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Beware of the Silicon Valley cult
- habitue 11y agoI think it's interesting that the culture on HN is such that we can have an article like this on the front page. Sure, the comments are dumping on it, and it's not the most compelling argument in the first place, but the fact that it's upvoted and seriously considered before being refuted is pretty awesome. I guess I'm seeing it as an interesting case of a culture being open to criticism. How many of you were sincerely hoping, when you clicked on the headline, that the contents of the article would be a really intelligent argument about cult-like behavior in SV? One that said things you hadn't heard before? I was hoping. Why is that?
- yodsanklai 11y ago> I guess I'm seeing it as an interesting case of a culture being open to criticism What's the proportion of readers sharing this culture? I assume most readers don't work in SV, and many of them don't even live in the US.
- Apocryphon 11y agoI think it shows that the backlash to the careerist-striver SV startup bubble culture is in full swing. I'm not sure when it first came back after the Dot-com bubble, but it's a good counterweight to being unquestioning towards the 'wisdom' of founders/funders.
- svimma23 11y agoI don't see this article as clickbait. It's been upvoted a lot, so I would say that's evidence also of being an "intelligent argument".
- habitue 11y agoI don't think it's clickbait, just kinda ranty and with no "wow, that's a good point!" moments.
- objectivistbrit 11y agoI've been browsing HN since 2009 and there's always been articles like this. Hell, if you read pg's old essays, he often took a strong pro-bootstrapping, anti-funding tone. The problem with articles like this is they call startups a "cult" on the grounds that one can get a better financial deal elsewhere. What they ignore is that some people might be entirely rational in valuing the chance to build something groundbreaking, over pure financial concerns. The real criticism of startups would be that this is the big swindle -- that despite advertisements to the contrary, VC-funded startups do not offer the chance to build great products. The VC game inherently undermines attempts to build companies which think long-term, act on principle, and which build awesome products. Some companies manage it, but it takes exception leadership, vision and political savvy from the founders.
- freshhawk 11y ago"Cult" might be a provocative word choice, but given the shared irrational/false beliefs that partly define the real existing culture being talked about you can't easily dismiss the word choice completely.
- objectivistbrit 11y agoI wasn't commenting on the word choice. I was commenting on the focus on the financial drawbacks of startups, when the focus should be on how they stifle good work.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- david_shaw 11y ago> For the privilege of being a member of the cult, you get to take half of your market rate in salary in exchange for equity that will most likely be worthless. I realized this article was rather silly after reading this sentence. Yes, if you're working for a super early stage startup, you'll take little or no salary, and bundles of equity. No one goes into a role like that without knowing exactly what they're risking. In general, though, working for a well-funded startup is not taking "half of your market rate." Even if you're taking half of senior-level Bay Area rates, you're still earning 1.5-2x the rate of developers in the rest of the world. If you want to avoid the "Silicon Valley cult," don't worry about startups -- worry about thinking that every software developer is worth $250k. They (generally) aren't. Quick note before I close out this comment: I'm not trying to be pessimistic or cynical, but overvaluation of tech workers isn't something that will continue to exist in the short- to medium-term, in my opinion. I want to get paid well as much as the next guy, but if we're going to talk about a "bubble," tech salaries in the Bay Area are a big part of it.
- Apocryphon 11y agoI don't believe anyone thinks every dev is worth $250k. But the problem is that the local cost of living seems to think so.
- rconti 11y agoYeah, the article is silly. He's dumping on moving to the Bay Area for a tech job, where everyone I know who has done so (including myself) is thriving. And not working 100 hours a week.
- throaway1853 11y agoI don't see why the conversation is always work at large company vs. working at a startup. There's a third option: start a "lifestyle" business that can eventually be semi-passive. I am currently making about $400k / year working about 5 hours / week from a few different "lifestyle" businesses which I've built slowly over the past 5 years. There's no question that joining a startup as an employee is a terrible idea for any competent engineer. By far the best way to make money in startups is to be a founder. In every business I've started, I've always had big exit dreams, but when those fail to materialize, my startups have soft landed into passive "lifestyle" businesses of which I collect 90% of the profit. Mere employees are forced to quit in this situation and are left with nothing - this is why being a founder is so important. Also, never take VC money without a very good reason to do so.
- maxxxxx 11y agoMay I ask what kind of businesses you have? I have tried this several times but never got to a point where the money really worked out. I always seem to pick the wrong niches. Or probably my selling sucks.
- freshhawk 11y agoYou definitely asked the big question ... but don't expect an answer, a lot of the time this is highly valuable information. Often this information is the single largest company asset.
- maxxxxx 11y agoI am not asking about specific details. I am just curious in what areas a small company/single person can make money on that scale.
- 0xffff2 11y agoMy dad used to run a few similar passive income businesses. The thing you are asking is exactly the valuable information that isn't going to be publicly shared. At least in my dad's case, the execution of the business plan was trivial, the only difficult part was the marked research to know what product areas were valuable.
- pc86 11y ago> the average salary for a senior software engineer in the United States is right around $100K not $250k like it is at Google, etc. Bay Area HNers would be wise to remember this line. The number of times I see comments stating that it's easy or typical to make $175-200k/yr just a few years out of school is far too high.
- trose 11y agoIf you read any of the discussions in r/cscareerquestions you'd think you're a failure for not making $150k straight out of college.
- jaredandrews 11y agoHoly crap, this sub is hilarious!
- wdmeldon 11y agoThe number of people who frequent that sub with more than a year or two of professional experience is frightening. The discussion is so myopic it gives me a headache.
- akhilcacharya 11y agoReally? I frequently see the opposite opinion there now.
- norea-armozel 11y agoUnless you're doing some very specialized in-demand work I seriously doubt anyone will make 150k/yr at the start.
- m3talridl3y 11y agoIn the bay area the average for juniors is only 90k, and most people cap out at 120k or so, unless they have top-tier degrees, incredible negotiating skills, or something.
- terravion 11y agoBy now everyone knows that expected payoff of working at a start-up is the same or lower than a big company, but with much higher variability. Everyone knows this. The thing is though, no matter where you work, as a professional you'll spend 50+ hours a week working. The satisfaction you get from that time matters a lot to your happiness and sense of satisfaction. You could work at a large soul destroying company that MUST pay you more because you have to put up with their BS, or you could work at a small company where you can look the founder in the eye and tell him or her to change something you don't like (as this article disparagingly puts it, change the culture in two weeks). And the founder is going to listen because everyone on the team is dedicated to the same mission. Really where are you going to be happier? The fact that start-up payoff is even remotely equivalent to big company salaries tells me start-ups are a great choice if you value things like your happiness, sense of accomplishment, self-esteem, impact on the world, etc.
- gaius 11y agoy now everyone knows that expected payoff of working at a start-up is the same or lower than a big company, but with much higher variability. Everyone knows this. Not everyone or the VC business model would have imploded.
- dang 11y agoIt has certainly become a well-worn meme on HN, so much that it's probably past its best-before date. Once things get repeated too often, the discussions around them stop being vibrant.
- gaius 11y agoIt needs to keep on being repeated until 20-somethings aren't getting chewed up and spat out by the startup machine anymore.
- dang 11y agoIt sounds like you might have had some bad experiences. If so, I'm sorry that happened. From a discussion-quality point of view, though, your comment seems an example of what I'm talking about. Hype inevitably leads to cynicism, but neither gives a balanced view and neither is good for curiosity.
- bluejekyll 11y agoIt's not all about money. Smaller companies, while yes, are gambles they often are a more enjoyable place to work. You get a larger sense of ownership of your area, have more responsibility than a large company generally gives you, and you have more potential for positive influence. These all lead to a higher satisfaction in life than just what the $benjamin's$ can give you. If you're fresh out of school, you get more experience in a year than that crappy little project you'll be given at a large company and be chained to for four years. Startups are a financial risk, but if it has a good culture, it can be a very rewarding place to work, which often leads to greater happiness. Negatives exist: sometimes longer working hours, more demanding, less mentors/senior people to learn from, and when the culture is bad; it is really bad.
- dragontamer 11y agoOr you can just find companies that have good culture, if that's what you're looking for. That's ultimately the most important thing in my eyes: workplace culture. Do they respect my time? Both my at-work time and my off-work time? If so, that's 80%ish of the culture that I need.
- bluejekyll 11y agoTrue, but it's hard to find that in large companies, based on my experience. Too much middle management can create lots of pictures political maneuvering and backstabbing. My guess is that politics increase as performance of the company goes down. When things are good it's great, when things are bad the knives come out.
- JimboOmega 11y agoI haven't gotten piles of these offers that are "double" what I'm making at a startup. I don't think working for a startup automatically qualifies me for a 2x salary at Google. Over my career I've gone to progressively smaller companies and made progressively more money. Let's be honest, there aren't that many big companies that are known to be great places to work generally (like Google). And if you don't do well at your interviews with the small number of "cool" big companies... It's not such a straightforward tradeoff. And by the way - my last startup before my current one was one of those "really bad" situations. It was a startup trying to run itself like a big company - more executives than devs.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- andreapaiola 11y agoA small company is not automatically a startup.
- twothamendment 11y agoAfter one startup I said I'd never do that again. I realized it was like playing the lottery. You might win big, but most likely it leaves you poor. I'm now at a small company that pays very well, is stable, grows slowly and is a great place to work. I've always switched jobs every 2-3 years and for the first time I can see myself happily working for this small company for quite a while.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kelvin0 11y agoMy guess is the 'trap' is the passion and intensity of working with a small team of dedicated and smart people. The author certainly makes many good points, with which I agree. However the intensity of a startup is not found in just any environment, thus it's appeal ...
- entee 11y agoI have found one advantage of startups as an employee if you want to start your own company down the road is that you get to see easy-to-make management mistake and their repercussions. In a big company, there are systems and structures in place that help prevent some (obviously not all) of those problems, and there is more buffer (financial and otherwise) to smooth out the effects. Personally, I've found working at a startup deeply rewarding and educational, but of course ymmv :)
- Xyik 11y agoI think what people keep forgetting here is that you are comparing all start-ups to the Googles and Facebooks of the world. There are MANY promising start ups up there, it really depends on what your definition of a start up is. Number of employees? Publicly traded? Years since it was founded? Sure, working at Google/Facebook is probably better than working at Evernote. But is it better than working at Snapchat or Lyft?
- elif 11y agoSnapchat and Lyft are both $billion unicorns, not startups.
- pluma 11y agoOff topic, but I propose we stop calling "unicorn" startups unicorns and instead call them zebras (based on the phrase "if you hear hooves, think horse, not zebra"). Unicorns are called unicorns based on the presumption that they don't actually exist. "Unicorn" startups exist and there are enough of them that calling them something imaginary is evidently wrong. It would also make them sound less appealing (they're not magical and when it rains you may come to realize it was just a donkey with stripes painted on it all along). Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
- Htsthbjig 11y ago"We had a rockstar team with backgrounds from top tier companies and engineering schools, but no aqui-hire materialized out of thin air like I thought it might. We built kick-ass technology, but nobody was interested." If nobody was interested, your tech was shit. As simple as that. You have a self delusion. You maybe do some interesting things, but if people do not demand it, it means you live in a different world from people. You just have not done the connection. That is the usefulness of marketing, not as selling whatever you have, but designing and doing what people need. When I created my company I was lucky enough to get a virtue loop and getting it soon. Now as angel investor one of the patterns I see most on young founders is being fascinated with new tech but missing the connection with people's needs completely.
- tofuicecream 11y agoI just shake my head when I read this article. Taking half your market rate in salary and then complaining about it is a ridiculous example. Equity is never a sure thing and everyone know that. If you take equity in lieu of pay you do so at your own peril. I joined a start up because I didn't have the traditional experience needed to get hired at a big company. I was given a ton of responsibility and able to learn a lot in a short time. Yes, you still only have X number of years on your resume, but you can talk to people and show them the work you did, which is a lot more important than your resume IMO.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoIt's always good to question orthodoxy so I support the general idea behind this post, but the word "cult" actually means something specific. You can search for "characteristics of a cult" and get lots of interesting lists, but here are a few that I think are interesting with regards to startups: 1) A leader with a monopoly on "truth". This varies in startups, and certainly there's usually a guy who is the "decider". However it's not usually taken for granted that he's always right just that he's entitled to make the call. 2) Separating members from non-members. Cults often encourage and sometimes force separation, even from family and close friends. I have yet to see this in a startup, a mother who is no longer allowed to make contact with her child because a startup prohibited it. 3) Sexual/financial/life/etc exploitation. This one arguably does happen in startups, to varying degrees. This seems like the central critique of OP. That said, the same happens in regular companies too (migrant farm workers, emotional abuse, exploiting information asymmetries/etc) and I'm not sure the distribution is all that different. 4) Preventing people from leaving, through debt, threats, or conditioning. This actually sometimes happen in startups through offering credit.... They owe you back pay and you want to stay at the top of the payroll. But this is nothing like what Scientology does, maintaining a blackmail file on members. 5) General use of mind control. Progaganda, conditioning, etc. Generally creating an environment where human brains sort of gravitate towards the mainline. This happens everywhere, to differing degrees. I think if you watch the Heaven's Gate exit videos you see the extreme of this. This is a fire we all play with. Probably some startups overdo it.