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Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

• simonbarker87 9y ago
  Can a failed, or mildy successful, founder jump to the exec track and get some level of success faster than if they had just set out on that path to begin with? I’m thinking of those people who have run a business for 3+ years before it tanks or who are looking for a new thing and just decide to leave
  • k__ 9y ago
    Isn't this the default route for failed founders? I know a bunch of them now leading some divisions or branch offices.
    • simonbarker87 9y ago
      Was thinking the default route would be to try again but if they didn’t would it be a faster way to climb to exec
      • k__ 9y ago
        I don't know... It seemed to me that most people aren't 'serial entrepreneurs' they just heard of the success of SF tech founders, tried it at home, failed, marked it as something they weren't made for, went for a simpler job. Also, some get a family and start to avoid risk.
    • wolco 9y ago
      Or successful founders who get bought out at under 20 million. Usually they spend a few years as head of a product or vp without resposibility before trying to recreate there initial success
  • milofeynman 9y ago
    That's what the failed founder at the startup I work at just did.
  • mwseibel 9y ago
    Yes - happens a lot
  • trjordan 9y ago
    I did that, sort of. But I was an exec(ish) before I founded a company. I think founding a company helped my career, but not necessarily faster than working on a similar exec-level track for 2 years. Reading this article was interesting to me. I really bristled at the descriptions of founder and employee, but exec feels comfortable. I really enjoy owning a set of responsibilities that's not redundant with anybody else in the organization, and I enjoy working on internal relationships in order to help everybody get their work done better ("politics"). Maybe at some point I'll found another company, because that pressure really does force you to confront the weakest parts of your professional skillset. I learned a ton about myself by doing it.
• trevyn 9y ago
  There are paths to founder that do not require it to be "incredibly stressful". Another pro for founder is that you can remove yourself from echo chambers if you choose. Maybe this falls under "Choose the people you work with".
  • borski 9y ago
    Please elaborate. If you are trying to forge your own path, it will definitionally be more stressful than being an employee. As a founder, you are responsible for all of the jobs you've created, and for those employees' livelihoods. Furthermore, there is quite literally nobody else to blame but yourself, unlike in the case of an employee or executive. That is stressful.
    • trevyn 9y ago
      Option one, remove sources of stress, typically debt and/or investors; grow slowly and organically -- don't have employees until you can afford them. Option two, reframe ordinarily stressful things to be less stressful. Stoic philosophy is probably a good start here. Adopt a mindset that does not require you to "be responsible for" your employees. (One possibility: there are plenty of independently wealthy people that will join the right project.) Reject self-flagellation -- the only person "blaming yourself" is you. I'm sure there are other options as well. Also consider that while being an employee may provide a sense of financial stability, it introduces other forms of stress, such as reduced autonomy.
    • Dave_Rosenthal 9y ago
      > it will definitionally be more stressful than being an employee I've done all three paths and it's not this cut-and-dry. There are years at startups that aren't stressful at all and years that are stressful. Likewise for being an employee (or executive). Startups are, by-and-large, less secure than most jobs so if that insecurity bothers you that can create stress. On the other hand, most people starting tech startups are fairly employable and "failing" doesn't really look too bad. On the plus side, at a startup you have more ability to manage your stress by controlling your world.
  • 9y ago
• metalliqaz 9y ago
  Missing from the strategies for the first two (really all three): come from wealthy background.
  • bitexploder 9y ago
    What is the bar for "wealthy background" and "founder". My parents clawed there way to what I would call middle class (most of the time). I am not a founder of a software product firm, but am a founder of a successful consulting firm. We are 4 years into it now. On the executive front, yes, you are more likely to reach that level of position having a "wealthy background" but there are plenty who don't. Your odds of becoming a moderately successful executive of a medium sized business coming from a middle class background seem dramatically better than winning the tech startup lottery. I dunno, I just think these categories are very broad and multi dimensional so that you can make decent arguments against the point that a wealthy background being required.
    • xmonkee 9y ago
      >am a founder of a successful consulting firm I really want to take this path at some point. I don't feel like I fit into either of these categories very well and the idea of having my own consulting firm has always appealed to me. I don't know where to start. Can you share some knowledge or tell me where I can contact you? If you're in the Bay Area I'd love to buy you a coffee and pick your brains.
      • bitexploder 9y ago
        I could write a book about this. I am pretty easy to find. Send an email to info at carve|systems dot com (no pipe) and ask for bitexploder and we can take it from there.
  • leeoniya 9y ago
    not really. my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the dollar store was where we went shopping. today, i'm somewhere between employee and executive [limited only by personal preference of work/life balance] thanks to my parents; my children will certainly have it easier than my folks or i ever did. but to say that it was because of some innate wealth misses the mark.
• ryandrake 9y ago
  > Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing costs out here in the Bay Area, the long commute (wear and tear on vehicles) and the massive local and state taxes, it's almost impossible to save.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • hellbreaker 9y ago
    I keep on hearing about that.. so what's savings rate people should expect in SF?
    • ThrustVectoring 9y ago
      Depends on your salary and general lifestyle. Single with no kids helps. Commuting from the East Bay helps. Not eating out or having expensive hobbies helps. Not owning a car helps. Making more than the typical low-to-mid 6 figures helps. Not having an onerous student loan burden or consumer debt helps. I've personally been saving over $2k/mo on an after-tax income of just over $6k/mo, haven't been trying particularly hard to max that out though.
    • cellis 9y ago
      If you're single without kids -- 50% easily. Perhaps someone with kids can comment.
      • liveoneggs 9y ago
        you're lucky to max out your 401k
        • deleted 9y ago
• orthoganol 9y ago
  What about the world of contracting? You can also be someone who has flexibility on where/ when they work and for who, and it's probably a more viable 'path' in tech than in any other industry. Since the vast majority of founders fail, having significant financial cushions from your family or years working prior is probably the top pre-requisite if 'founder' is your path.
  • Clubber 9y ago
    Contracting is good, but there is a trap. If you find yourself as a contractor and the market crashes, finding new contracts is much more difficult. At least I experienced this during the dot bomb / 911 collapse in 2001. Also, you have to pay for your health insurance, which is getting crazy expensive, and only gets more expensive as you get older. Make sure you adjust your rate accordingly. This may or may not apply to all locations and all collapses, but expect collapses to happen every 8-10 years.
    • dredmorbius 9y ago
      It's possible to switch to not being a contractor. I'm also not all that certain that down markets don't hit all categories with similar force. Contractors may be cut slightly earlier (discretionary spending), but that depends on contracting terms and duration (there are set-length contracts), and as a bonus might be hired back earlier. Much depends on whether or not you have a specific skillset that's in demand, and know how to market it effectively. And that's regardless of your employment terms.
      • Domenic_S 9y ago
        > It's possible to switch to not being a contractor. Sure, but during an economic contraction is typically not a good time!
        • dredmorbius 9y ago
          It depends, much of that on your relationship with clients and their own savvy. If you're a valued contributor and your client is aware of that, they may be able to swing things. That may end up being a zero-sum game, with existing headcount being eliminated. Much depends on the organisation's own policies and savvy. It's an argument for maintaining good relations, though.
• alexandercrohde 9y ago
  > • Often don’t get a voice in major decisions – even when you “know the right answer” I'm not sure if the use of quotes here is intended to imply one doesn't actually know the right answer, but only feels that way. It's a particularly important point, I feel in my career I've met so many managers insecure in themselves that they would never consider listening to an idea from a report, not unless you can convince them it was their own idea.
  • mwseibel 9y ago
    I put that in quotes to make the meta point that it’s really hard for anyone to really know the right answer. But employees who are closer to the problem/customer often have way more insight than others.
  • shimon 9y ago
    There are a lot of insecure managers who don't want to be challenged on the merits of their decisions. There are also lots of individual contributors on teams who are strident in their beliefs even though they might be informed only from a narrow perspective. If you're a manager, you can address this by inviting thoughtful debate and sharing information. But if you're a non-manager employee, you can't always rely on managers (even when they're good and capable) to have _time_ to deeply consider your ideas and share relevant info. Therefore, sometimes you have to accept that major decisions get made without your input. Ideally you have managers you trust even when they make decisions you don't understand. In practice, getting that requires a willingness to move and enough social acumen that you're likely moving into management yourself.
    • alexandercrohde 9y ago
      What you're saying is true, you can't rely on your manager to always have time to listen to what you're saying. But at the same time that doesn't mean what you're saying isn't something the manager should have made time to listen to. Of course it's easy for me to criticize management when a lot of the startups I've worked at have gone out of business and a lot of the features I've been asked to build get canceled.
• mattdawson 9y ago
  The lack of even a nod to diversity issues (race, gender, class, etc.) that the tech industry is dealing (or not dealing with) is tone deaf and insulting to the extreme.
  • xor1 9y ago
    I would place class above everything else, and I think it's important to take physical attractiveness (for both genders, mind you) into account. It really feels like most people aren't comfortable with accepting just how much looks matter to them when it comes to judging things like trustworthiness, intelligence, and competency, and how much it affects their ability to like (or dislike) somebody. All very important when it comes to hiring and work/business relationships.
  • powera 9y ago
    This insistence that everything always has to be about diversity is both insulting and counter-productive. Maybe some of the time we can talk about things that work for all people?
    • mattdawson 9y ago
      Yeah, that'd be fine - if they worked for all people.
    • greglindahl 9y ago
      That's exactly what diversity is about -- taking the status quo and changing it to something that works for all people.
  • mwseibel 9y ago
    Sorry you feel that way - if you take a second to look me up I think you will realize that I hold diversity as one of the most important issues in tech. This is advice that I consistently give people from all backgrounds.
    • mattdawson 9y ago
• nichochar 9y ago
  This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of money and prestige. I think this is a damn shame, and we should be striving to stop that. This is a good painting of how bad things are today, but instead of "tricks to game the system" i wish it layed out a path of how to build an industry that doesn't attract all those ambitious selfish (executives) people.
  • mwseibel 9y ago
    Thanks for the note - I’m going to think about this.
    • untilHellbanned 9y ago
      Isn't just distributing the wealth more evenly?
    • btilly 9y ago
      Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But without implementors you simply don't have a product.
      • srtjstjsj 9y ago
        Can you implement your own ideas?
        • btilly 9y ago
          Sometimes. But if everyone simply does what they think best, the result does not add up to a sensible whole. Therefore there is a necessary tradeoff between doing what you think is a good idea, and doing what someone else in the organization thinks is a good idea.
• wolco 9y ago
  Missed the all important contractor. More money, more control over types of projects taken but little control over actual project.
  • sputknick 9y ago
    Can you talk more about this. Roughly where in the world do you live? How do you find work? How deep is your backlog? How many customers do you have?
    • wolco 9y ago
      I'm in Canada and contracting for the government pays well. I personally do the full time job plus contractor gigs. My contracts come from referrals, places and people I worked full time for and from being number #1 for a specific search term locally for a number of years. I have found work on upwork, craigslist and angellist as well. Usually starts off as an employment position but changes into a contract.
      • sputknick 9y ago
        I appreciate the insight, I never have quite understood the boundary between consultant and employee.
  • ryanSrich 9y ago
    If I had to recommend any path, contractor would be at the bottom of the list. The stress, constantly shifting from one company to another, not knowing when you're going to land another client or if your contract will be extended, having to constantly look for new gigs, etc. Finding a new job is like moving. It just sucks all around. Being a contractor is like constantly having to find a new job.
    • richardknop 9y ago
      I'd agree in theory. But if you're a good engineer in some tech hub like SF or London then finding new contracts will be very easy so it might be worth it in that case.
• koolba 9y ago
  Regardless of which path you'd like to go down, learn some basic financial planning, frugality, and learn to live like a miser. It'll pay dividends, both figuratively and literally. Regarding the executive path, or more generally any management role, learn early on if it's for you. If you're the type that gets caught up in human interest stories, considers it inhumane to fire low performers, or generally believes in a sense of fairness to the world then forget about it and stick with being an employee. It's better for your own sanity.
  • nugget 9y ago
    Underrated advice. As they say: "it's not what you make, it's what you spend". Personal expenses will inevitably determine financial stability, for the vast majority of folks.
  • krat0sprakhar 9y ago
    For someone who recently graduated and quite clueless about financial planning, do you have some resources to get started?
    • koolba 9y ago
      The usual generic financial advice I give is: - Maximize every retirement vehicle offered to you (max 401k, HSA, etc). - Pretend that any money you sock away for retirement doesn't exist. This is best done with automated withdrawals so you never even consider it money in your checking account. - Learn to cook. This doesn't actually save much money at the individual level but is huge for families. - Set up separate accounts for expenses and savings. Most payroll setups allow you to automatically divert funds to multiple accounts. This lets you automatically put $X in your expense account and $TOTAL - $X in the savings account. Again, the idea is to never consider that money spendable. It goes into a lock box. - Shoot for a 50+% after tax savings rate. It sounds nuts but it's actually easier than you think. The key is to not bump up your expenses as your income increases. You might not be there when you first start out but if you're increasing earnings 5-10% per year you'll get there quite quickly (particularly in tech). - Never buy a new car. They're for chumps. - Never lease a new car. That's for the biggest chumps. - Once you've built up an 8 to 12 month nest egg of reserve cash, start allocating the rest in a diversified portfolio. Pick securities from the trading company that don't have transaction costs (large discount brokers usually have in house mirrors of popular ETFs for this). Stick on this path and you'll eventually be sitting on a decent nest egg. Plus if you've reined in your expenses, if you decide to go the founder route you'll have plenty of runway to pursue your ideas.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• fuddle 9y ago
  This reminds me of the Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. A great read: https://www.amazon.com/Rich-CASHFLOW-QUADRANT-Robert-Kiyosaki-ebook/dp/B00BFHV90W https://www.amazon.com/Rich-CASHFLOW-QUADRANT-Robert-Kiyosak... You can either be an Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner or Investor.
• reuven 9y ago
  How about freelancing? I've been doing that since 1995 -- and my income and happiness have never been higher. Pros: - Work on what you like, with the people you like - Potentially very high salary, definitely more than you would get as an employee - Want to work on side projects (e.g., software, books, and courses)? Go for it, and benefit from multiple income streams. Cons: - You're running a business. That requires time, as well as skills/knowledge (often learned the hard way) that are completely separate from programming. - You have to market yourself (until you're good enough that people contact you). No marketing, no work. No work, no salary. - It's harder to do when you're married and have children. (I started when I was single.) In many ways, freelancing is like the "founder" described in the article. However, the article also talks about teammates and a financial plan (including funding). Plenty of successful freelancers make good money just by themselves (or maybe 1-2 junior people). And I definitely never intend to take investment money. Not everyone is cut out to be a freelancer. But it's a very viable option, beyond being a founder, executive, or employee. And I can tell you that many of the founders, executives, and employees I meet as I travel the world teaching Python are quite jealous of my satisfaction.
  • dceddia 9y ago
    This seems like a better option to me than the "founder" role in the article. How did you find your first clients? You mention you're traveling the world teaching Python (which sounds awesome!) -- do you consider that "freelancing" or are you taking client work in addition to the teaching?
    • reuven 9y ago
      I was lucky, but my story isn't unusual: When I started freelancing, my former employer hired me to do some projects. This gave me a financial cushion to start finding clients. Most of them came through word of mouth, although speaking at conferences and user groups helped. For most of my career, I did development work, with some occasional training. But over time, I found that training (a) was more fun, (b) paid better, (c) allowed me to schedule in advance, and (d) didn't mean getting angry calls about bugs in the middle of the night. Plus, it was a great way to specialize and thus become better known for one thing. When I started to call myself a trainer, rather than a consultant, I started to get calls from companies I hadn't heard of. Not only does being a specialist with a clear focus make you stand out in companies' minds, but my former students remember me, too -- so they recommend me when they switch jobs, which is pretty common in the high-tech world. I definitely consider training to be freelancing. I have someone who works for me, doing day-to-day development on projects, and I'll occasionally do that myself. But right now, I mainly do training, a bit of consulting, and am working on products (including http://WeeklyPythonExercise.com/ http://WeeklyPythonExercise.com/) that I want to supplement my consulting/training income.
• JimboOmega 9y ago
  My experience has been that jumping from employee to any level of executive is the absolute hardest step, at least for me. I think once you are a team lead and have some number of direct reports, you can then start jumping your way up that ladder. But going from 0 to 5 direct reports has often seemed impossible. I'd be open to tips on how to do it.
  • mratzloff 9y ago
    It's something you're doing that's limiting you. Find a mentor or career coach. Someone with plenty of management experience. They'll help you discover what that is and how you can fix it.
    • JimboOmega 9y ago
      Given the prevalence of the methods discussed in the OP, that's kind of hard to do; e.g. I work for the CTO who is the co-founder, but doesn't have a strong management background. Recommend a place to start?
      • sshumaker 9y ago
        The problem probably isn't with you, it's with your environment. It's likely you're at the wrong company (see my comment above). If you work directly for the CTO my guess is that there aren't a lot of management opportunities at your current employer, period.
        • mratzloff 9y ago
          In which case the self-limiting thing he's doing is remaining with his current employer. Look for a new job with the goal in mind of finding a mentor.
  • sshumaker 9y ago
    A manager isn't an executive. In addition to new skills, there are also mental shifts necessary at various stages in your career, as you climb to increasing levels of leadership. You can see this on the IC track as well for top-tier tech companies - there is a step-function difference in mindset at certain levels. Jumping from IC to line manager, as you suggest, is one; you need to recognize you are no longer shipping code but are shipping your team - they are your output, and their performance is how you are measured. At director it switches again, you are responsible not precisely for the people but for your organization as a whole. There is an adage that you know you're a director after your first re-org and are moving people's names around as cells on a spreadsheet. It changes again at VP, as an executive of the company you are responsible and accountable for an entire function. Excuses cease to matter, even external forces - you should have accounted for them. You are optimizing for the company's overall future and not your org or people. This is a vastly simplified explanation, obviously.
• losteverything 9y ago
  A good read. What about very stable high paying non-tech jobs in very techicnal companies? That is the advice i looked for. Sales/marketing, finance, investor relations, training/ hr, event planning, etc For me back 25 years ago, the thought of being in my 40s & 50s learning the latest version was tiring. CEOs back then came from finance or marketing.
• edw519 9y ago
  Employee (individual contributor / middle manager) Pro: More work and fewer meetings LOL, IF ONLY! Another example that people in silicon valley (and yc in particular) have no idea what goes on in the real world. (HN reply in one window, with skype and webex open in 2 other windows, my 5th and 6th meetings today. I've been on HN for 10 years with over 5,000 contributions, almost all while in meetings, ignoring talking heads and engaging you guys. You don't actually believe I'd be here if I had meaningful work to do, do you?)
  • falcolas 9y ago
    Meaningful. There's the key word. And no. Me neither. :) [EDIT] That said, meetings effective are a manager's, CEO's, and founder's job. So in comparison to them, we have do have fewer meetings.
  • lkbm 9y ago
    Individual contributors where I work have significantly fewer meetings than people who choose the leadership route. What makes my company less real world than yours?
    • firebird84 9y ago
      As soon as I indicated I would try exploring the leadership path (I had originally intended to only progress as an individual contributor, but I'm bored and I'll learn any skills I can at this point), my managers gave me the role and immediately I was swamped with meetings. I don't resent it, but I'm going to see if I can push to streamline the behaviors that lead to this. My time is now even more precious than ever and I have to find ways to reclaim it.
  • mbesto 9y ago
    Which is why "tech industry" here needs a proper definition. Everything here seems to be geared towards the author's own experience (which is limited, like all of our careers are), and is very "startup bay area centric". Likely most of the companies he's referring to have anywhere between 5 and 100 employees and have been created in the last 5 years. In the larger "tech industry"(as I would define it), these companies are actually in the minority.
• forkstar 9y ago
  Where is the freelance path?
• dagss 9y ago
  Consultant.
• jacquesm 9y ago
  You can easily be all three in the course of a single lifetime. It's not a choice between those three.
• CalChris 9y ago
  There is a fourth path. Levi Strauss. Don't get me wrong. The gold miners needed jeans and supplies. But Levi Strauss lived off them and not the reverse. So the fourth path is service providers: lawyers, accelerators, accountants, contractors, ..., even VCs to a degree. I think Silicon Valley has a competitive advantage in having the best but it is a different path. And as much experience as they have when I talk to them, they haven't done it themselves. Well, most haven't. Ben Horowitz knows. Some know but most don't. That doesn't keep them from doing an awesome job. It's just a different path.
  • lalos 9y ago
    That would be a founder solving a specific problem by providing a service.
• robertocarlos 9y ago
  What would you say maximizes your expected financial returns?
  • FLUX-YOU 9y ago
    Safe is being an employee. Risk is the other direction. How much risk you can tolerate is up to you and how much you have in assets, savings, etc.
• adamzerner 9y ago
  > Executive (Senior Manager at a Large Company) > A higher likelihood of having a huge impact (given that most startups fail). I think it's important to note that regarding money, starting a company does have a very high _expected value_. It's just that it's high risk-high reward, which makes it a bad fit for people with lower risk tolerances. But if your goal is to have as big an impact on the world as possible, risk doesn't matter too much. https://80000hours.org/2012/01/salary-or-startup-how-do-gooders-can-gain-more-from-risky-careers https://80000hours.org/2012/01/salary-or-startup-how-do-good...
• austincheney 9y ago
  > The last thing I’ll say is it takes time to be good at each role. When you’re in college there is this idea that you should take your 20s to discover yourself and the find the work that is most enjoyable to you. The problem is that if it takes 5-10 years to truly get good at something and you spend 10 years discovering what you want to get good at…it’s going to take a long time for you to feel like a highly skilled productive person (and to recieve the rewards that come with this). It’s not that you shouldn’t explore, it’s that you need to understand the costs of that exploration and plan accordingly. --- This is an understatement that I see many new or junior developers completely missing. You don't magically become a rockstar. Working with rockstars is helpful, but it won't make you a rockstar. Company name/brand is irrelevant to becoming a rockstar. It is all about practice solving hard problems, which takes lots of time and concentration. This is the only factor that separates the amazing developers from everybody else, and honestly most people don't have the discipline or personality to get there. Actually, now that I think about, becoming an awesome developer is similar to the advice for becoming a successful founder. You, counter-intuitively, have to spend a lot of time doing things that don't scale. A good example is ignoring all those frameworks and abstractions so that you can really learn how the code actually works. If you expect tools to do your job for you or grow reliance upon some temporary artifact you aren't as strong or self-reliant developer. In order to be a great executive you have to be a great employee. The military flavor of this is that you have to learn to follow before you can learn to lead. You have to know what your people are going through and be willing to step in and assist your people if the situation calls for it. At some point a founder has to transition from founder to executive if their company is to grow or they are to keep their job. Promoting, building, and marketing a new production or solution is great, but at some point other people will do that for you. You must be able to lead these people, build confidence in the team, and provide proper direction. You have to be a leader.
• lliamander 9y ago
  When considering these different paths, it's also worth considering the kind of temperament one needs to have to be successful in each role. Founders, from what I understand[1], tend to be high on the Big 5 Personality trait "openness", which has to do with creativity. Executives (and employees to an extent as well) who are successful tend to be high in trait "conscientiousness" which has to do with being hard working and orderly. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P830JMVeKLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P830JMVeKLo
• PeraltaJ 9y ago
  Can't help but this Comma in "Founder, Executive, or Employee " after " Executive" bugs me...
  • nlh 9y ago
    Welcome to the wonder world of the Oxford Comma...a source of debate perhaps rivaled only by the great Emacs vs Vim wars... https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-...
• snow_mac 9y ago
  What about the consultant path?
• jedberg 9y ago
  The advice I always give to a new college grad is try and get a job at one of the big tech companies. The work and the mission may not be exciting, but there is huge room for growth and often the large companies have programs especially designed for career growth for new college grads. But don’t get stuck. The job will comfortable. After a few years it’s time to move on. Maybe you’ve found a few folks to cofound with, or maybe you just have a good lead on a much bigger role. But the only way to really advance is to leave — most big companies have artificial limits on salary growth and promotions. You can always go back later.
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    Not to mention, you'll be paid enough that you can easily pay off your loans, and you can hopefully put a good sized chunk away so you'll be more able to weather the startup paying less.
  • eradicatethots 9y ago
    It sounds very stressful to work at a major company
    • arthurjj 9y ago
      Eh. Having worked at a Defense Company, a unicorn and then a Big 5 tech company I can honestly say the work life balance is probably the best at the the Big 5. At Defense companies you're both clearly a cost center and a cog in an unfathomably large machine. Imagine a combination of Kafkaesque and Chtulhu. At a Unicorn. You learn a lot but only because you work insane hours. Also you're paid under market wages because your job is sexy.
      • oakswood 9y ago
        Very much agree here. I've done the same to a lesser extent (defense contractor, maybe a Big 15, failed startup, and then freelancing). Freelancing is pretty good in terms of work-life balance as well, although it can feel like an endless pursuit of finding projects (interviewing, selling yourself, etc)
• harryh 9y ago
  I liked this essay better when Venkatesh Rao wrote it in 2009. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
  • pavlov 9y ago
    This should be the top comment. Three paths indeed.
• sukulent 9y ago
  Or consultant... I used to drink the koolaid. Saw many of my good and loyal colleagues get laid off and thrown away, when I was part of various companies. These days I dont give a fuck and dont get out of bed for less than $10000.
• mads 9y ago
  Needs a consultant path. I think once you drank the koolaid too many times, you just get apathetic.
• h4shz 9y ago
  In this life you're either a soldier for someone, a leader for someone, or a dead man.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• trhway 9y ago
  the dao of SV - a colleague/peer of mine in employee trenches couple jobs back become CTO in his next gig and a co-founder of the next gig after that, already a unicorn just in a few years ...
• 5706906c06c 9y ago
  As an Executive, I find the other two to be painful to deal with.
• crb002 9y ago
  And independent consultant. Which I guess is founder?
• Chiba-City 9y ago
  I founded a company that helped many other 90-00's founders along with some legacy industries in crisis. I am a reader so I read many business books. But I missed two specific dynamics I wish I had known earlier. First, executives will routinely attempt to take the founders' roles. Industries vary widely, but they are roughly "showy spenders" and not savers. Many have no experience in new ventures. They have ridden high and will panic against adversity. If they cannot flee in an overall industry downturn, they will feed on the founders. Be very careful to make "executive" expectations brutally clear and consequences for any and all hubris terminal. Second, many founders want to be 1-hit wonders. Unlike our industry ecosystem building heroes, they are neither in the ecosystem nor interested in developing the ecosystem. They want in to get out ASAP. Their short termism sadly translates into teaching bad examples to employees. Nevertheless, the information rich life of the "small rooms" where plans are crafted and industry roads remapped on whiteboards are truly the most wonderful teachers anyone can expect to access.
  • shostack 9y ago
    > "Be very careful to make "executive" expectations brutally clear and consequences for any and all hubris terminal." Any examples of how to "do it right?"
    • Chiba-City 9y ago
      I wish I had a clear answer. We have to be nice enough to people, but we have a world of needy charlatans transacting for themselves with little concerns for outcomes, responsibilities and reputations. Here are some ideas. IBM's head of federal sales said make hires show their past tax forms. Her point was to remove any "cleverness" over negotiating salaries and outcome responsibilities. Negotiate serious matters "naked." Watch details like commute times, time consuming rituals or debt levels. Reading and writing are paramount requisites of organizing. I would recommend seeking at minimum faithful business press readers who are not day traders. Seek executives who show up for smart dialog at the office. Teams have to share the world and not just their own company. Smart people are team players who seek correction or validation. Seek executives who apply methods they can describe. Beware the latest buzzword fads. Places like SV, NYC Or BO have deep benches of worldly smarties. That worldly wiseness is important in a startup seeking relevance to very real supply chains in constant motion. Many job seekers at all levels are very narrow specialists who have "rounded themselves" adapting to roles deep inside very incestuous companies or industries. Those folks are motivated by popular delusions of "riches" or "wonders" hiding elsewhere. Attrition is normal. But recruiting is costly and executive attrition is super costly for the teams and companies left behind. Industries are all different. But enduring purpose, role and focus are good character attributes to seek in startup hires. That's not highly prized in our fast-transacting careless world.
• peterwwillis 9y ago
  So why aren't there any tech co-ops?
• bogomipz 9y ago
  I am curious if anyone has gone from employee(engineering) and then to founder and failed and if you were able to seamlessly go back to engineering where you left off career-wise and pay-wise. Is it a concern?
• rothbardrand 9y ago
  I've worked for startups for 30+ years. I've seen this industry from before the dotcom era into the cryptocurrency era (and I work in crypto now.) Here's my perspective- -- Experience is undervalued by people who don't have it. It is critical for a startup. You don't all have to be experienced, but get someone who has experience. One of the real killers of startups is bad management, and one of the causes of bad management is management by instinct, especially terrible is "type a" CEOs (to pick a stereotype for succinctness sake only) whose management history was being president of a frat in college, telling software engineers how to build product, but he knows nothing about software. -- Experience as an executive who didn't start out as an individual contributor is not experience. If you cannot do your subordinates jobs, you cannot manage them effectively, unless you have a subordinate who can do the jobs (like a lead) who you manage. -- Your CEO needs to be proficient in the unique value of the company. EG: If you are a sales organization you need to have a CEO who is a proficient sales person. Apple needed a proficient CEO when it was an engineering / product organization (and Steve Jobs was that- not as a good an engineer as Woz but he knew electronics and software development) ... but now Tim Cook is a proficient supply chain master and that's what Apple needs to thrive now. As a startup your CEO needs to be able to build the product. Or he will make bad decisions. -- Founders give investors way too much power. They seem to think that investors are an old boys club that decides who wins and loses. In the valley for BS startups that's maybe true- you can get BS money until you make it. But if you're not a Golden Child then you need to get traction and revenue, and you always, always, want to be in the drivers seat for investment. You never want to need it. I've seen so many VC and even lately angel deals with terrible terms that I'm convinced the reason being a founder is not as remunerative as it should be is founders signing bad deals desperate to keep the company going. Always keep your burn rate low. When I was making minimum wage in college I was ecstatic because I could afford to go see a movie in the theater every week. That was "luxury" for me. As my income grew, I kept my definition of "luxury" well below my income. This produced savings. Those savings helped greatly in lean times. Run your business that way. You may be able to grow to 100 people now, but don't, grow to 70 or whatever, so you have more cushion. If your hiring is ahead of your traction you're probably not hiring the right people anyway.
• pers0n 9y ago
  You forgot outsourcer/contractor. The company I work for has no one that can code iOS or Android apps, we outsource everything on Odesk and mark up the price, of course the quality is crap too. But since we can delete Google reviews and push down Yelp reviews and disable reviews on Facebook, everything is fine :/
• peterburkimsher 9y ago
  My dad refused promotion at CERN several times. He continued to work as a testing engineer, and would not climb the corporate ladder into management roles. That reduced his paycheck. When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers. He learned an important lesson - working at a low level with only machines below you is a safe and stable job. I want to do the same. I'm now 28, so I have plenty of flexibility. But I'm worried that as I get older, there will be more pressure to go into management instead of staying in engineering. Companies want fun, young engineers who know all the latest tech - they don't want experience at the technical level.
  • dade_ 9y ago
    The problem with the 2008 crash is that is has possibly created one of the most risk averse generations ever. Companies don’t have desires or feelings, but the owners and managers do. Many like people in their teens and 20’s because they are naive, which is helpful when you need to convince people to work harder for a title or some imaginary threat. Check out the Icarus Deception.
  • albertgoeswoof 9y ago
    > working at a low level with only machines below you is a safe and stable job until your job is replaced by a machine Yes you can get made redunant / fired as a manager, but people management is much less likely to be replaced by machines in the future
  • gaius 9y ago
    When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers The truth is that most layoffs don't work like that, unfortunately. Members of the management class will generally try to protect their own, and they see engineers as mere blue-collar workers, no matter how skilled or qualified those engineers are. Yes, even software engineers.
  • mrep 9y ago
    > they don't want experience at the technical level. Don't know where you are at but I work for one of the big 5 and most people are over 30 and practically all principal+ engineers/executives are over 40.
• Philomath 9y ago
  What if you had executives that actually understood the tech behind it? Isn't that also the point of the CTO being an important role in a company?
• hullsean 9y ago
  what about... • freelancer • advisor • fractional cto • performance consultant • various other vendors
• graycat 9y ago
  For the OP, I see some good news: Generally there is better advice! === Startup Big Point Here is a big, huge, gigantic point about doing a startup and owning 100% of it: In broad terms, that's the American way! Or, it's obvious; just look: All across the US, east to west, north to south, from an isolated house in the woods to a crossroads up to the largest cities, sole, solo entrepreneurs start and run successful businesses. No biggie. No tech. No MBA. No venture funding. No team of co-founders. By the millions -- wrong, by the 10s of millions. If that was so difficult to do, then there wouldn't be tens of millions of people doing it. === US Mainline Business What do they do? Mow grass -- the ones on my street show up with $100+ K of capital equipment counting the truck, the trailer, the mowers, etc. Note: Now $100 K will pay for one heck of a powerful Web server farm; if you can keep that farm busy, then just at standard ad rates you have nearly a license to print money. Or, for computing, $100 K in capital equipment is now a LOT. Do auto body repair. Do other auto repair. Sell car tires. Add asphalt to driveways. Do landscaping, architecture to grass mowing, for good customers, e.g., any company with nice grounds. A dentist. A CPA. A pizza carryout. A Chinese food carryout. An Italian red sauce restaurant. A manufacturer's representative. A local wholesale plumbing, electrical, building materials supplier. A wide range of what can be called big truck, little truck businesses -- buy stuff delivered in a big truck and sell it out of a little truck. Run several fast food restaurants, gas stations with convenience stores, etc. And on and on. Generally these businesses have one of the most powerful advantages in all of business -- a strong barrier to entry. That barrier is, and may I have the envelope, please [drum roll], geographical, that is, the businesses are not in competition with anyone more than 100 miles away. In particular they are 100% immune to competition from China. If they are in Tennessee, then they have no competition with anyone in NYS or CA. Etc. So, if they can do comparatively well in a radius of 100 miles, then they can do well for their career. A huge fraction of the people who pay full tuition for their children at private universities did not take venture capital, did not have co-founders, didn't get an MBA or a STEM field college degree, were nearly never an employee, and were not close to any of the scenarios in the OP. Okay, that, my friends, is American Business 101 Facts of Life. That's the overwhelmingly popular version of US business and, indeed, US careers. Nothing else even comes close. And the OP is far away from that. So, take that US business 101 and, with computing, try to do more -- the computing should be an advantage. === Being an Executive Okay, briefly, for being an executive: No security. None. Zip, zilch, zero. No matter what. Instead are an at will employee that at any time can be fired for any reason or no reason. Biggie reasons for getting fired: (A) As in the OP, office politics. E.g., there's gossip (you get accused, tried, convicted, and fired all while knowing nothing about it). (B) The company does poorly. (C) The company does fairly well but gets bought out by another company. (D) The owner has a son and wants to give him your job. Etc. The crucial point is, you don't own the business. Just as an executive, your skills, alliances, knowledge of your current job, etc. anywhere else with a dime usually won't cover a 10 cent cup of coffee. Is there a way? Okay, be in sales and have a nice list of your accounts that do well. You don't really want to be the sales manager, just a good sales guy. If your employer goes out of business, gets bought out, etc., then take your customer list to whatever company in the industry wants to server your customer list. Be sure the industry will be solid even if your employer might not be. There's just no magic to being an executive. And there's nearly no power; instead your job is to get along, go along, and hope nothing bad happens. If you sponsor a new project and it fails, then you have a black mark on your record, and everyone else has an excuse to gang up to fire you. If the project is successful, then you have jealous enemies all the way to and including the BoD. Part of this is the fact that currently the US economy has about 94 million people out of the labor force. So, mostly, there's no shortage. Currently it's too common for Mr. Big CEO to wake up, have a bad day, look at his budget and organization, draw a big X, and say "Off with their heads." In this way big, famous companies have suddenly fired dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people. E.g., at one time, as computing was roaring ahead, IBM suddenly went from 407,000 employees down to 209,000. They cleaned out rush hour traffic over big parts of NY, CT, and NJ. Another time, at IBM Research, a group of about 100 people got into serious political trouble, and when the dust settled a lot of managers were demoted or fired and a about half of the rest, about have high-end Ph.D. holders, were fired. It was all about work-place politics, cliques fighting each other, etc. Sure, decades ago lots of people could join a company and work until a nice retirement. Things changed slowly. E.g., could work for Sears for decades and retire. Sears? It's about to go belly up, totally. No more; that's rarely the case now. If you really want that, then: (A) Work for a company, e.g., a public utility, where the employees have a strong union and join the union. E.g., at one time could do that with the Bell System. Alas, even Ma Bell didn't last. A local water company might be better. Be careful about a local electric utility since that industry might change a lot before you get to retire. (B) Work for government, local, state, or Federal. Remember, though, even working for government have to be careful about the slot. E.g., don't be a civilian Civil Service employee for the US military: Then some military officer is running the place; they likely have their job changed each two years or so; so a new guy comes in and quickly doesn't like you or your job, and you are OUT. So, each two years you have to sell yourself to another person you never met before. That person can make a big mistake firing you, but, then, you are still fired. So, for a 40 year career, you have to sell yourself to 20 people you never met before, and you have to be 100% successful in all 20 attempts. That's not good job security. (C) Work for, say, some very solid, stable financial institution, maybe The Ford Foundation. Officer in the US military? Every now and then you are up for promotion, and if you get passed over three times or some such, then you are out. So, as time goes on, the many lower level officers become many fewer upper level officers. It's not at all clear which lower level officers will leave; it is totally clear that nearly all of them will. Net, it's better to be a non-commissioned officer, e.g., a sergeant where you can keep your job. Even if you get 4 stars, like General Mattis, you can be out because someone up there didn't like you. Some private companies have personnel policies similar to the military for their officers: They hire lots of people in their 20s, and by age 35 they are in management or out the door. It's not at all clear who will be out the door, but it's totally clear that nearly all of them will be. A lot of those people would be better off in their 20s starting and growing a grass mowing service, quite literally: There's a good geographical barrier to entry, and the grass will keep growing. Commonly in the US, a Ph.D. in electronic engineering will have a better long term career as a licensed electrician. No joke. I know a guy, bright enough, who got a Master's in environmental engineering. His real career was as a plumber and installer of home heating systems. === Being a Founder What the OP says about being a founder is quite narrow. I have a high school friend. His father was selling beer for a small brewery. The brewery went out of business, but he knew a lot of people in the beer business. He went to the NW corner of his state, arranged to distribute about six brands of beer (right, the beer came to his warehouse on a railroad siding via railroad freight car) and sold out of little trucks. Somehow people still like beer! He passed the business down to his son. People still like beer! Good business. Darned good business. If want to go into computing, then be sure you have an even better business than selling beer. The OP wants to say that the business idea in computing is not very important. IMHO, that's mostly nonsense. Sure, if want only routine technology, then the OP comments about employees, teams, etc. are important. But a business with only routine technology tends to have a darned small barrier to entry. Sure, one of the best barriers to entry was virality from a social network with a strong network effect, but that's path seems to be about saturated. Again, there are 94 million people out of the labor force. So, if you want a job as founder of a successful business, then, IMHO, need to do something new and powerful with a good barrier to entry. Basically you have to plow new ground in US business, have to do something those 94 million don't know how to do.
• jondubois 9y ago
  I think that the tech industry is unreasonably obsessed with A-list 'brand name' corporations. I haven't worked for any A-list brand name companies (no Googles or Facebooks) but I've worked for quite a few B-list and C-list corporations and also some B-list startups as a software developer/engineer (including a YC startup) - The startups which I worked for the longest have grown very fast and are profitable. In spite of this, the last time I was looking to switch companies, the only thing that prospective employers were interested in was my open source work. Nobody was interested in hearing more about the small startups I worked for which ended up becoming successful because they're not A-listers. I know engineers who work for A-list companies (I've worked alongside some of them in the past), they're very good; but not different from engineers who work for B-list companies; maybe they're better at taking technical tests.
• captainmuon 9y ago
  How about the good old humble entrepreneur? You have a little bit of each category. In contrast to the founder of a startup, you are not going for exponential growth or a buy-out, but for a steady income. You'll have both technical and business tasks, but you can offload some to employees or contractors, so you can choose where your focus is to some extent.
• 01096232042 9y ago
  ايمل
• 01096232042 9y ago
  مصطفى عبد الله
• 01096232042 9y ago
  Rayed
• gaius 9y ago
  Producing results isn’t necessarily how you move up the corporate ladder. Internal politics are usually as important, if not more so For those kinds of people, that should be listed as a pro rather than a con. A job you can do purely by schmoozing and not producing is exactly what they want!
• golergka 9y ago
  "Founder" path focuses on start-up. What about small business, as a consulting shop or a dev shop, that has a very different risk/reward ratio?
• DeadReckoning 9y ago
  I am an ambitious employee at a large tech company and I think about this a lot. I am living my dream life. I'm 26 and about to break 200k base salary. I have been programming for fun since I was 13 and I enjoy most of what I do every day. I feel myself growing both technically and in soft skills. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week but I still feel very productive. I'm receiving excellent feedback and am being groomed for engineering management. I walk to work, the grocery store, and the weed store. I have time outside of work to focus on self improvement, fitness, and side projects. But then my acquintance tells me he bought a house in cash after earning XX million from their startup and I feel I'm completely off track.
• findoer 9y ago
  Lately I'm getting less emotional about this stuff, and realizing that the market is probably smarter than me. If skilled businesspeople, politicians, and people managers are more rewarded by the market, they are probably more valuable to more of society, or at least the parts with money to give. The elite probably choose to have their children educated in the humanities rather than the sciences for a reason. Given that an entry level software development job will give me enough money to sustain myself indefinitely while saving a lot, I'm investing in these areas rather than being upset. My logical reasoning skills (as I can observe them through my performance at chess or math, two of my hobbies) seem to be improving anyway.