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I'm a startup founder and will happily say that if you are an engineer, in Silicon Valley, in 2018, and you are maximizing for income, then you should not work

I'm a startup founder and will happily say that if you are an engineer, in Silicon Valley, in 2018, and you are maximizing for income, then you should not work at an early-stage startup. I did some hand-wavy math, here: https://medium.com/@kwindla/what-kind-of-silicon-valley-company-do-you-want-to-work-at-6739679c4bb8 https://medium.com/@kwindla/what-kind-of-silicon-valley-comp... Dan Luu did some, too, here: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

ryanobjc 8y ago
I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. Startups employees are squeezed out by vc dilution and lack of big exits. Those $1m total equity cash out from startups I fear are fairly rare. Whereas working for faang type companies, a l5 is more or less guaranteed to make $300k a year. $500-750k is doable without being a “brand name”. Timing and luck, but the spread is much smaller. Startup founders have made a devils deal with vcs to underpay employees. You know it. Unless you issued preferred stock to all employees?
- coaxial 8y ago
  It looks like you both agree, they said you should not work at an early stage startup.
- kwindla 8y ago
  Maybe a devil's deal, but not with the goal of under-paying employees. I know very few founders who have the highest salary at their own company, which is as it should be. Founders of VC-backed companies are making an explicity equity-vs-salary trade-off. And every founder I know would love to pay employees more. The challenge is that taking VC money is a commitment to try to figure out how to grow relatively quickly. There are never enough resources to try all the things you wish you could, on the way to product-market fit. It's perfectly reasonable to criticize this model, but it's not a model that is intended to negatively impact early stage employees. Hence the discussion in this thread, much of which is about how the economic context in the SF Bay Area employee market has changed, and how to adapt. Look at this another way: employees at early stage boot-strapping tech startups generally make less money than employees of early stage VC-backed startups.
  - qaq 8y ago
    It's marketing BS of selling dreams to both Entrepreneurs and in turn to employees that keeps the boll rolling for VCs. If you are honest you will realize that it's def. designed to take advantage of employees.
shamino 8y ago
I'm happy you say this, and I wish it was more well known, even if obvious. People join early-stage startups for the potential bucks. I'm not saying that's a good reason, but I'm saying most graduates, who are not as educated about the world, will join a startup for the money upside. Being honest like you are is not the same as admitting there is some degree of deception in the culture about how well off you'll be as an early employee in the startup world.
- shamino 8y ago
  I mean, just look at the tagline on the website being advertised by OP: https://www.workatastartup.com https://www.workatastartup.com "Join the next Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Stripe, or Instacart". Reminds me of Ben Affleck in Boiler Room.
nautilus12 8y ago
Unfortunately Im in the midwest and Im interested in something very niche (operationalizing data science using hadoop, spark, etc) so i would have to move to SV to work at a non startup company and honestly I just dont want to.

ryanobjc 8y ago

I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. Startups employees are squeezed out by vc dilution and lack of big exits. Those $1m total equity cash out from startups I fear are fairly rare. Whereas working for faang type companies, a l5 is more or less guaranteed to make $300k a year. $500-750k is doable without being a “brand name”. Timing and luck, but the spread is much smaller. Startup founders have made a devils deal with vcs to underpay employees. You know it. Unless you issued preferred stock to all employees?

coaxial 8y ago
It looks like you both agree, they said you should not work at an early stage startup.
kwindla 8y ago
Maybe a devil's deal, but not with the goal of under-paying employees. I know very few founders who have the highest salary at their own company, which is as it should be. Founders of VC-backed companies are making an explicity equity-vs-salary trade-off. And every founder I know would love to pay employees more. The challenge is that taking VC money is a commitment to try to figure out how to grow relatively quickly. There are never enough resources to try all the things you wish you could, on the way to product-market fit. It's perfectly reasonable to criticize this model, but it's not a model that is intended to negatively impact early stage employees. Hence the discussion in this thread, much of which is about how the economic context in the SF Bay Area employee market has changed, and how to adapt. Look at this another way: employees at early stage boot-strapping tech startups generally make less money than employees of early stage VC-backed startups.
- qaq 8y ago
  It's marketing BS of selling dreams to both Entrepreneurs and in turn to employees that keeps the boll rolling for VCs. If you are honest you will realize that it's def. designed to take advantage of employees.

shamino 8y ago

I'm happy you say this, and I wish it was more well known, even if obvious. People join early-stage startups for the potential bucks. I'm not saying that's a good reason, but I'm saying most graduates, who are not as educated about the world, will join a startup for the money upside. Being honest like you are is not the same as admitting there is some degree of deception in the culture about how well off you'll be as an early employee in the startup world.

shamino 8y ago
I mean, just look at the tagline on the website being advertised by OP: https://www.workatastartup.com https://www.workatastartup.com "Join the next Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Stripe, or Instacart". Reminds me of Ben Affleck in Boiler Room.

nautilus12 8y ago

Unfortunately Im in the midwest and Im interested in something very niche (operationalizing data science using hadoop, spark, etc) so i would have to move to SV to work at a non startup company and honestly I just dont want to.