of my morals if the pay is good.

A former colleague somehow landed a job at Github, he earns more than most management level people here; he said the job is just a job and pretty much the same as any other job, but he can't really leave because the pay is so good.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#402

Post by Cthulhu_ »

nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #117
fxtentacle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll fit in just fine. Most of the companies that want Kubernetes also never scaled past 100 users ;)

And the ones that did have a platform team, you just write code as if you are using a lambda or something anyway. Tend to your allotment of in-house yaml and off to the races! Unless you want to be on the k8s team. I wouldn't hate it personally.

Same, at this point it feels like doing your own k8s configuration is re-solving an already solved problem. Surely deploying software in a scalable fashion is a solved problem?

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#403

Post by Cthulhu_ »

_fat_santa wrote: post #250

You have to be crazy to start a startup, and I mean this in a good way. I'm currently working on a startup, completely bootstrapped and taking no VC funds. I know what my odds are and I know that the company will most likely fail, but I still do it. That's what makes startup founders "crazy", because you have to realize how low your odds are and at the same time say "fuck it" and keep going. IMO there will always be…

And that's fair, that's how all the big tech companies of today were founded. But only people who are in an already comfortable position that they can take the risk can do that, which requires either financial support, still living at home, having passive income to live off of, etc. And even if you have all that, I believe you need to be a special and rare type of person to have an idea and have the self-motivation, energy, discipline, and optimism to bring it to life.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#404

Post by Cthulhu_ »

willtemperley wrote: post #138

Just need to move to a country where 30k USD is a good salary. Build the same stuff for far less.

I wonder about this, while living and working in SF gives you the networking opportunities, surely building a pure tech company can be done from anywhere? Cost of living is vastly different even inside the US, moreso in the EU, and a digital nomad can live and work from anywhere.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#405

Post by Cthulhu_ »

egl2020 wrote: post #19

I've worked at startups and at a FAANG. For many years, I've told people that they should never do a startup for the $$$; their expected value is higher at a FAANG. They should do a startup only if they're interested in the technology or the people.

Or if they have everything lined up already - idea, investors, customers, staff, support network, etc.

That said, even then, within the established tech companies there is space for innovation; if you can sell your idea within the company you work for, you have a lot more chance of success, and if you fail, you still have a job at least and / or you got paid during.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#406

Post by whstl »

bradlys wrote: post #277
whstl wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly did. I have options/stocks from 3 different companies, all vested, but zero expectation of seeing any money out of it. One of them recently went belly up and had an exit for peanuts. I didn't go for big tech but I did pick a job on a YC startup that, while demanding, allowed me to purchase my own house and work on my own stuff in the evenings.

How did you manage to buy a house on your own while making just salary? Usually salary at YC startups doesn’t get past $250k and that’s not enough to afford anything in the bay.

There are YC startups all over the world! :)

I'm in Berlin. Houses are expensive here, but still possible with a Startup salary.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#407

Post by Karrot_Kream »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #60
dcminter wrote: post #10

> What's changed? Largely, the make up of the audience in HN. I sincerely doubt that the hard core of people doing startups, thinking of doing a startup, or just very interested in the topic has gone away or changed attitude very much. But the profile of HN has grown. It's a miracle that it's still an interesting and curious group, but from comments I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of peopl…

> I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of people who are here because they are generically interested in tech topics and not specifically startups This is certainly me. Generally interested in tech (and many of the other things that HNers seem to be interested in these days), but no real interest in startups. Hope I am not ruining HN for the old timers. I started using this place a lot more in…

So I'm curious, is HN just a general tech news site for you then? Do you expect it to have a focus?

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#408

Post by nejsjsjsbsb »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #402
nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the ones that did have a platform team, you just write code as if you are using a lambda or something anyway. Tend to your allotment of in-house yaml and off to the races! Unless you want to be on the k8s team. I wouldn't hate it personally.

Same, at this point it feels like doing your own k8s configuration is re-solving an already solved problem. Surely deploying software in a scalable fashion is a solved problem?

For most AWS etc. can solve it for you. At a certain scale that gets expensive enough to make reinventing wheels attractive.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#409

Post by NoboruWataya »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #407
NoboruWataya wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of people who are here because they are generically interested in tech topics and not specifically startups This is certainly me. Generally interested in tech (and many of the other things that HNers seem to be interested in these days), but no real interest in startups. Hope I am not ruining HN for the old timers. I started using this place a lot more in…

So I'm curious, is HN just a general tech news site for you then? Do you expect it to have a focus?

Yes to the first question, no to the second. In fact it's not just tech, as I sometimes see interesting articles about history or the arts on here. But of course it is mostly tech-related content.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#410

Post by kinnth »

It's largely a measure of risk & reward for your time in 20s-30s. What would you rather as a bright, intelligent, driven person? Put your heart and soul into a high risk but genuinely interesting problem or get paid well to work on someone else's reasonably interesting problem.

I personally had a startup, it was a consultancy business, we got to 5 employees and I learnt a lot. It was very low risk, $0 in VC and bootstrapped from an employee stock benefit of $20k. I focussed on me working just like my employees. I had fun doing it, paid myself well, learnt a lot. I am now financially stable, no debt and own a house outright. That was always enough for my dreams.

I think before jumping in two feet first, lower your life risk. Aim for your 40s to be your own, where you can travel and live free.

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