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I inteviewed for a startup once (I don't live in a big startup hub). I was offered a 40% drop of my current salary, no benefits, no equity and no options. I wa

by auxym 9y ago

I inteviewed for a startup once (I don't live in a big startup hub). I was offered a 40% drop of my current salary, no benefits, no equity and no options. I was also sternly warned during the interview that they were looking for someone highly engaged in making the company grow. I cannot begin the understand the reasoning of the founders on that one.

lr4444lr 9y ago
A lot in this industry begins to make sense once I accepted that a lot of very otherwise intelligent and capable people are simply delusional.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Or suffering from dangerous levels of hubris.
  - giglamesh 9y ago
    I think of hubris as a form of delusion.
arethuza 9y ago
A few years back I was approached by a recruiter for an investment bank who seemed to think I should be delighted to take a lower salary and bonus and much fewer holidays (I think I was on 38 days a year) for the pleasure of working in what they described as a very "high pressure" environment. That actually got annoyed when I laughed and questioned why I'd want to work for them.
snarf21 9y ago
It is surely delusional but the founders tell themselves they are going to exit for 1B. So the chump options you would get for 1% worth is still going to net you 10M, which would be quite nice. Obviously, they are going to have to take more money and you are going to be diluted to nothing and you'll be lucky if the whole company exits for 10M. Equity seems only to have value as golden handcuffs, keeping early valuable employees at the company since they lose everything if they leave and can't afford to exercise 400K of options plus face the tax implications.
- pja 9y ago
  1%? We used to dream of 1% (cue the Four Yorkshiremen). One startup I know of offered 0.1% to a potential employee No 2. I don’t think they took the offer.
  - icedchai 9y ago
    It's laughable how low many options grants are for early engineers, given the risk and the required contribution. The first few technical employees have to do a disproportionate amount of work. This is especially true when the company consists of all non-technical founders.
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      I kept reading down this chain intending to reply but every reply added something relevant to my comment. I was once asked to join a company as employee number 13, and I would have been the first technical person to join the company. They offered me a salary of zero dollars and one percent, and the founder of the company said in every meeting before he was willing to reveal the numbers -- the stupidest game on the planet -- that he truly understood the value of engineers and was going to be offering very generous pay packages. Haha I actually laughed at the guys on Skype -- funny how they also tried to gang up on me to turn the screws, as it were! -- when they told me the numbers because I thought they were joking, and they weren't. I don't want to reveal too much about the company because they would be easy to identify based on this, but they had this one weird trick they were trying with shares in order to win investors and generate media buzz, which was actually just hilarious and ridiculous. I will say that they were going to issue billions (with a "B") of shares to begin with. They were so convinced they were going to become the next Google. Surprisingly, their website is still up, but all of my contacts from that company are now listed as working elsewhere on LinkedIn. Shocking, I know.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    I was briefly engaged as an early technical employee number X (somewhere between 3-15 because later I discovered they apparently kept leaving) at a small startup (sans-funding) here. It was a bit of a mess. Offered 0.05% maturing in 4 years (or you take a substantial cut for maturation in one year), with no salary and vague promises of expenses covered, and unhinged scope creep that I'd only hear about while sitting next to the (non-technical) founder in a sales pitch. Needless to say, I didn't stay long.
rmc 9y ago
Bet they complain that it's so hard to hire people, and that there's a shortage of tech talent.
rdlecler1 9y ago
Where is the company today?
indemnity 9y ago
I’ve been offered 40% of my current salary, with 0.05% equity. As first engineering hire. I had a hard time keeping a straight face. I’ll keep my current salary, along with three tranches of RSUs vesting per year thanks!

by auxym 9y ago

lr4444lr 9y ago

A lot in this industry begins to make sense once I accepted that a lot of very otherwise intelligent and capable people are simply delusional.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Or suffering from dangerous levels of hubris.
- giglamesh 9y ago
  I think of hubris as a form of delusion.

arethuza 9y ago

A few years back I was approached by a recruiter for an investment bank who seemed to think I should be delighted to take a lower salary and bonus and much fewer holidays (I think I was on 38 days a year) for the pleasure of working in what they described as a very "high pressure" environment. That actually got annoyed when I laughed and questioned why I'd want to work for them.

snarf21 9y ago

It is surely delusional but the founders tell themselves they are going to exit for 1B. So the chump options you would get for 1% worth is still going to net you 10M, which would be quite nice. Obviously, they are going to have to take more money and you are going to be diluted to nothing and you'll be lucky if the whole company exits for 10M. Equity seems only to have value as golden handcuffs, keeping early valuable employees at the company since they lose everything if they leave and can't afford to exercise 400K of options plus face the tax implications.

pja 9y ago
1%? We used to dream of 1% (cue the Four Yorkshiremen). One startup I know of offered 0.1% to a potential employee No 2. I don’t think they took the offer.
- icedchai 9y ago
  It's laughable how low many options grants are for early engineers, given the risk and the required contribution. The first few technical employees have to do a disproportionate amount of work. This is especially true when the company consists of all non-technical founders.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    I kept reading down this chain intending to reply but every reply added something relevant to my comment. I was once asked to join a company as employee number 13, and I would have been the first technical person to join the company. They offered me a salary of zero dollars and one percent, and the founder of the company said in every meeting before he was willing to reveal the numbers -- the stupidest game on the planet -- that he truly understood the value of engineers and was going to be offering very generous pay packages. Haha I actually laughed at the guys on Skype -- funny how they also tried to gang up on me to turn the screws, as it were! -- when they told me the numbers because I thought they were joking, and they weren't. I don't want to reveal too much about the company because they would be easy to identify based on this, but they had this one weird trick they were trying with shares in order to win investors and generate media buzz, which was actually just hilarious and ridiculous. I will say that they were going to issue billions (with a "B") of shares to begin with. They were so convinced they were going to become the next Google. Surprisingly, their website is still up, but all of my contacts from that company are now listed as working elsewhere on LinkedIn. Shocking, I know.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I was briefly engaged as an early technical employee number X (somewhere between 3-15 because later I discovered they apparently kept leaving) at a small startup (sans-funding) here. It was a bit of a mess. Offered 0.05% maturing in 4 years (or you take a substantial cut for maturation in one year), with no salary and vague promises of expenses covered, and unhinged scope creep that I'd only hear about while sitting next to the (non-technical) founder in a sales pitch. Needless to say, I didn't stay long.

rmc 9y ago

Bet they complain that it's so hard to hire people, and that there's a shortage of tech talent.

rdlecler1 9y ago

Where is the company today?

indemnity 9y ago

I’ve been offered 40% of my current salary, with 0.05% equity. As first engineering hire. I had a hard time keeping a straight face. I’ll keep my current salary, along with three tranches of RSUs vesting per year thanks!