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

145 points by AndrewWarner 16y ago

gamble 16y ago
The best thing an employee can do is ask themselves "Will I be happy right now if I take this job?" Working for a company because they've promised you stock, or career advancement, or a mission in life is a surefire way to guarantee disappointment when the promises fail to pan out. Even the best-meaning managers tend to be grossly optimistic when pitching their companies to a new hire. If the job is satisfying from day one, nothing that fails to happen down the road will be a cause for bitterness and regret.
- mattm 16y ago
  "Even the best-meaning managers tend to be grossly optimistic when pitching their companies to a new hire" I've learned to view a job interview more like a sales-pitch. Once you view it this way, you become a lot more thorough with your questions.
ad93611 16y ago
As PG says, "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years."[1] The time scales that people use to define "Job Hoppers" is wrong. At most big companies you cannot learn or accomplish much in a short time-frame because things move slower. However, in a startup 6 months is a long time to do something concrete. [1] - http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
tptacek 16y ago
Turnover rate: a FANTASTIC question to ask at your next job interview. Keep them on their toes. We love the people who ask hard questions. If the person interviewing you doesn't: don't work there. Thanks for that post.
- dschobel 16y ago
  I've never had any luck getting a serious answer to that question. It's always hand-wavy fluff. It's the employer's equivalent of "what is your biggest weakness". It just tests their ability to BS.
  - icey 16y ago
    You can keep asking the question in other ways: "How long was the person before me here?" "What's the average length of time someone stays here?" "How long have *you* been here?" If you really want to know the answer, you just have to keep asking. Turnover rate is the first real question I ask. (Also: the lack of an answer is an answer on its own.)
    - pw0ncakes 16y ago
      Mentioning a "person before me" in an interview is a bad idea, because it brings forth associations you might not want. Also, there might not be such a person. The second and third questions are good, but short tenures could also signify a rapidly growing company (which is something to be wary of, but not for the same reason) like Google in 2006.
      - mendriacus 16y ago
        "short tenures could also signify a rapidly growing company" Sure, but if everyone interviewing you are less than a year in, where are all the people who worked here before? And why are you being interviewed mostly or exclusively by junior team members who haven't proved themselves yet? Is the company entrusting the selection of successful employees to newbies who haven't yet proved they can be such? An interviewer for a company in the middle of a growth spurt should be able to explain that, quote some enticing growth figures, and mention that "almost all of the original team members are now project leaders and executives... in fact, if this goes well, you'll meet some of them shortly".
    - mendriacus 16y ago
      The beauty of that last one is how there's absolutely no way to fluff it away. You're asking for a number. Your interviewer either gives it to you, or he evades. Another brilliant one is "how long are you planning to stay?". This can lead to some of the most revealing and unstructured discussions you'll engage in during your interview process. Not for the feint of heart.
jamesshamenski 16y ago
Genius = "TheFunded.com for employees to privately rate their employers"
- pchristensen 16y ago
  http://coderific.com/ http://coderific.com/
  - dalore 16y ago
    Seems like it needs more data. I found 0 reviews for a company as big as Adobe.
- madebylaw 16y ago
  What is meant by privately here? Does it mean you can rate the employers anonymously? Does it mean the ratings are behind a login/paywall? It doesn't make sense if it was completely private, otherwise, how could potential employees benefit? What's wrong with something like this, for example? http://www.jobvent.com/ http://www.jobvent.com/
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    I assumed he meant anonymously. Jobvent looks like more-or-less the same basic idea. One issue with translating this idea to startups is that if it's a small enough startup, they might be able to tell who you are. You might be the only person who's ever quit that startup, or there might be few enough that they can tell anyway. This could cause issues where companies threaten to give bad recommendations to future employers if people use the site, or something.
- 2bit 16y ago
  http://glassdoor.com http://glassdoor.com
  - tibbon 16y ago
    Here's the thing- at some small companies that still doesn't really work. I can't put anything out there about my current company like that because it would be painfully obvious (even if anonymous) that it was me.
pw0ncakes 16y ago
I don't think the misleading of employees is endemic to startups, at all. It's also not always intentional; people overestimate what they can do for the new hire in terms of mentoring and support, and business tends to reward those (at all levels) who make big promises.
- hga 16y ago
  Yeah, but about the second time you realize you broke your promise to a new hire you should be changing what you promise (or fixing the real problem, if that mentoring and support is indeed needed).
  - pw0ncakes 16y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly. One issue is that every "promise" is a bit unique. HN posters are big on mentoring and interesting work, which are subjective qualifications, but this is not the case for everyone. Some people just want a salary and a chair-- much easier to promise. The incentive to mentor is long-term. It benefits the company later on, and loyalty is an asset for the person doing the mentoring (his proteges might move with him if he gets sacked). Unfortunately, few people think this far ahead. In the short term, mentoring is an expense.
- mendriacus 16y ago
  Startup execs fully realize that their pitches and figures are incredibly optimistic (read: improbable). The prime recipients of such pitches - investors - are well versed in tuning them down and seeking the grain of truth within the hype. Candidates, especially young or recent graduates, are not. If you, an exec, hone a pitch on a jaded 40-something VC manager with 20 years of industry experience, and then use it umodified on a 20-something candidate with 0-1 years of industry experience - you are not being truly fair and honest. And yes, the candidate is likely to discover that a year later, feel cheated and abandon you. Tweet about him being a "flake" if that makes you feel good; the blame lies solely with you.
ziadbc 16y ago
I think this debate can be summed up as: Flakes are often Job Hoppers. Not all Job Hoppers are Flakes. Correlation, not causation. Also, I'd like to see some objective stats here like "do companies with lots of job hoppers do better or worse, here is the data" Vivek Wadhwa cited in his studies job hopping as an aggregate positive for the economy of silicon valley and its emergence as the prominent startup hub. http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/the-valley-of-my-dreams-why-silicon-valley-left-bostons-route-128-in-the-dust/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/the-valley-of-my-dreams-why...
- CodeMage 16y ago
  Flakes are often Job Hoppers. Not all Job Hoppers are Flakes. Finally, someone taking a shot at that misconception. Just because some people advance their career and improve their conditions by changing employers doesn't mean they're unreliable or incompetent. Quite often it's the competent people who get sick and tired of a crappy job, widespread incompetence, excessive office politics and stuff like that and they decide to move on. They tie the loose ends, dot the i's, cross the t's and start looking for a better opportunity. It's not just the startups that mislead people, either. It's just that a big company will lie to you about other kinds of stuff.
  - smallblacksun 16y ago
    "doesn't mean they're unreliable" Well, from the point of view of an employer, it kind of does. They never know when you will leave for a new job.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      I disagree - if the hoppers are hopping because they are not getting the professional growth they need, or that they think they're being taken advantage of, then that's highly predictable for you as an employer. Are you treating your employees fairly? Do they feel like they're contributing, or are they writing dead-end code? You know when they will leave for a new job - when you start treating them like trash.
euroclydon 16y ago
What if I want a new and large challenge every two years? Your efficient is my stagnation? Just asking.
grellas 16y ago
My thoughts based on years of representing such companies: 1. Non-funded startups typically don't have employees or, if they do, they are employee-founders. If the cash isn't there to support salaries, you won't have payroll. People can and do get misled in non-funded companies, though it is the rare exception and by no means the rule, since most of those involved understand they are taking a flyer and that nothing may come of their efforts unless and until the startup gains sufficient traction at least to get funding. 2. Most of the abuse involving outright misrepresentations concerns funded companies that hit hard times and then tell their employees that they must stick with a failing situation, and endure the accompanying hardships (missed paychecks, etc.), in the name of deferring their reward until the company can rebound. In such cases, employees are in effect being asked to take the risks of founders and yet are often given nothing more than their deferred pay in case the company does bounce back - that is, having taken on an indispensable role to enable the company to save itself, they get no additional equity or other reward for the hardships they undertook. 3. Funded companies also are more prone to mislead employees with tall talk about what the company will supposedly do and why the options held by employees will be worth so much. Yet, in doing so, they don't tell their employees anything about the capitalization of the company itself, thus leaving the employees with a sense their 50,000 options or whatever will make them rich while in reality they may represent only a miniscule percent of the company and have only a small upside even in a success case. At the same time, no one is ever told about VC liquidation preferences, which can easily be used in many cases to wipe out the interests of the employee-shareholders in an instant as soon as anything goes wobbly with the company. 4. Opportunities come and go rather quickly in the startup world and it may just be a simple fact of life that employee tenures will tend to be shorter in such an environment for reasons having nothing to do either with flakiness or opportunism on the part of employees or with deception or abuse on the part of employers. I think it is a mistake to overstate this in either direction in seeking to ascribe generalized motives to one side or the other.
- cedsav 16y ago
  minor, but I object to your "Non-funded startups typically don't have employees" statement. Or perhaps profitable startups don't qualify as startups anymore?
kadavy 16y ago
Its simply a byproduct of being in an emerging market. I don't know much about The Gold Rush, but I'm guessing people involved with it weren't staying at their jobs very long.
dnsworks 16y ago
When I was still a wage-slave, I hopped jobs because most start-ups are run by people who have never done this before, and they create lousy work environments. I also like to leave other peoples' companies every year because I'm a systems engineer, and most of my work is front-loaded. After I've been at a company for a year, my systems are automated well enough that I have little to do but maintain or grow, and I want to be more in life than a systems janitor. Plus, start-up compensation sucks. If I took a job tomorrow, I would make roughly $200k doing SRE or equivalent at an established company .. or $100k and 15 basis points of stock options vested over 4 years at some me-too start-up whose business model looks a lot like that south park underwear gnomes episode. Not to mention that most companies do their best to over-hire because they really feel that their problems are incredibly complex and unique, just like all the 6 other companies who got funded in the same marketplace that year. And, it's just a good investment strategy. Leave a start-up every year as soon as you've gotten your first 25% worth of stock options vested. In a decade you might see $100k for your trouble.
xconfig 16y ago
At my last job it took me 3 months to find out that the strike price my options received was 3x what my offer letter hinted it would be. That gradually affected my motivation until I left, and I never exercised my options. Not intentional, but misleading.
derwiki 16y ago
I think I'm a bit naive, but how can a high dollar exit leave your vested shares worthless?
- mendriacus 16y ago
  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.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Our very first investment agreement (3i as main investor with a local VC doing the legwork) had a table of equations defining various things that would effect how much founders and option holders would get in the event of an exit. Working out what these actually meant was non-trivial and we argued strongly against them - no luck. Ironically when we went public we made a chunk of money from the very ratchet agreements we had argued so vigorously against (combined with help from the taxman).
mendriacus 16y ago
This whole discussion about "job hoppers" is so bogus. Employment is a relationship. It has two sides. When one party decides to end it, the most common reasons are: 1) Other party's chronic inability to respond and satisfy the breaker-upper's needs. 2) A competitor coming along who satisfies those needs much better. Employers regularly break up employment relations for those two reasons. But now some CEOs and VC managers will have us believe that it's wrong for employees to do the same to them. Employers are expected - nay, obligated! - to fire employees who fail to meet performance expectations. But if an employer fails to meet your compensation expectations, and you leave, the Susters and Calacanises shall publicly insult you and announce they will not hire you, and nobody else should either. It is telling that only very specific employers and very specific dream-dealing businessmen are among the mob shouting indignantly about loyalty and morality. When was the last time Google or Palantir blogged petulantly about "Generation Y" and "trophy kids"? Suster, Calacanis et al are reacting to their own failing at keeping employees, with all the grace, maturity and effectiveness of that girl you dumped, who went out on the street and shouted about what a terrible person you are to leave her, and how nobody else should ever trust or date you. Mature, successful employers do not waste their time on that. They're too busy making great products with their happy, motivated, tenured employees - or bidding polite farewell to those who should or want to move on. This article is spot on. Startup executives are world-class dealers of dreams. They need to be more weary of selling to their own employees. Too many bright engineers work insanely hard for a year or two, then discover all they're getting is fairy dust, and quit. Why don't Suster and Calacanis write an article about that? It's most striking when a top employee leaves for a company that's not a startup. Take that engineer that left Mahalo for Yahoo recently. Suster and Calacanis call him a flake, yet how much you want to bet he'll stay at Yahoo longer than a year? And since when is it acceptable to attack an ex-employee that way, sleazily keeping his name out, when everyone on the internet knows who the epitaphs refer to? These people are sore losers, and they'll keep losing until they figure out what that "dying company" is doing right that makes their best engineers "hop" there rather than labor at their own enterprises. All they do right now is poison and taint an otherwise healthy, open and mature dialogue between employees and employers.
- msuster 16y ago
  You're way off base. - I haven't lost any employees so painting me with that brush is wrong - I never made any commentary on the guy who left Mahalo - I wrote him a private email making it clear that my commentary had nothing to do with him (I didn't even know that story when I wrote my post) - I never publicly insulted anybody - I made a balanced argument that if people leave a few employers early in their careers it's fine. If they make a career out of changing jobs they'll find it hard in the long-run to wind up in senior positions. And while we're on the topic of insulting posts or people on a rant, why don't you re-read your text and think about how IT sounds
temptemptemp 16y ago
Can anyone please explain to me what he means when he says that 'most' stock options become worthless even when the startup is sold for a hefty profit? I am quite confused by how they could be devaluated like that.
- tibbon 16y ago
  The terms for the options that most rank-and-file employees get are rarely great. After the interest (which can be high), preference (sometimes double preference) and other terms it is often likely that your 0.2% of the company really isn't worth anything much. There's also the chance that you didn't have acceleration in there, and you weren't fully vested by the time the sale was made.
- minalecs 16y ago
  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.
alttab 16y ago
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.
dalore 16y ago
You also forget the other factor, startups fail often.
geebee 16y ago
This is an aside, but I'm starting to realize how many gripes, on both sides, are the result of a very poor hiring system. Kathy Sierra, a while back, wrote a truly eye-opening blog post on "the hollywood model". You're fired at the end of every job, and your job security is your reputation. I don't love everything about the way hollywood works, of course, but one thing's for sure - they give credit. They list credits. Of course, people can grab credit they haven't earned, and I'm sure that people who have succeeded don't always get the credit they are due... but at least the system intends to give credit. As a dev, when was the last time you got a by-line? If you release an excellent product, is there a "credits" list where the UI designer, the "producers" (proj managers?), developers are listed? Maybe in the code itself, but that's proprietary. So instead out industry relies on these stupid indicators, which lead to articles about how "job hoppers are bad". Well, some job hoppers are people who opportunistically abandon a good team that doesn't deserve it, and others are people who people who are too good to waste any more time on a crap situation. Job hopping, code tests, three minute phone call reference checks, university degrees... hey, I use these things too when I'm hiring. That's what you do when you interview unknown people whose work you can't immediately identify. And I do the monkey dance when I'm interviewed too, because that's what you have to do. But man, there has got to be a better way... a big goal of my career is to get to the point where the people who interview me have better ways of knowing what I can contribute.

145 points by AndrewWarner 16y ago

The best thing an employee can do is ask themselves "Will I be happy right now if I take this job?" Working for a company because they've promised you stock, or career advancement, or a mission in life is a surefire way to guarantee disappointment when the promises fail to pan out. Even the best-meaning managers tend to be grossly optimistic when pitching their companies to a new hire. If the job is satisfying from day one, nothing that fails to happen down the road will be a cause for bitterness and regret.

mattm 16y ago
"Even the best-meaning managers tend to be grossly optimistic when pitching their companies to a new hire" I've learned to view a job interview more like a sales-pitch. Once you view it this way, you become a lot more thorough with your questions.

ad93611 16y ago

As PG says, "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years."[1] The time scales that people use to define "Job Hoppers" is wrong. At most big companies you cannot learn or accomplish much in a short time-frame because things move slower. However, in a startup 6 months is a long time to do something concrete. [1] - http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

tptacek 16y ago

Turnover rate: a FANTASTIC question to ask at your next job interview. Keep them on their toes. We love the people who ask hard questions. If the person interviewing you doesn't: don't work there. Thanks for that post.

dschobel 16y ago
I've never had any luck getting a serious answer to that question. It's always hand-wavy fluff. It's the employer's equivalent of "what is your biggest weakness". It just tests their ability to BS.
- icey 16y ago
  You can keep asking the question in other ways: "How long was the person before me here?" "What's the average length of time someone stays here?" "How long have *you* been here?" If you really want to know the answer, you just have to keep asking. Turnover rate is the first real question I ask. (Also: the lack of an answer is an answer on its own.)
  - pw0ncakes 16y ago
    Mentioning a "person before me" in an interview is a bad idea, because it brings forth associations you might not want. Also, there might not be such a person. The second and third questions are good, but short tenures could also signify a rapidly growing company (which is something to be wary of, but not for the same reason) like Google in 2006.
    - mendriacus 16y ago
      "short tenures could also signify a rapidly growing company" Sure, but if everyone interviewing you are less than a year in, where are all the people who worked here before? And why are you being interviewed mostly or exclusively by junior team members who haven't proved themselves yet? Is the company entrusting the selection of successful employees to newbies who haven't yet proved they can be such? An interviewer for a company in the middle of a growth spurt should be able to explain that, quote some enticing growth figures, and mention that "almost all of the original team members are now project leaders and executives... in fact, if this goes well, you'll meet some of them shortly".
  - mendriacus 16y ago
    The beauty of that last one is how there's absolutely no way to fluff it away. You're asking for a number. Your interviewer either gives it to you, or he evades. Another brilliant one is "how long are you planning to stay?". This can lead to some of the most revealing and unstructured discussions you'll engage in during your interview process. Not for the feint of heart.

jamesshamenski 16y ago

Genius = "TheFunded.com for employees to privately rate their employers"

pchristensen 16y ago
http://coderific.com/ http://coderific.com/
- dalore 16y ago
  Seems like it needs more data. I found 0 reviews for a company as big as Adobe.
madebylaw 16y ago
What is meant by privately here? Does it mean you can rate the employers anonymously? Does it mean the ratings are behind a login/paywall? It doesn't make sense if it was completely private, otherwise, how could potential employees benefit? What's wrong with something like this, for example? http://www.jobvent.com/ http://www.jobvent.com/
- jackowayed 16y ago
  I assumed he meant anonymously. Jobvent looks like more-or-less the same basic idea. One issue with translating this idea to startups is that if it's a small enough startup, they might be able to tell who you are. You might be the only person who's ever quit that startup, or there might be few enough that they can tell anyway. This could cause issues where companies threaten to give bad recommendations to future employers if people use the site, or something.
2bit 16y ago
http://glassdoor.com http://glassdoor.com
- tibbon 16y ago
  Here's the thing- at some small companies that still doesn't really work. I can't put anything out there about my current company like that because it would be painfully obvious (even if anonymous) that it was me.

pw0ncakes 16y ago

I don't think the misleading of employees is endemic to startups, at all. It's also not always intentional; people overestimate what they can do for the new hire in terms of mentoring and support, and business tends to reward those (at all levels) who make big promises.

hga 16y ago
Yeah, but about the second time you realize you broke your promise to a new hire you should be changing what you promise (or fixing the real problem, if that mentoring and support is indeed needed).
- pw0ncakes 16y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly. One issue is that every "promise" is a bit unique. HN posters are big on mentoring and interesting work, which are subjective qualifications, but this is not the case for everyone. Some people just want a salary and a chair-- much easier to promise. The incentive to mentor is long-term. It benefits the company later on, and loyalty is an asset for the person doing the mentoring (his proteges might move with him if he gets sacked). Unfortunately, few people think this far ahead. In the short term, mentoring is an expense.
mendriacus 16y ago
Startup execs fully realize that their pitches and figures are incredibly optimistic (read: improbable). The prime recipients of such pitches - investors - are well versed in tuning them down and seeking the grain of truth within the hype. Candidates, especially young or recent graduates, are not. If you, an exec, hone a pitch on a jaded 40-something VC manager with 20 years of industry experience, and then use it umodified on a 20-something candidate with 0-1 years of industry experience - you are not being truly fair and honest. And yes, the candidate is likely to discover that a year later, feel cheated and abandon you. Tweet about him being a "flake" if that makes you feel good; the blame lies solely with you.

ziadbc 16y ago

I think this debate can be summed up as: Flakes are often Job Hoppers. Not all Job Hoppers are Flakes. Correlation, not causation. Also, I'd like to see some objective stats here like "do companies with lots of job hoppers do better or worse, here is the data" Vivek Wadhwa cited in his studies job hopping as an aggregate positive for the economy of silicon valley and its emergence as the prominent startup hub. http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/the-valley-of-my-dreams-why-silicon-valley-left-bostons-route-128-in-the-dust/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/the-valley-of-my-dreams-why...

CodeMage 16y ago
Flakes are often Job Hoppers. Not all Job Hoppers are Flakes. Finally, someone taking a shot at that misconception. Just because some people advance their career and improve their conditions by changing employers doesn't mean they're unreliable or incompetent. Quite often it's the competent people who get sick and tired of a crappy job, widespread incompetence, excessive office politics and stuff like that and they decide to move on. They tie the loose ends, dot the i's, cross the t's and start looking for a better opportunity. It's not just the startups that mislead people, either. It's just that a big company will lie to you about other kinds of stuff.
- smallblacksun 16y ago
  "doesn't mean they're unreliable" Well, from the point of view of an employer, it kind of does. They never know when you will leave for a new job.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    I disagree - if the hoppers are hopping because they are not getting the professional growth they need, or that they think they're being taken advantage of, then that's highly predictable for you as an employer. Are you treating your employees fairly? Do they feel like they're contributing, or are they writing dead-end code? You know when they will leave for a new job - when you start treating them like trash.

euroclydon 16y ago

What if I want a new and large challenge every two years? Your efficient is my stagnation? Just asking.

grellas 16y ago

My thoughts based on years of representing such companies: 1. Non-funded startups typically don't have employees or, if they do, they are employee-founders. If the cash isn't there to support salaries, you won't have payroll. People can and do get misled in non-funded companies, though it is the rare exception and by no means the rule, since most of those involved understand they are taking a flyer and that nothing may come of their efforts unless and until the startup gains sufficient traction at least to get funding. 2. Most of the abuse involving outright misrepresentations concerns funded companies that hit hard times and then tell their employees that they must stick with a failing situation, and endure the accompanying hardships (missed paychecks, etc.), in the name of deferring their reward until the company can rebound. In such cases, employees are in effect being asked to take the risks of founders and yet are often given nothing more than their deferred pay in case the company does bounce back - that is, having taken on an indispensable role to enable the company to save itself, they get no additional equity or other reward for the hardships they undertook. 3. Funded companies also are more prone to mislead employees with tall talk about what the company will supposedly do and why the options held by employees will be worth so much. Yet, in doing so, they don't tell their employees anything about the capitalization of the company itself, thus leaving the employees with a sense their 50,000 options or whatever will make them rich while in reality they may represent only a miniscule percent of the company and have only a small upside even in a success case. At the same time, no one is ever told about VC liquidation preferences, which can easily be used in many cases to wipe out the interests of the employee-shareholders in an instant as soon as anything goes wobbly with the company. 4. Opportunities come and go rather quickly in the startup world and it may just be a simple fact of life that employee tenures will tend to be shorter in such an environment for reasons having nothing to do either with flakiness or opportunism on the part of employees or with deception or abuse on the part of employers. I think it is a mistake to overstate this in either direction in seeking to ascribe generalized motives to one side or the other.

cedsav 16y ago
minor, but I object to your "Non-funded startups typically don't have employees" statement. Or perhaps profitable startups don't qualify as startups anymore?

kadavy 16y ago

Its simply a byproduct of being in an emerging market. I don't know much about The Gold Rush, but I'm guessing people involved with it weren't staying at their jobs very long.

dnsworks 16y ago

When I was still a wage-slave, I hopped jobs because most start-ups are run by people who have never done this before, and they create lousy work environments. I also like to leave other peoples' companies every year because I'm a systems engineer, and most of my work is front-loaded. After I've been at a company for a year, my systems are automated well enough that I have little to do but maintain or grow, and I want to be more in life than a systems janitor. Plus, start-up compensation sucks. If I took a job tomorrow, I would make roughly $200k doing SRE or equivalent at an established company .. or $100k and 15 basis points of stock options vested over 4 years at some me-too start-up whose business model looks a lot like that south park underwear gnomes episode. Not to mention that most companies do their best to over-hire because they really feel that their problems are incredibly complex and unique, just like all the 6 other companies who got funded in the same marketplace that year. And, it's just a good investment strategy. Leave a start-up every year as soon as you've gotten your first 25% worth of stock options vested. In a decade you might see $100k for your trouble.

xconfig 16y ago

At my last job it took me 3 months to find out that the strike price my options received was 3x what my offer letter hinted it would be. That gradually affected my motivation until I left, and I never exercised my options. Not intentional, but misleading.

derwiki 16y ago

I think I'm a bit naive, but how can a high dollar exit leave your vested shares worthless?

mendriacus 16y ago
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.
- arethuza 16y ago
  Our very first investment agreement (3i as main investor with a local VC doing the legwork) had a table of equations defining various things that would effect how much founders and option holders would get in the event of an exit. Working out what these actually meant was non-trivial and we argued strongly against them - no luck. Ironically when we went public we made a chunk of money from the very ratchet agreements we had argued so vigorously against (combined with help from the taxman).

mendriacus 16y ago

This whole discussion about "job hoppers" is so bogus. Employment is a relationship. It has two sides. When one party decides to end it, the most common reasons are: 1) Other party's chronic inability to respond and satisfy the breaker-upper's needs. 2) A competitor coming along who satisfies those needs much better. Employers regularly break up employment relations for those two reasons. But now some CEOs and VC managers will have us believe that it's wrong for employees to do the same to them. Employers are expected - nay, obligated! - to fire employees who fail to meet performance expectations. But if an employer fails to meet your compensation expectations, and you leave, the Susters and Calacanises shall publicly insult you and announce they will not hire you, and nobody else should either. It is telling that only very specific employers and very specific dream-dealing businessmen are among the mob shouting indignantly about loyalty and morality. When was the last time Google or Palantir blogged petulantly about "Generation Y" and "trophy kids"? Suster, Calacanis et al are reacting to their own failing at keeping employees, with all the grace, maturity and effectiveness of that girl you dumped, who went out on the street and shouted about what a terrible person you are to leave her, and how nobody else should ever trust or date you. Mature, successful employers do not waste their time on that. They're too busy making great products with their happy, motivated, tenured employees - or bidding polite farewell to those who should or want to move on. This article is spot on. Startup executives are world-class dealers of dreams. They need to be more weary of selling to their own employees. Too many bright engineers work insanely hard for a year or two, then discover all they're getting is fairy dust, and quit. Why don't Suster and Calacanis write an article about that? It's most striking when a top employee leaves for a company that's not a startup. Take that engineer that left Mahalo for Yahoo recently. Suster and Calacanis call him a flake, yet how much you want to bet he'll stay at Yahoo longer than a year? And since when is it acceptable to attack an ex-employee that way, sleazily keeping his name out, when everyone on the internet knows who the epitaphs refer to? These people are sore losers, and they'll keep losing until they figure out what that "dying company" is doing right that makes their best engineers "hop" there rather than labor at their own enterprises. All they do right now is poison and taint an otherwise healthy, open and mature dialogue between employees and employers.

msuster 16y ago
You're way off base. - I haven't lost any employees so painting me with that brush is wrong - I never made any commentary on the guy who left Mahalo - I wrote him a private email making it clear that my commentary had nothing to do with him (I didn't even know that story when I wrote my post) - I never publicly insulted anybody - I made a balanced argument that if people leave a few employers early in their careers it's fine. If they make a career out of changing jobs they'll find it hard in the long-run to wind up in senior positions. And while we're on the topic of insulting posts or people on a rant, why don't you re-read your text and think about how IT sounds

temptemptemp 16y ago

Can anyone please explain to me what he means when he says that 'most' stock options become worthless even when the startup is sold for a hefty profit? I am quite confused by how they could be devaluated like that.

tibbon 16y ago
The terms for the options that most rank-and-file employees get are rarely great. After the interest (which can be high), preference (sometimes double preference) and other terms it is often likely that your 0.2% of the company really isn't worth anything much. There's also the chance that you didn't have acceleration in there, and you weren't fully vested by the time the sale was made.
minalecs 16y ago
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.

alttab 16y ago

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.

dalore 16y ago

You also forget the other factor, startups fail often.

geebee 16y ago

This is an aside, but I'm starting to realize how many gripes, on both sides, are the result of a very poor hiring system. Kathy Sierra, a while back, wrote a truly eye-opening blog post on "the hollywood model". You're fired at the end of every job, and your job security is your reputation. I don't love everything about the way hollywood works, of course, but one thing's for sure - they give credit. They list credits. Of course, people can grab credit they haven't earned, and I'm sure that people who have succeeded don't always get the credit they are due... but at least the system intends to give credit. As a dev, when was the last time you got a by-line? If you release an excellent product, is there a "credits" list where the UI designer, the "producers" (proj managers?), developers are listed? Maybe in the code itself, but that's proprietary. So instead out industry relies on these stupid indicators, which lead to articles about how "job hoppers are bad". Well, some job hoppers are people who opportunistically abandon a good team that doesn't deserve it, and others are people who people who are too good to waste any more time on a crap situation. Job hopping, code tests, three minute phone call reference checks, university degrees... hey, I use these things too when I'm hiring. That's what you do when you interview unknown people whose work you can't immediately identify. And I do the monkey dance when I'm interviewed too, because that's what you have to do. But man, there has got to be a better way... a big goal of my career is to get to the point where the people who interview me have better ways of knowing what I can contribute.