Let’s Admit Why There Are So Many “Job Hoppers” In Startupland

Many, many ways.

First of all, "high" is relative. The exit may be high, but still not cover the funding, so all the proceeds go to the funding entities (the VCs) and maybe a few top executives / founders. That happens in countless startups that sell for $50m after raising $30-40m. Even "senior" employees get basically nothing.

Another common issue is dilution. Your vested shares can and will be severely diluted. Again, the VCs and maybe the founders are the only ones with any control or protection over this.

A lot of other interesting things can happen at or around that all important payday. You may want to read about how things like IPO and other liquidity events are actually handled by law. Surprisingly few startup employees do, and this stuff is far from trivial - there's a reason why Goldman et al pay the best and brightest to figure this stuff out.

All of this is doubly true if the founders / execs are untrustworthy / morally indifferent and actually strive to dilute or otherwise deprive you.

Somebody needs to mention that really low turnover can also be a sign of problems. People don't often leave jobs where they're asked to do very little. It can be a sign of a lazy, unambitious culture.

Let me take a moment to rebut this.

"Stick with me and you'll get rich kid" I've heard of CEOs who actually sat their employees down and showed them how rich they'd be based on what price the company is sold for. ("If we sell for a billion, I get a jet and you get a yacht.")

I've had someone tell me this before (read my iStoleYourStartup post) and I sort-of got the feeling from the beginning it was a sham. I played along because I wasn't losing anything as I was doing it on the side, but I knew this speak was shady from the start. Not looking twice at this is type of mentality and behavior is a failure on one's own part.

"I'll mentor you." Most startup CEOs aren't ready to mentor anyone. They're still trying to figure things out for themselves. Even if they could, where would they find the time to mentor?

What type of history does this CEO have? Are they a serial entrepreneur? Have they made multiple exits or IPO'd other companies in the past? Are they mentoring you under the pure prospect of being a mentor? Again, this takes intuition and judgement.

"We'll change the world together, you'll see" that's when changing the world gives way to "just increase page views!" and the job becomes more about the mechanics of SEO and link-baiting.

Every CEO of a distruptive start up will want to "change the world." Just because most of them are wrong doesn't make them liars or criminals. When the default to "increase page views," they simply don't have the experience to perform under pressure. This goes back to the second point about CEO career history.

To the point about why he is writing the article in the first place, saying employees are trained to behave that way is removing accountability from the employee who could very easily provide value on his own terms.

I don't believe there is any sort of "solution" as it in the end every developer is accountable for how much of their career they are responsible for. Ever heard the phrase, "its not the jobs you are given, but the jobs you take."

Every single developer in the world has the ability to make their own image, brand, expertise, and career. Real job hoppers know this - employers that don't provide their vision get left behind to ones that will cater to their own demands.

This article is attempting to protect any negative job hopper image with malfeasance on the part of the employer - but only re-enforcing the "employer"/"employee" relationship in the process.

I guess my entire point to this mini-rant is that job hoppers make their own careers, choose trust selectively, and provide value at a level that they can make their own terms.

Downshifting to accusing that the second party is intentionally misleading (even though this can and does happen sometimes - as it did to me), and avoiding taking accountability for one's own actions is delaying the learning process and avoiding change.

If you "hop jobs," let you be the reason why you are leaving, not someone or something else. Take responsibility for your own career, and only give people trust who have earned it.

I think stock dilution, is a big concern. With each round of funding, and the more stock they issue, this makes your stock worse less unless they can guarantee it. Im not an expert ( please someone expand), but my simple understanding , is something like lets say you get options to buy 10 stock out of 100 total shares, thats a lot. But then next round of funding they issue more stock and now you still have the option to buy 10, but there are 1000 outstanding now. What you had before is worth a lot less.

Seems like it needs more data. I found 0 reviews for a company as big as Adobe.