51–60 of 117 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
5% is unrealistic. 1% is. 50 million * .01 * .65 (tax) / 4 years = 81,250 considering opportunity cost and time spent. likely not worth it.
GitHub's first employee owns more than 1% of the company, so I'm not sure why it's unrealistic. Maybe in the world of businesses letting VC's tell them how to run their company this is the norm, but it doesn't have to be.
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Financial compensation is only part of it. Most startups include longer hours and additional responsibilities that limit what else you can do with your life, such as have a relationship, spend time with friends, or work on a side project. I'd guess you're at an established startup if you're only making ~$10k/year less than your last job in the defense industry. Pre-Series A startups are unlikely to pay even a third o…
A good eng in defense (at the level needed to be a startup founder) should be making 150 uncleared to 250 secret to 300 ts or project lead or more if deployable. Working 40 hour weeks (well, working 5 hour weeks with 35 hours of meetings, admin, paperwork, and overhead) A pre series a eng is making 30 to 60 if lucky. At series a, maybe 80 to 100. Defense is almost a perpetual job, whereas the half life of a pre serie…
80 to 100 is much closer to what a software engineer with several years of experience makes working for a defense contractor than 250, though of course actual years of experience and how well one has played the corporate ladder game can make a big impact.
Past a certain point it is relatively difficult to advance salary-wise without taking on management roles and giving up the hands-dirty side of programming / engineering. Once you're there it's an apples-to-oranges comparison for the kind of startups that are typical for HN-types ~ certainly no early stage startup is going to hire a 10-year manager to be employee #1 when what they really need is a hotshot programmer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Financial compensation is only part of it. Most startups include longer hours and additional responsibilities that limit what else you can do with your life, such as have a relationship, spend time with friends, or work on a side project. I'd guess you're at an established startup if you're only making ~$10k/year less than your last job in the defense industry. Pre-Series A startups are unlikely to pay even a third o…
A good eng in defense (at the level needed to be a startup founder) should be making 150 uncleared to 250 secret to 300 ts or project lead or more if deployable. Working 40 hour weeks (well, working 5 hour weeks with 35 hours of meetings, admin, paperwork, and overhead) A pre series a eng is making 30 to 60 if lucky. At series a, maybe 80 to 100. Defense is almost a perpetual job, whereas the half life of a pre serie…
If it takes you weeks to recover from a burn-out you haven't burned out - yet. Burn out is a serious issue and some people never fully recover from it. If you're working hard and you need a break after a few months of hard labour that's normal, but it's not the same as being burned out. Otherwise a great piece and nice to get some insight in to what goes on behind the scenes of backtype.
Years ago I suffered what I would now call "burn out" although at the time I didn't know what was happening. I found this essay to be an accurate description of my experience, but I think a doctor would be a better source of information on this topic: http://www.stressdoc.com/four_stages_burnbout.htm At the worst point I was experiencing anxiety, paranoia and depression. My only strategy for coping with stress and di…
Good luck on the 5K. :-)
I personally think the first one to five employees in a minimally funded startup with small m&a exit as the likely exit are getting a bad deal, vs. the founders or employees who join after financing. An early employee will get about a percent tops as an individual contributor...maybe up to five percent tops if he is more of a vp engineering. In exchange, a seriously below market salary, equally high if not higher ris…
There's a market price for all the different options, from founder to early hire to later hire. It would not make sense for there to be points on the continuum that would suddenly be a much worse (or better) deal, and in my experience there aren't.
You're also mistaken in saying that an early hire will get 1 percent tops. This number varies by 30-40x, depending on where the company is and how early the hire is. 1 percent would be typical for a very good hacker fairly soon after a series A. You can get much more pre series A.
Interesting read but the details are a bit scary from my comfy chair here in enterprise software land: - Six years at Stanford, two CS degrees - Works up to 90 hours a week from home, has burned out multiple times in only six months with the company - Founders work even more - All three appear to be single white 20something males - Job and tech (Clojure!) sound cool. Edit: All that said he seems like a nice guy and I…
I've had some weeks where I've pulled 90+ hours, but my normal week is more like 70 hours.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good eng in defense (at the level needed to be a startup founder) should be making 150 uncleared to 250 secret to 300 ts or project lead or more if deployable. Working 40 hour weeks (well, working 5 hour weeks with 35 hours of meetings, admin, paperwork, and overhead) A pre series a eng is making 30 to 60 if lucky. At series a, maybe 80 to 100. Defense is almost a perpetual job, whereas the half life of a pre serie…
A programmer working defense state-side does not make nearly those figures. 80 to 100 is much closer to what a software engineer with several years of experience makes working for a defense contractor than 250, though of course actual years of experience and how well one has played the corporate ladder game can make a big impact. Past a certain point it is relatively difficult to advance salary-wise without taking on…
Substitute working for a fund on the dev side and double my numbers to make the original argument stronger.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GitHub's first employee owns more than 1% of the company, so I'm not sure why it's unrealistic. Maybe in the world of businesses letting VC's tell them how to run their company this is the norm, but it doesn't have to be.
Name one company in the USA which didn't take outside funding and exited for more than 30mm usd?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And their race is supposed to predict this? I've heard white people can actually be quite different from one another.
If it's one item in a long list it seems reasonable to take it as one factor, especially if they're, in the case I've encountered most often, twentysomething male nonimmigrant whites who grew up in an urban area in the northeast or west coast, in a middle-class or better family. Any one of those factors aren't particularly predictive, but taken as a whole they narrow down a culture with some accuracy.
The problem is, this was a short list.
I personally think the first one to five employees in a minimally funded startup with small m&a exit as the likely exit are getting a bad deal, vs. the founders or employees who join after financing. An early employee will get about a percent tops as an individual contributor...maybe up to five percent tops if he is more of a vp engineering. In exchange, a seriously below market salary, equally high if not higher ris…
If by "real" financing you mean a series A round, then you're probably mistaken. People who join a startup with just angel funding might get roughly 4-5x as much stock as they'd get post series A. It's only a worse deal if a series A round makes a company 4-5x less risky. There's a market price for all the different options, from founder to early hire to later hire. It would not make sense for there to be points on t…
so the #1 and #2 employees are going to get 60% equity combined?
Or was that x supposed to be a % sign?