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"You should be willing to make this startup the main focus of your life"
I can't help but notice that one of the links on the YC jobs page (viewable above at news.yc/jobs) says that prospective engineers should "be willing to make this startup the main focus of your life". Is this reasonable?
I know HN has been through several equity for non-founders discussions this quarter; there's certainly room for continued debate on whether or not early hires deserve a lot of equity.
That leads me to my concern with the requirement in this post's title: Is it reasonable to expect anyone to build their life around an employer? Unless the employee is a major shareholder (i.e. cofounder) this seems like it's asking too much. In this case the prospective engineer would be the first non-founder employee. Perhaps they'd be eligible for double-digit equity? If so, that pretty much makes them a cofounder and invalidates most of the above questions.
- mattm 17y agoIf you don't want to devote your entire waking hours to a job then don't apply to one that requires you to do so. There are numerous productivity studies that show working past a set number of hours decreases productivity in the long-run leading to more bugs, poorer morale and more "fire-fighting" instead of fixing problems for the long term. If a company goes against this and just wants to work longer and harder instead of smarter, let them do it.
- ganley 17y agoIn my experience this is a pretty typical expectation at a startup. Good for these people for being so honest about it.
- ScottWhigham 17y agoThere are many young people who are excited by this - equity is not as exciting to them as being on a team who works like mad towards a better way. I doubt you'd find too many 30-somethings interested in this but there are plenty who see opportunities like this as a way to gain street cred, bypass college, gain experience, etc.