4 ms·

There is nothing wrong with being motivated by both doing excellent work and being well compensated for it. If the motivation is purely money, sure, I see a pro

by Cymen 11y ago

There is nothing wrong with being motivated by both doing excellent work and being well compensated for it. If the motivation is purely money, sure, I see a problem. But you're painting both sets with the same brush.

AstroChimpHam 11y ago
There's no problem either way. If you want that big paycheck, enjoy ad tech or high-frequency trading. I'm not judging you. But if you come into a start-up, both the founder and the employee should be clear that more money can be made elsewhere. The start-up is for someone who wants that romantic lifestyle. They still will earn plenty of money, but no, it won't be as much as you'll make at [insert-huge-company-here], and that's OK. It sounds like Box dude from the story had a very cool experience building a company from 50 people to 1,000. I'm sorry all he thinks he got out of it are his stock options.
- Cymen 11y ago
  I wouldn't use the word romantic but maybe we're talking about the same thing: the excitement and joy you get from building something from scratch as a small team. You truly have to understand the whole solution and the team is small enough that rapid changes in direction are still possible and happen regularly. I agree that has immense value and getting experience with it is worth the cost. This is why I work in startups. But what are you going to do with that experience you have gained. To go back to the romance option, if you can't get someone else into the bed, romance can become very sour. I too see that the Box guy got more value than just the earnings on the options. But that more value is largely theoretical unless he can turn around and put what he learned into practice (and get compensated for it).
wpietri 11y ago
Definitely. Indeed, I'd expect an organization with a sense of mission to be better at compensating everybody fairly rather than letting gains accrue to a narrow elite. An interesting example is Kingston, a memory company. In 1996, after the bulk of the company was bought by SoftBank, Kingston's founders gave $100m in bonuses to the 550 employees. It's a shame that doesn't happen more.

by Cymen 11y ago

AstroChimpHam 11y ago

There's no problem either way. If you want that big paycheck, enjoy ad tech or high-frequency trading. I'm not judging you. But if you come into a start-up, both the founder and the employee should be clear that more money can be made elsewhere. The start-up is for someone who wants that romantic lifestyle. They still will earn plenty of money, but no, it won't be as much as you'll make at [insert-huge-company-here], and that's OK. It sounds like Box dude from the story had a very cool experience building a company from 50 people to 1,000. I'm sorry all he thinks he got out of it are his stock options.

Cymen 11y ago
I wouldn't use the word romantic but maybe we're talking about the same thing: the excitement and joy you get from building something from scratch as a small team. You truly have to understand the whole solution and the team is small enough that rapid changes in direction are still possible and happen regularly. I agree that has immense value and getting experience with it is worth the cost. This is why I work in startups. But what are you going to do with that experience you have gained. To go back to the romance option, if you can't get someone else into the bed, romance can become very sour. I too see that the Box guy got more value than just the earnings on the options. But that more value is largely theoretical unless he can turn around and put what he learned into practice (and get compensated for it).

wpietri 11y ago

Definitely. Indeed, I'd expect an organization with a sense of mission to be better at compensating everybody fairly rather than letting gains accrue to a narrow elite. An interesting example is Kingston, a memory company. In 1996, after the bulk of the company was bought by SoftBank, Kingston's founders gave $100m in bonuses to the 550 employees. It's a shame that doesn't happen more.