15 ms·

Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

311 points by madmax108 8y ago

sbinthree 8y ago
I think the argument about existing at the extremes probably applies here. If I am going to work for an unreliable, unknown, unstable company, I'd rather own a big chunk and have serious skin in the game and control of my destiny. If not, give me the most well funded, monopolized, cushy job possible where I can accept that my agency is a small price to pay for very high standard of living. Applies to apartments too (live in a giant building downtown, for the benefits, or in the middle of nowhere, but not in the suburbs where you are lose-lose).
jonathankoren 8y ago
I joined a startup for stability once. It was way more stable than the megacorp I left.
- gkoberger 8y ago
  I think it depends on your definition of stability. Megacorp: The company won't disappear overnight, but you might get tossed around different positions and have projects you've spent a year on shut down out of nowhere. Startup: The company itself may shut down, but in the meantime everything is more focused and transparent.
  - tlb 8y ago
    In some sense the startup is lower cognitive load, because everything is great until it all implodes and then you look for a new startup. A punctuated equilibrium. At a megacorp, everything is vaguely doomed all the time, but never so clearly doomed that it's obvious when to make a move, and you spend a lot of time reading political tea leaves so as not to end up on the wrong project. The worst thing that most big companies do is continue to employ good people on long death marches.
    - titanomachy 8y ago
      "Vaguely doomed all the time" nicely much sums up my most recent bigcorp experience. Easy to end up on a soul-destroying maintenance project that you can't leave because it's business-critical and nobody else wants to do it.
    - coaxial 8y ago
      Haha, nicely said. I'll add reading political tea leaves to my skills.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Instability is 3 teams in a year, due to projects being shutdown or transferred.
k__ 8y ago
Good points. You'll end up in chaotic work environments, but you'll learn so much, especially how to solve the problems that arise with these environments. These are the skills you need for your own startup. If you "just need a job to pay the rent" it probably isn't for you.
jamestimmins 8y ago
There's an unspoken thread here that shows the benefit of startup communities, which is that they help you survive failure much more easily. It would appear that the unsuccessful ventures didn't severely limit access to opportunities and compel him to go work for a big company. If his community had been different, or if he had listened to the well-meaning people who undoubtedly recommended that he get a 'real job', this likely wouldn't have been the case.
WilliamEdward 8y ago
The problem with startups has always been a fundamental one, and not really one you can change without redefining what a startup actually is - people try way too hard to start them. Let me explain; it's reported very very often on YC that 90% of startups fail, and while a lot of these points in the article are disguised as separate ideas, they're all part of the same problem being that people want to make something from nothing, hence why it is called a startup. Traditional businesses begin by pivoting off an exiting business or product, whereby if you're a chemist working for DuPont and develop a new chemical, they might make a subsidiary to produce that. That process is way easier, the money and infrastructure is already there, and everyone is already neatly on board. Contrast this with a startup. You're probably young, lacking financial and networking support, education, and many other things. You want to make a product the world has likely never seen before, completely from scratch. Well, of course your management is going to be shit. Of course you're going to find shit employees. Of course it's unlikely to succeed. This article was completely unnecessary because everyone should know by now what a startup entails, and that it is fundamentally unstable, but that doesn't mean it's not important as a venture and concept.
- Swizec 8y ago
  > This article was completely unnecessary because everyone should know by now what a startup entails, and that it is fundamentally unstable, but that doesn't mean it's not important as a venture and concept. Strong disagree. Living in San Francisco I often hear the phrase “I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees” That is significantly different than what you describe which is more of a 5 to 20 people stage. By the time you have 100+ employees and are hitting proper growth curves, your management can no longer be shit, there has to be mentoring, and there’s little room for shit employees.
  - ihuman 8y ago
    > I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees Is that even a startup anymore? To me, any company of that size is just a normal company, not a startup.
    - 8y ago
strikelaserclaw 8y ago
how does one find startups to work for? I enjoy intensity, chaos, and learning in my job and my big corp job is just not providing that. I'm planning on moving to one of the tech hubs next year and trying to work at a startup of sorts, not sure where to start
- gkoberger 8y ago
  I've never met a startup that wasn't desperate to hire :) That being said, many startups ignore inbound applications, because the signal to noise ratio is so bad. If you want to work at a startup, I'd recommend a few of the following: 1/ Apply for A-List, Hired.com or Triplebyte 2/ Look at Who's Hiring posts on HN 3/ Update your LinkedIn and AngelList to seem hire-able (but not TOO hire-able!) Use a real pic of yourself, have a personal website with a resume, and fill out info about jobs you've had. (Related: put your name/info in your HN profile!) 4/ Have friends at startups? Talk to them! Everyone at a startup knows someone who is hiring.
  - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
    awesome points, in your experience does having experience in big corp tech (am a .NET dev) hamper your success in getting hired at a startup? I really do enjoy the .NET world and invested many hours in it, i would hate that to be a crutch.
    - gkoberger 8y ago
      Good and bad news! The bad news is there's way fewer .NET startups out there (most are Ruby/Node/Python). But the good news is that you'll have a lot less competition for jobs! StackShare has a way to search job listings by language: https://stackshare.io/match?selectedTools=dot-net&searchOperator=AND https://stackshare.io/match?selectedTools=dot-net&searchOper...
- dumbfounder 8y ago
  Go to startup oriented meetups in your city.
dumbfounder 8y ago
I think it's interesting that the major point is that you will learn a lot, but he also says that you should not expect to be mentored or given any real direction. This is definitely my experience, but it doesn't mean that startups teach you these things, it means that you have to teach yourself these things and you are in an environment where you are forced to do it. You can also do this and keep your day job if you start your own side project. Obviously it might not be an intense as joining a small startup, but you get to keep your day job pay. Self-motivation is a requirement though.
- mkozlows 8y ago
  There are a lot of things that you simply can't learn by yourself, though. The practicalities of doing things on a team, at scale, are just out of scope for personal side projects.
  - meesles 8y ago
    Agreed. The more I grow, the more I realize it is unrealistic to develop skills in scaling architecture, massive-scale software, etc. with only your own projects. You either need to contribute to large projects, find large projects to hire you, or push for scaling patterns which may be out-of-scope for your current job. This is actually something I've been thinking about lately: how can I train/practice these meaningful skills without the risk of damaging a reputation or losing sensitive data in real systems?
    - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
      This is a real problem in trying to learn how to scale systems. I love learning about scaling but I've never personally worked on high volume applications, there's only so much you can do by reading stuff or watching tutorials or emulating high volume in your side projects. There's so many x-factors that come into play that you can only learn on the job.
      - wolco 8y ago
colechristensen 8y ago
>But when you compare it to the defined structure of an established company, it just doesn’t compare. Big companies have employee onboarding, management training, goal setting they’ve been doing for years — all of the things that give people guidance and mentorship on what they need to do to be successful. Goal setting, training, onboarding... these are processes, process doesn't make good management. The problems with startups is many of them are filled with employees who have had little experience outside of that company. Good managers are created with experience. Experiencing good and bad managers and employees in a few different environments is what creates good managers. Not HR policy. It is a good idea for your career to work in a few places for a few years a piece before starting a new business or joining a small startup. Good managers can't be created with policy and training.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- paulie_a 8y ago
  A good manager is also actively coaching their employees too. Training is important, but there is a distinct difference between the two.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    In 20+ years at 7 companies with 10 managers, I’ve only been “coached” by one and that was 20 years into my career as the software architect. Part of the problem was that I came into my first role as the only developer and I was responsible for building a fairly complex system from scratch. I then left and spent another 9 years at another company where I became an “expert beginner”. (https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...). 10 years and five jobs later, I have a manager who is technical sound, keeps up with the latest functionality of the cloud platform we are using, and can give good suggestions about what areas I should research to implement something, but I still have to do the nitty gritty details. I actually enjoy that from a manager.
kodablah 8y ago
> If you’re seriously considering both options — a traditional company and a startup — here are some points to consider. There are so many definitions of "startup", but given the common one of "VC funded trying to get big", I'd say there's a third company type between these two I dub a "starting-up". It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with employees or ask a ton of its employees. Almost like a lifestyle business. Maybe it has tiny investment, but definitely not big startup monies. It has half of each including the bad (bad mgmt, unlikely riches, few benefits, etc) and the good (bit more stability, no overwork, etc). Maybe it's seen as a startup or traditional by most, but I see them as a really comfortable niche. You get to work on side projects, go home (or work from home) with decent hours, and just relax. Often if small/early enough, if they do strike it rich, you're included.
- mr_tristan 8y ago
  > It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with employees or ask a ton of its employees Why not just call these small businesses? If they're in the black, then they can just operate using a traditional business model. The startup is about _not_ operating traditionally, but, taking a massive risk to do something different, that can _eventually_ get to that traditional model. Usually by way of turning into a publicly traded company. Which many small businesses never will achieve, by the way. Entrepreneurship doesn't mean you have to go that "insane growth" trajectory. It _can_ just mean "launch a small business". And that small business can just be private for a very long time; there's nothing wrong with it. Some idiots may have you believe that the "best entrepreneur" creates startups, but that's stupidity at it's finest. IMO the best entrepreneur can create the _right kind_ of operation. There are plenty of examples of private companies that can grow but don't require operating non-traditionally.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  I worked for one of those for a couple years that had started as a "startup" when I did my internships with them but had morphed into "slow-growing lifestyle business" by the time I left. I'd argue that you get most of the downsides of both with few of the upsides. You don't actually get stability with this setup; you're a couple of customer cancellations away from layoffs at any time. There is no career advancement. You pretty much don't have a shot at getting rich. It doesn't get you much of a resume boost (other than being employed) or much cred at parties. The workload is still fairly high, though not as insane as a fast grower. The one thing it does have is that your learning rate will still be fairly high, and you have a sense of independence & responsibility that's akin to what a startup would give you. For the time period I was there (first year out of college), that perhaps was just what I needed. I wouldn't recommend making a career out of it, though.
mpodlasin 8y ago
It's funny how my experience is exactly reverse. Since I joined startup I learn much less, since we can't afford experimentation and there are no other front end devs here, so I don't get a chance to learn backend stuff, since someone has to do front end part. I also hoped to learn some business stuff, but most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors while you code boring crud application.
- rjeli 8y ago
  > most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors Lack of transparency is bad. If you care about it, leave. Find a founder who doesn't think they're better than you.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    That seems to be quite a leap from “meetings with investors happen behind closed doors” to “the founders think they are better than you.” There are certain things that should be discussed in the open, and certain things behind closed doors.
    - InfamousSub 8y ago
      >and certain things behind closed doors. Such as?
- _II__II_ 8y ago
  I couldn't agree more, I've just left a start up for a traditional company purely because here I have opportunities to learn. It comes down to the culture of the company a little bit, for example this place likes it's devs to do R&D/experimentation to scope out opportunities to add value to the business. The point remains though that such a thing just wasn't possible at the startup I was at, there wasn't time.
- grosjona 8y ago
  I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical solutions to problems which don't really need to exist to begin with. For example, one reason why many corporations push really hard on having 100% unit and integration test coverage is because they have such high employee turnover that they can't rely on their engineers to maintain their own code; corporations have to assume that engineers who work on their projects are completely unfamiliar with the code - In this case, automated tests are the only way to maintain the integrity and stability of the code base. The time cost of maintaining all these trivial unit tests is ignored (even though the cost is actually very significant; not to mention that these tests lock down the code and thereby discourage refactoring and experimentation). Corporate processes are designed around the assumptions that engineers don't care and can't be trusted. This is a very inefficient approach to building software. Personally, I'd rather my project have code with 0% unit test coverage written by a team of involved engineers than code with 100% test coverage written by a team of indifferent engineers.
marsrover 8y ago
I’ve learned much more at a normal company (1) than startups (2). I think giving people jobs they’re unqualified for is a large part of that.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I've worked at several startups and some big companies. Doing things you've never done before, and being thrown into the brink is I think the best opportunity to learn. This happens without necessarily being pushed into roles, merely by the scope of activities one might be involved in. You can work at a large company, as an Engineer, and literally never learn how a company actually works. A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc.. Granted - in a specialized discipline - you may have the opportunity to work on projects that fly or not, or take time. For example, if you are doing some kind of big data implementation that's going to take 2 years, but it takes 3 but the company has the resources to handle it and you've been able to do it 'properly' - that's great and it's a kind of learning you may not get at a startup.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    > A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc.. Working at a startup can be exactly the same. Especially if it’s staffed by inexperienced people full of ego :-)
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      Yes but you see the effects immediately. Small means outcomes are a function of the people there. In big companies, people can do nothing and the gears keep turning.
munchbunny 8y ago
There's an important implied point that isn't really talked about in this article: the points about learning in startups are mostly only true if you are a founder or an early employee. The definition of "early" depends on the eventual size of the company. If you are employee #10 and the company grows to 500, you will have learned a ton from the journey. But if you are employee #100, likely not much actually changes for you, and if you join as employee #500, you likely won't learn much from the journey to 1000, if your company makes it to 1000. After spending a bunch of years in startup land without seeing great success, I still learned a ton as a founder/early employee though, and I absolutely don't regret doing it. However, I've concluded that if you're looking at opportunities to be a mid-late employee, either make sure you're paid well for it, or go to a big company.
j_m_b 8y ago
One thing that seems to be very common in startups is nepotism. People often start companies with their friends and family. This leads to the company having a built-in clique. If you are an "off-the-street" hire, meaning someone who came in because they submitted a resume and not because they knew someone, expect that you're going to be second-guessed while the original people are going to love each other's ideas.
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  True of larger companies as well. Managers bring in friends and ex coworkers and form power cliques.
- mizzao 8y ago
  The flip side of 'nepotism' is that you're much more likely to be successful working with people that you know well or have worked with before.
jonny_eh 8y ago
A big advantage to working at a BigCo is how it looks on your résume, or the "About Us" page of your own future startup. I've seen so many hiring managers trip over themselves to hire former FANG employees, without knowing anything else about them. It's like graduating from an ivy league school. There's also way more networking opportunities at big companies, merely because there's so many more people.
- gaius 8y ago
  It's like graduating from an ivy league school. It is exactly like that. An optimal start to a career would be graduate from a top 10 college, 2 years at Google and/or 2 years at Goldman Sachs. That person would be guaranteed an interview anywhere they wanted probably for the rest of their careers. Not saying it’s good or bad but there is no denying the power of that kind of signal.
TomMckenny 8y ago
> ...because they just wanted to work on interesting frontier projects... This is the exact reason I have exclusively sought out startups in the past. But quite frankly the Bay Area is simply to expensive to do that anymore. I deeply miss that life and still tinker with side projects. But if that city can not solve it's cost of living crisis, there will continue to be a smaller and smaller pool of people that can afford the startup life.
- justinzollars 8y ago
  This is a big problem with the Bay Area! I often wonder if I need to move for a few years to get something started elsewhere.
  - justinzollars 8y ago
    Also I had a question on this very topic if anyone has any insight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17744930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17744930
  - mi100hael 8y ago
    http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-san-francisco/ http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-sa...
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I came to Boston to work in a startup. I had the same exact problem as you. I was just too curious about fast paced startup life and wanted to experience this. Boston is not that better than the Bay Area (in fact fresh food and wine are more expensive than what I found in Berkeley) but it's relatively better and I have a pretty good living standard and I can save more money than I care. Startup life has been very stressful so far for me. I definitely learn a lot and it's tons of !!!FUN!!! but I'm thinking maybe in a year or two I'll go back to the Bay for a larger, more stable company.
lkrubner 8y ago
I hope I won't bore people if I repeat a point that I've made before: far more startups die of suicide than homicide. The tendency to self-sabotage, among entrepreneurs, is surprisingly strong. And I’m hardly the only one who has noticed this odd fact. The great business guru Peter Drucker made the point repeatedly. In his 1985 book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker includes a long chapter on the tendency of entrepreneurs to destroy the innovation they’d created. For those interested, I've written about this elsewhere: ----------------------------- We might hope that those in leadership positions possess strength and resilience, but vanity and fragile egos have sabotaged many of the businesses that I’ve worked with. Defeat is always a possibility, and not everyone finds healthy ways to deal with the stress. Each person matters. Established firms will have a bureaucracy that can ensure some stability, even when an eccentric individual is in a leadership position, but when a company consists of just two or three people, and one of them reacts neurotically to challenges, the company is doomed. From 2002 to 2008 I worked with an entrepreneur who had inherited a few million dollars when he was twenty-five. He admired musicians and considered the music industry glamorous, so he built a sound studio. It never made money. The bands that stopped by were broke. Those few who came up with a hit song mostly signed with a major label which, typically, had its own recording studio. I met him in 2002 when his focus was shifting to the Web. I had developed some software that allowed people to create weblogs. Typepad, which fostered something similar to what I’d built, had just raised $23 million in funding. Surely we could do the same? Our difficulties were self-imposed. We might go like maniacs on some project for four months, and when we were on the brink of unveiling it to the public, he would grow bored with it and move on to something else. The first time this happened, and I asked him his reasons, he improvised some arguments that sounded plausible; there were already too many startups doing the same thing. But this pattern, where he walked away from a project just when we were ready to introduce it to the public, repeated itself. What led to this self-sabotage? As I met his whole family over the years I got to see the sad dynamics that ate at him. A modest business success would not be enough, in fact, it would leave him embarrassed. Only the creation of something as big as Google would suffice. But to grow that big, we would first need to be small, and that was the step he had no patience for. As the years went by and he burned away all the money he’d inherited, the stress wrecked him. His self-image became increasingly grandiose. He told people that he was a visionary, someone who was able to tell what the future would look like. Late at night he would smoke weed and read articles on Slashdot and TechCrunch and then put together an amalgam of words that seemed full of the bright hopes of humanity, which he offered up as our marketing: “The Universe is fundamentally electromagnetic yet non-sentient, and we are sentient but only partly electromagnetic; the Internet is the ultimate harnessing of sentience to the fundamental forces of the Universe. Therefore our software will put you, our customer, in the driver’s seat of real-time conscious human evolution.” Later, when he wrote up our business plan, he put these two sentences in the executive summary. I’m not joking. We had one modest success, in 2007. His girlfriend, a yoga instructor, suggested we build an online marketplace where yoga instructors could sell videos, as well as other health advice. This site was an immediate success. Within the first month it was profitable. We were written up in all of the major yoga magazines. It seemed obvious to me that we should use the same technology to build a series of similar sites. We could do a site devoted to cooking videos, another devoted to tennis, another devoted to golf. Indeed, just a few years later, the team behind Revolutiongolf.com did exactly what we could have done. My business partner, however, was enraged by the success of the yoga site. He had burned through several million dollars chasing ideas that he felt were “visionary” and then his girlfriend came up with a simple idea that turned into our one true hit. To this day, it remains a popular yoga site. We could have built an empire around that site, but instead his girlfriend’s success left him bitter. https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...
bradlys 8y ago
I get that this is a just a PR piece to attract new talent but I think you're selling a startup short still. Learning is hardly a thing at startups. So many people are incredibly junior and know nothing about the industry or tech to begin with. (I mean, who else would take such low pay?) Yes, you can get to get pushed into unqualified roles and learn from it - depending on who you are. But that's really only at the cost of others - you're maximizing for one person and not the group. So it's really a startup is a system that maximizes the happiness of only a few individuals - which we already know with how stock gets treated. (Founders frequently being the only ones who get rich no matter how early on an employee you are) e.g. Wow, X got promoted to be the team lead/manager. X is definitely not qualified and, in fact, makes the most productive members of the team more unhappy by being a manager now. This only happened because the rest of management is desperate, broke, and can't afford anyone who is a good manager. People under X will leave the company. I've seen it happen a lot at startups and it results in crazy churn. Same with more technical decisions. Seeing people promoted to Senior/Staff who have are barely better than their junior counterparts (just more arrogance). A lot of folks recognize dumpster fires when they see it and bounce. They're is also so little growth opportunity once those positions are taken unless you're on a rocket ship. In terms of learning tech: A lot of tech is also outdated at startups compared to big N. There are large enterprise companies that are using even older tech but there's no reason to join those as they pay on the same scale as startups (And your job security is no better than at a startup). Scaling problems only exist once you've hit rocket ship status (so who cares about anything) - whereas they're everywhere at a big company. There are startups that are trying to use the latest and greatest and do interesting things but the number I interview with who are using outdated tech seems worse than any Big N I've interviewed with. Big N seems to be way more cutting edge (because they can afford it in terms of resources and know it attracts talent). Upgrading tech at a startup only happens when the company finds out no one at $Y salary with Z options will join the company until the company updates their stack. It's not like they can really afford it anyway. The company is so focused on churning out features and pivoting wildly to extract any bit of $$$ that they can out of the market while they find their cash cow (cash cow being actual profit $$$ or just magic numbers that can increase their next round of funding). Anyway, back to my point about selling a startup short, I think the only reason I'd truly consider startups is being able to choose the people you work with and the problems you solve (although that could change easily once the company finds out it needs to pivot - again). There was nothing about that here and it's obvious from reading the article that it's all about that but it's not brought up. You chose to work with your brother and all these folks. You don't get these choices at a big company. You're mostly thrown together and just deal with it.
exabrial 8y ago
I work for startups because middle management is a mind numbing disease. I certainly am not maximizing my potential earnings, but I'm maximizing my happiness and I find it really fulfilling to take pride in my work and leave the office knowing I accomplished something.
curo 8y ago
I got rejected from YC at the interview stage, and Justin sent me the rejection email. Great frigg'n guy. I protested and he out-classed me by replying to my objection. Also, this article is spot on. This is a back pocket article because this question comes up a lot.
jinonoel 8y ago
"Why join a startup #1: Acccess to jobs you're unqualified for" Had a good laugh at this, because it's completely true in my case. 7 years ago became the "data scientist" at a 4-person startup before I even knew what a data scientist actually does. Parlayed that into further data science jobs at somewhat bigger startups. Now I'm Head of Data Science at a stable traditional tech company making good money and this likely wouldn't have been possible without that first startup job.
- ggambetta 8y ago
  Definitely my experience as well :) This is how I ended up being Head of Marketing at Improbable [1] for the first half of 2016. I've since returned to Engineering, but this is definitely an experience I'd never have had at my previous work at Google. [1] http://improbable.io http://improbable.io
- therealdrag0 8y ago
  Happens at other companies too. I have a friend who studied and worked only in EE, then got a job at Microsoft doing data-analytic focused work. I had only done BE work, then at mid-sized-co I started taking front-end work for fun, and did that full time for 4 months. My work was appreciated even though I had no FE experience. Big companies might care more about qualifications, but they can also float longer ramp-up times if you're not qualified.
yashap 8y ago
This piece did feel a little PR/recruit-y, and a bit name drop-y (though obviously the author is a bit of a startup celebrity himself), but even still, it really resonated with me. All the pros and cons have been dead on with my experience. Especially “do work you’re unqualified for”, and that being a great way to learn super quickly.
telltruth 8y ago
Just love Justin's "no BS" style. When I see folks straight out of college try to get hired at FANG (or even worse, tier 2/3 companies), I feel sorry for them. They would have little clue about getting in to daily grind that sucks their soul away little by little for some whims of incompetent higher ups. At starups, you would get in to even more grind but it's just of different kind and everything you learn and experience would be 2X-10X faster. If you are straight out of college and try to join a company with > 1000 people, you are not doing yourself a favor. On the other hand, if you have kids, mortgage and car payments then FANG is your best friend.
markatkinson 8y ago
An anecdotal experience I had was that working at a large corporate was an incredibly pleasant experience. This is obviously due to where I worked being the type of company that was very generous to its employees, in all ways except remuneration which is why I eventually had to go elsewhere. I still dream of going back there. Due to the size of the company and it being around for so long. I found my job was incredibly well defined and my deliverable's where always right in front of me and measured regularly. This made it very easy to deliver more than was expected of me. Due to this really tight feedback loop between you and the company your career moves forward at an encouraging pace. It can take some extra effort from your end to move horizontally within the company but where I worked it was a massive stepping stone and I found I could really leverage off of the mechanisms put in place by the company to reduce employee turnover. My point is you really feel pampered and cared for. I reckon this has a lot to do with the company, as well as my immediate managers being total rock stars at their jobs. Anyway, now I am in a startup in the truest sense of the word. First employee through the door. Second developer and third person on site. This is not comfortable, and I do not feel pampered. In fact I am considerably more stressed but hell's teeth, nothing makes you up your emotional maturity/expertise/business game as much as this. Much like the post eludes to I suppose.
PeOe 8y ago
I started a startup together with a colleague. It´s a lot of work and you don´t get rich (as you said) but there are so many other points that matter. The teams are friendlier, open-minded and are more family than employees. You share time together and work is not strictly planned. Yes, you can learn a lot but you need to work hard to do so and failure is part of it.
tribesman 8y ago
I love working at a startup, there is simply no cap on number of hours i can work. I can meet any other employee without any appointment. I can try my hands on accounting and legals. Go meet customers and give them the demo when i don't feel like working. I can collect cash from customers, take a photo of the cash and send it to boss where he sends me a thumbs up emoji. I often bring kids of my boss or colleagues from their school or drop their wifes to hospital when they are sick or if their want to go to shopping when her guy is debugging the server. I don't have any family of my own other than a girlfriend. Doing all these things for others give me peace and makes me feel as if i am part of their family. For an orphan kid, this is all i wanted. I've helped my collegues mop whole floor when it's their turn in their apartment building. I don't know if i can get all this in a big company. After this i got 10% equality in a small company. Post sale where i made 15 million and gave 10 to my girlfriend for her support. I still work there and enjoy everyday. You need to see where i started when i had nothing, zero saving..... No family. Today, I've everything and I can't complain.
- _Microft 8y ago
  .
nikhilkalegregg 8y ago
join a startup if you are a founding partner, believe in the product, have or believe in some vision or value that you can add to a product, and if you get along with the people (and are ideally around the same age as the main founders). Otherwise, in my opinion, do not join that theoretical startup--and start your own project.
- nikhilkalegregg 8y ago
  also id add--regarding picking partners--one thing to be aware of is how your partner treats others--as nice as he/she treats you initially (whilst trying to recruit you) keep an eye on how he/she treats others he is not trying to recruit, because at the end of the day, that will ultimately determine how he/she will treat you. I overlooked these red flags to my detriment--and as soon as our company got required my CEO (who did next to nothing) sold our company's IP (which I as the CTO and only software engineer wrote alone) and cut me out --leaving me with nothing except the distinction of having sold a startup--while he pocketed all the profits, earned that distinction and went to business school (with all the other twats who train to do the same thing). For all the technical founders out there, do not join a business founder without vetting him/her in a variety of situations and trust his/her heart with your destiny.

311 points by madmax108 8y ago

I think the argument about existing at the extremes probably applies here. If I am going to work for an unreliable, unknown, unstable company, I'd rather own a big chunk and have serious skin in the game and control of my destiny. If not, give me the most well funded, monopolized, cushy job possible where I can accept that my agency is a small price to pay for very high standard of living. Applies to apartments too (live in a giant building downtown, for the benefits, or in the middle of nowhere, but not in the suburbs where you are lose-lose).

jonathankoren 8y ago

I joined a startup for stability once. It was way more stable than the megacorp I left.

gkoberger 8y ago
I think it depends on your definition of stability. Megacorp: The company won't disappear overnight, but you might get tossed around different positions and have projects you've spent a year on shut down out of nowhere. Startup: The company itself may shut down, but in the meantime everything is more focused and transparent.
- tlb 8y ago
  In some sense the startup is lower cognitive load, because everything is great until it all implodes and then you look for a new startup. A punctuated equilibrium. At a megacorp, everything is vaguely doomed all the time, but never so clearly doomed that it's obvious when to make a move, and you spend a lot of time reading political tea leaves so as not to end up on the wrong project. The worst thing that most big companies do is continue to employ good people on long death marches.
  - titanomachy 8y ago
    "Vaguely doomed all the time" nicely much sums up my most recent bigcorp experience. Easy to end up on a soul-destroying maintenance project that you can't leave because it's business-critical and nobody else wants to do it.
  - coaxial 8y ago
    Haha, nicely said. I'll add reading political tea leaves to my skills.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Instability is 3 teams in a year, due to projects being shutdown or transferred.

k__ 8y ago

Good points. You'll end up in chaotic work environments, but you'll learn so much, especially how to solve the problems that arise with these environments. These are the skills you need for your own startup. If you "just need a job to pay the rent" it probably isn't for you.

jamestimmins 8y ago

There's an unspoken thread here that shows the benefit of startup communities, which is that they help you survive failure much more easily. It would appear that the unsuccessful ventures didn't severely limit access to opportunities and compel him to go work for a big company. If his community had been different, or if he had listened to the well-meaning people who undoubtedly recommended that he get a 'real job', this likely wouldn't have been the case.

WilliamEdward 8y ago

The problem with startups has always been a fundamental one, and not really one you can change without redefining what a startup actually is - people try way too hard to start them. Let me explain; it's reported very very often on YC that 90% of startups fail, and while a lot of these points in the article are disguised as separate ideas, they're all part of the same problem being that people want to make something from nothing, hence why it is called a startup. Traditional businesses begin by pivoting off an exiting business or product, whereby if you're a chemist working for DuPont and develop a new chemical, they might make a subsidiary to produce that. That process is way easier, the money and infrastructure is already there, and everyone is already neatly on board. Contrast this with a startup. You're probably young, lacking financial and networking support, education, and many other things. You want to make a product the world has likely never seen before, completely from scratch. Well, of course your management is going to be shit. Of course you're going to find shit employees. Of course it's unlikely to succeed. This article was completely unnecessary because everyone should know by now what a startup entails, and that it is fundamentally unstable, but that doesn't mean it's not important as a venture and concept.

Swizec 8y ago
> This article was completely unnecessary because everyone should know by now what a startup entails, and that it is fundamentally unstable, but that doesn't mean it's not important as a venture and concept. Strong disagree. Living in San Francisco I often hear the phrase “I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees” That is significantly different than what you describe which is more of a 5 to 20 people stage. By the time you have 100+ employees and are hitting proper growth curves, your management can no longer be shit, there has to be mentoring, and there’s little room for shit employees.
- ihuman 8y ago
  > I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees Is that even a startup anymore? To me, any company of that size is just a normal company, not a startup.
  - 8y ago

strikelaserclaw 8y ago

how does one find startups to work for? I enjoy intensity, chaos, and learning in my job and my big corp job is just not providing that. I'm planning on moving to one of the tech hubs next year and trying to work at a startup of sorts, not sure where to start

gkoberger 8y ago
I've never met a startup that wasn't desperate to hire :) That being said, many startups ignore inbound applications, because the signal to noise ratio is so bad. If you want to work at a startup, I'd recommend a few of the following: 1/ Apply for A-List, Hired.com or Triplebyte 2/ Look at Who's Hiring posts on HN 3/ Update your LinkedIn and AngelList to seem hire-able (but not TOO hire-able!) Use a real pic of yourself, have a personal website with a resume, and fill out info about jobs you've had. (Related: put your name/info in your HN profile!) 4/ Have friends at startups? Talk to them! Everyone at a startup knows someone who is hiring.
- strikelaserclaw 8y ago
  awesome points, in your experience does having experience in big corp tech (am a .NET dev) hamper your success in getting hired at a startup? I really do enjoy the .NET world and invested many hours in it, i would hate that to be a crutch.
  - gkoberger 8y ago
    Good and bad news! The bad news is there's way fewer .NET startups out there (most are Ruby/Node/Python). But the good news is that you'll have a lot less competition for jobs! StackShare has a way to search job listings by language: https://stackshare.io/match?selectedTools=dot-net&searchOperator=AND https://stackshare.io/match?selectedTools=dot-net&searchOper...
dumbfounder 8y ago
Go to startup oriented meetups in your city.

dumbfounder 8y ago

I think it's interesting that the major point is that you will learn a lot, but he also says that you should not expect to be mentored or given any real direction. This is definitely my experience, but it doesn't mean that startups teach you these things, it means that you have to teach yourself these things and you are in an environment where you are forced to do it. You can also do this and keep your day job if you start your own side project. Obviously it might not be an intense as joining a small startup, but you get to keep your day job pay. Self-motivation is a requirement though.

mkozlows 8y ago
There are a lot of things that you simply can't learn by yourself, though. The practicalities of doing things on a team, at scale, are just out of scope for personal side projects.
- meesles 8y ago
  Agreed. The more I grow, the more I realize it is unrealistic to develop skills in scaling architecture, massive-scale software, etc. with only your own projects. You either need to contribute to large projects, find large projects to hire you, or push for scaling patterns which may be out-of-scope for your current job. This is actually something I've been thinking about lately: how can I train/practice these meaningful skills without the risk of damaging a reputation or losing sensitive data in real systems?
  - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
    This is a real problem in trying to learn how to scale systems. I love learning about scaling but I've never personally worked on high volume applications, there's only so much you can do by reading stuff or watching tutorials or emulating high volume in your side projects. There's so many x-factors that come into play that you can only learn on the job.
    - wolco 8y ago

colechristensen 8y ago

>But when you compare it to the defined structure of an established company, it just doesn’t compare. Big companies have employee onboarding, management training, goal setting they’ve been doing for years — all of the things that give people guidance and mentorship on what they need to do to be successful. Goal setting, training, onboarding... these are processes, process doesn't make good management. The problems with startups is many of them are filled with employees who have had little experience outside of that company. Good managers are created with experience. Experiencing good and bad managers and employees in a few different environments is what creates good managers. Not HR policy. It is a good idea for your career to work in a few places for a few years a piece before starting a new business or joining a small startup. Good managers can't be created with policy and training.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
paulie_a 8y ago
A good manager is also actively coaching their employees too. Training is important, but there is a distinct difference between the two.
- scarface74 8y ago
  In 20+ years at 7 companies with 10 managers, I’ve only been “coached” by one and that was 20 years into my career as the software architect. Part of the problem was that I came into my first role as the only developer and I was responsible for building a fairly complex system from scratch. I then left and spent another 9 years at another company where I became an “expert beginner”. (https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...). 10 years and five jobs later, I have a manager who is technical sound, keeps up with the latest functionality of the cloud platform we are using, and can give good suggestions about what areas I should research to implement something, but I still have to do the nitty gritty details. I actually enjoy that from a manager.

kodablah 8y ago

> If you’re seriously considering both options — a traditional company and a startup — here are some points to consider. There are so many definitions of "startup", but given the common one of "VC funded trying to get big", I'd say there's a third company type between these two I dub a "starting-up". It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with employees or ask a ton of its employees. Almost like a lifestyle business. Maybe it has tiny investment, but definitely not big startup monies. It has half of each including the bad (bad mgmt, unlikely riches, few benefits, etc) and the good (bit more stability, no overwork, etc). Maybe it's seen as a startup or traditional by most, but I see them as a really comfortable niche. You get to work on side projects, go home (or work from home) with decent hours, and just relax. Often if small/early enough, if they do strike it rich, you're included.

mr_tristan 8y ago
> It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with employees or ask a ton of its employees Why not just call these small businesses? If they're in the black, then they can just operate using a traditional business model. The startup is about _not_ operating traditionally, but, taking a massive risk to do something different, that can _eventually_ get to that traditional model. Usually by way of turning into a publicly traded company. Which many small businesses never will achieve, by the way. Entrepreneurship doesn't mean you have to go that "insane growth" trajectory. It _can_ just mean "launch a small business". And that small business can just be private for a very long time; there's nothing wrong with it. Some idiots may have you believe that the "best entrepreneur" creates startups, but that's stupidity at it's finest. IMO the best entrepreneur can create the _right kind_ of operation. There are plenty of examples of private companies that can grow but don't require operating non-traditionally.
nostrademons 8y ago
I worked for one of those for a couple years that had started as a "startup" when I did my internships with them but had morphed into "slow-growing lifestyle business" by the time I left. I'd argue that you get most of the downsides of both with few of the upsides. You don't actually get stability with this setup; you're a couple of customer cancellations away from layoffs at any time. There is no career advancement. You pretty much don't have a shot at getting rich. It doesn't get you much of a resume boost (other than being employed) or much cred at parties. The workload is still fairly high, though not as insane as a fast grower. The one thing it does have is that your learning rate will still be fairly high, and you have a sense of independence & responsibility that's akin to what a startup would give you. For the time period I was there (first year out of college), that perhaps was just what I needed. I wouldn't recommend making a career out of it, though.

mpodlasin 8y ago

It's funny how my experience is exactly reverse. Since I joined startup I learn much less, since we can't afford experimentation and there are no other front end devs here, so I don't get a chance to learn backend stuff, since someone has to do front end part. I also hoped to learn some business stuff, but most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors while you code boring crud application.

rjeli 8y ago
> most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors Lack of transparency is bad. If you care about it, leave. Find a founder who doesn't think they're better than you.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  That seems to be quite a leap from “meetings with investors happen behind closed doors” to “the founders think they are better than you.” There are certain things that should be discussed in the open, and certain things behind closed doors.
  - InfamousSub 8y ago
    >and certain things behind closed doors. Such as?
_II__II_ 8y ago
I couldn't agree more, I've just left a start up for a traditional company purely because here I have opportunities to learn. It comes down to the culture of the company a little bit, for example this place likes it's devs to do R&D/experimentation to scope out opportunities to add value to the business. The point remains though that such a thing just wasn't possible at the startup I was at, there wasn't time.
grosjona 8y ago
I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical solutions to problems which don't really need to exist to begin with. For example, one reason why many corporations push really hard on having 100% unit and integration test coverage is because they have such high employee turnover that they can't rely on their engineers to maintain their own code; corporations have to assume that engineers who work on their projects are completely unfamiliar with the code - In this case, automated tests are the only way to maintain the integrity and stability of the code base. The time cost of maintaining all these trivial unit tests is ignored (even though the cost is actually very significant; not to mention that these tests lock down the code and thereby discourage refactoring and experimentation). Corporate processes are designed around the assumptions that engineers don't care and can't be trusted. This is a very inefficient approach to building software. Personally, I'd rather my project have code with 0% unit test coverage written by a team of involved engineers than code with 100% test coverage written by a team of indifferent engineers.

marsrover 8y ago

I’ve learned much more at a normal company (1) than startups (2). I think giving people jobs they’re unqualified for is a large part of that.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
I've worked at several startups and some big companies. Doing things you've never done before, and being thrown into the brink is I think the best opportunity to learn. This happens without necessarily being pushed into roles, merely by the scope of activities one might be involved in. You can work at a large company, as an Engineer, and literally never learn how a company actually works. A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc.. Granted - in a specialized discipline - you may have the opportunity to work on projects that fly or not, or take time. For example, if you are doing some kind of big data implementation that's going to take 2 years, but it takes 3 but the company has the resources to handle it and you've been able to do it 'properly' - that's great and it's a kind of learning you may not get at a startup.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  > A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc.. Working at a startup can be exactly the same. Especially if it’s staffed by inexperienced people full of ego :-)
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Yes but you see the effects immediately. Small means outcomes are a function of the people there. In big companies, people can do nothing and the gears keep turning.

munchbunny 8y ago

There's an important implied point that isn't really talked about in this article: the points about learning in startups are mostly only true if you are a founder or an early employee. The definition of "early" depends on the eventual size of the company. If you are employee #10 and the company grows to 500, you will have learned a ton from the journey. But if you are employee #100, likely not much actually changes for you, and if you join as employee #500, you likely won't learn much from the journey to 1000, if your company makes it to 1000. After spending a bunch of years in startup land without seeing great success, I still learned a ton as a founder/early employee though, and I absolutely don't regret doing it. However, I've concluded that if you're looking at opportunities to be a mid-late employee, either make sure you're paid well for it, or go to a big company.

j_m_b 8y ago

One thing that seems to be very common in startups is nepotism. People often start companies with their friends and family. This leads to the company having a built-in clique. If you are an "off-the-street" hire, meaning someone who came in because they submitted a resume and not because they knew someone, expect that you're going to be second-guessed while the original people are going to love each other's ideas.

WillPostForFood 8y ago
True of larger companies as well. Managers bring in friends and ex coworkers and form power cliques.
mizzao 8y ago
The flip side of 'nepotism' is that you're much more likely to be successful working with people that you know well or have worked with before.

jonny_eh 8y ago

A big advantage to working at a BigCo is how it looks on your résume, or the "About Us" page of your own future startup. I've seen so many hiring managers trip over themselves to hire former FANG employees, without knowing anything else about them. It's like graduating from an ivy league school. There's also way more networking opportunities at big companies, merely because there's so many more people.

gaius 8y ago
It's like graduating from an ivy league school. It is exactly like that. An optimal start to a career would be graduate from a top 10 college, 2 years at Google and/or 2 years at Goldman Sachs. That person would be guaranteed an interview anywhere they wanted probably for the rest of their careers. Not saying it’s good or bad but there is no denying the power of that kind of signal.

TomMckenny 8y ago

> ...because they just wanted to work on interesting frontier projects... This is the exact reason I have exclusively sought out startups in the past. But quite frankly the Bay Area is simply to expensive to do that anymore. I deeply miss that life and still tinker with side projects. But if that city can not solve it's cost of living crisis, there will continue to be a smaller and smaller pool of people that can afford the startup life.

justinzollars 8y ago
This is a big problem with the Bay Area! I often wonder if I need to move for a few years to get something started elsewhere.
- justinzollars 8y ago
  Also I had a question on this very topic if anyone has any insight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17744930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17744930
- mi100hael 8y ago
  http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-san-francisco/ http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-sa...
gnulinux 8y ago
I came to Boston to work in a startup. I had the same exact problem as you. I was just too curious about fast paced startup life and wanted to experience this. Boston is not that better than the Bay Area (in fact fresh food and wine are more expensive than what I found in Berkeley) but it's relatively better and I have a pretty good living standard and I can save more money than I care. Startup life has been very stressful so far for me. I definitely learn a lot and it's tons of !!!FUN!!! but I'm thinking maybe in a year or two I'll go back to the Bay for a larger, more stable company.

lkrubner 8y ago

I hope I won't bore people if I repeat a point that I've made before: far more startups die of suicide than homicide. The tendency to self-sabotage, among entrepreneurs, is surprisingly strong. And I’m hardly the only one who has noticed this odd fact. The great business guru Peter Drucker made the point repeatedly. In his 1985 book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker includes a long chapter on the tendency of entrepreneurs to destroy the innovation they’d created. For those interested, I've written about this elsewhere: ----------------------------- We might hope that those in leadership positions possess strength and resilience, but vanity and fragile egos have sabotaged many of the businesses that I’ve worked with. Defeat is always a possibility, and not everyone finds healthy ways to deal with the stress. Each person matters. Established firms will have a bureaucracy that can ensure some stability, even when an eccentric individual is in a leadership position, but when a company consists of just two or three people, and one of them reacts neurotically to challenges, the company is doomed. From 2002 to 2008 I worked with an entrepreneur who had inherited a few million dollars when he was twenty-five. He admired musicians and considered the music industry glamorous, so he built a sound studio. It never made money. The bands that stopped by were broke. Those few who came up with a hit song mostly signed with a major label which, typically, had its own recording studio. I met him in 2002 when his focus was shifting to the Web. I had developed some software that allowed people to create weblogs. Typepad, which fostered something similar to what I’d built, had just raised $23 million in funding. Surely we could do the same? Our difficulties were self-imposed. We might go like maniacs on some project for four months, and when we were on the brink of unveiling it to the public, he would grow bored with it and move on to something else. The first time this happened, and I asked him his reasons, he improvised some arguments that sounded plausible; there were already too many startups doing the same thing. But this pattern, where he walked away from a project just when we were ready to introduce it to the public, repeated itself. What led to this self-sabotage? As I met his whole family over the years I got to see the sad dynamics that ate at him. A modest business success would not be enough, in fact, it would leave him embarrassed. Only the creation of something as big as Google would suffice. But to grow that big, we would first need to be small, and that was the step he had no patience for. As the years went by and he burned away all the money he’d inherited, the stress wrecked him. His self-image became increasingly grandiose. He told people that he was a visionary, someone who was able to tell what the future would look like. Late at night he would smoke weed and read articles on Slashdot and TechCrunch and then put together an amalgam of words that seemed full of the bright hopes of humanity, which he offered up as our marketing: “The Universe is fundamentally electromagnetic yet non-sentient, and we are sentient but only partly electromagnetic; the Internet is the ultimate harnessing of sentience to the fundamental forces of the Universe. Therefore our software will put you, our customer, in the driver’s seat of real-time conscious human evolution.” Later, when he wrote up our business plan, he put these two sentences in the executive summary. I’m not joking. We had one modest success, in 2007. His girlfriend, a yoga instructor, suggested we build an online marketplace where yoga instructors could sell videos, as well as other health advice. This site was an immediate success. Within the first month it was profitable. We were written up in all of the major yoga magazines. It seemed obvious to me that we should use the same technology to build a series of similar sites. We could do a site devoted to cooking videos, another devoted to tennis, another devoted to golf. Indeed, just a few years later, the team behind Revolutiongolf.com did exactly what we could have done. My business partner, however, was enraged by the success of the yoga site. He had burned through several million dollars chasing ideas that he felt were “visionary” and then his girlfriend came up with a simple idea that turned into our one true hit. To this day, it remains a popular yoga site. We could have built an empire around that site, but instead his girlfriend’s success left him bitter. https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...

bradlys 8y ago

I get that this is a just a PR piece to attract new talent but I think you're selling a startup short still. Learning is hardly a thing at startups. So many people are incredibly junior and know nothing about the industry or tech to begin with. (I mean, who else would take such low pay?) Yes, you can get to get pushed into unqualified roles and learn from it - depending on who you are. But that's really only at the cost of others - you're maximizing for one person and not the group. So it's really a startup is a system that maximizes the happiness of only a few individuals - which we already know with how stock gets treated. (Founders frequently being the only ones who get rich no matter how early on an employee you are) e.g. Wow, X got promoted to be the team lead/manager. X is definitely not qualified and, in fact, makes the most productive members of the team more unhappy by being a manager now. This only happened because the rest of management is desperate, broke, and can't afford anyone who is a good manager. People under X will leave the company. I've seen it happen a lot at startups and it results in crazy churn. Same with more technical decisions. Seeing people promoted to Senior/Staff who have are barely better than their junior counterparts (just more arrogance). A lot of folks recognize dumpster fires when they see it and bounce. They're is also so little growth opportunity once those positions are taken unless you're on a rocket ship. In terms of learning tech: A lot of tech is also outdated at startups compared to big N. There are large enterprise companies that are using even older tech but there's no reason to join those as they pay on the same scale as startups (And your job security is no better than at a startup). Scaling problems only exist once you've hit rocket ship status (so who cares about anything) - whereas they're everywhere at a big company. There are startups that are trying to use the latest and greatest and do interesting things but the number I interview with who are using outdated tech seems worse than any Big N I've interviewed with. Big N seems to be way more cutting edge (because they can afford it in terms of resources and know it attracts talent). Upgrading tech at a startup only happens when the company finds out no one at $Y salary with Z options will join the company until the company updates their stack. It's not like they can really afford it anyway. The company is so focused on churning out features and pivoting wildly to extract any bit of $$$ that they can out of the market while they find their cash cow (cash cow being actual profit $$$ or just magic numbers that can increase their next round of funding). Anyway, back to my point about selling a startup short, I think the only reason I'd truly consider startups is being able to choose the people you work with and the problems you solve (although that could change easily once the company finds out it needs to pivot - again). There was nothing about that here and it's obvious from reading the article that it's all about that but it's not brought up. You chose to work with your brother and all these folks. You don't get these choices at a big company. You're mostly thrown together and just deal with it.

exabrial 8y ago

I work for startups because middle management is a mind numbing disease. I certainly am not maximizing my potential earnings, but I'm maximizing my happiness and I find it really fulfilling to take pride in my work and leave the office knowing I accomplished something.

curo 8y ago

I got rejected from YC at the interview stage, and Justin sent me the rejection email. Great frigg'n guy. I protested and he out-classed me by replying to my objection. Also, this article is spot on. This is a back pocket article because this question comes up a lot.

jinonoel 8y ago

"Why join a startup #1: Acccess to jobs you're unqualified for" Had a good laugh at this, because it's completely true in my case. 7 years ago became the "data scientist" at a 4-person startup before I even knew what a data scientist actually does. Parlayed that into further data science jobs at somewhat bigger startups. Now I'm Head of Data Science at a stable traditional tech company making good money and this likely wouldn't have been possible without that first startup job.

ggambetta 8y ago
Definitely my experience as well :) This is how I ended up being Head of Marketing at Improbable [1] for the first half of 2016. I've since returned to Engineering, but this is definitely an experience I'd never have had at my previous work at Google. [1] http://improbable.io http://improbable.io
therealdrag0 8y ago
Happens at other companies too. I have a friend who studied and worked only in EE, then got a job at Microsoft doing data-analytic focused work. I had only done BE work, then at mid-sized-co I started taking front-end work for fun, and did that full time for 4 months. My work was appreciated even though I had no FE experience. Big companies might care more about qualifications, but they can also float longer ramp-up times if you're not qualified.

yashap 8y ago

This piece did feel a little PR/recruit-y, and a bit name drop-y (though obviously the author is a bit of a startup celebrity himself), but even still, it really resonated with me. All the pros and cons have been dead on with my experience. Especially “do work you’re unqualified for”, and that being a great way to learn super quickly.

telltruth 8y ago

Just love Justin's "no BS" style. When I see folks straight out of college try to get hired at FANG (or even worse, tier 2/3 companies), I feel sorry for them. They would have little clue about getting in to daily grind that sucks their soul away little by little for some whims of incompetent higher ups. At starups, you would get in to even more grind but it's just of different kind and everything you learn and experience would be 2X-10X faster. If you are straight out of college and try to join a company with > 1000 people, you are not doing yourself a favor. On the other hand, if you have kids, mortgage and car payments then FANG is your best friend.

markatkinson 8y ago

An anecdotal experience I had was that working at a large corporate was an incredibly pleasant experience. This is obviously due to where I worked being the type of company that was very generous to its employees, in all ways except remuneration which is why I eventually had to go elsewhere. I still dream of going back there. Due to the size of the company and it being around for so long. I found my job was incredibly well defined and my deliverable's where always right in front of me and measured regularly. This made it very easy to deliver more than was expected of me. Due to this really tight feedback loop between you and the company your career moves forward at an encouraging pace. It can take some extra effort from your end to move horizontally within the company but where I worked it was a massive stepping stone and I found I could really leverage off of the mechanisms put in place by the company to reduce employee turnover. My point is you really feel pampered and cared for. I reckon this has a lot to do with the company, as well as my immediate managers being total rock stars at their jobs. Anyway, now I am in a startup in the truest sense of the word. First employee through the door. Second developer and third person on site. This is not comfortable, and I do not feel pampered. In fact I am considerably more stressed but hell's teeth, nothing makes you up your emotional maturity/expertise/business game as much as this. Much like the post eludes to I suppose.

PeOe 8y ago

I started a startup together with a colleague. It´s a lot of work and you don´t get rich (as you said) but there are so many other points that matter. The teams are friendlier, open-minded and are more family than employees. You share time together and work is not strictly planned. Yes, you can learn a lot but you need to work hard to do so and failure is part of it.

tribesman 8y ago

I love working at a startup, there is simply no cap on number of hours i can work. I can meet any other employee without any appointment. I can try my hands on accounting and legals. Go meet customers and give them the demo when i don't feel like working. I can collect cash from customers, take a photo of the cash and send it to boss where he sends me a thumbs up emoji. I often bring kids of my boss or colleagues from their school or drop their wifes to hospital when they are sick or if their want to go to shopping when her guy is debugging the server. I don't have any family of my own other than a girlfriend. Doing all these things for others give me peace and makes me feel as if i am part of their family. For an orphan kid, this is all i wanted. I've helped my collegues mop whole floor when it's their turn in their apartment building. I don't know if i can get all this in a big company. After this i got 10% equality in a small company. Post sale where i made 15 million and gave 10 to my girlfriend for her support. I still work there and enjoy everyday. You need to see where i started when i had nothing, zero saving..... No family. Today, I've everything and I can't complain.

_Microft 8y ago
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nikhilkalegregg 8y ago

join a startup if you are a founding partner, believe in the product, have or believe in some vision or value that you can add to a product, and if you get along with the people (and are ideally around the same age as the main founders). Otherwise, in my opinion, do not join that theoretical startup--and start your own project.

nikhilkalegregg 8y ago
also id add--regarding picking partners--one thing to be aware of is how your partner treats others--as nice as he/she treats you initially (whilst trying to recruit you) keep an eye on how he/she treats others he is not trying to recruit, because at the end of the day, that will ultimately determine how he/she will treat you. I overlooked these red flags to my detriment--and as soon as our company got required my CEO (who did next to nothing) sold our company's IP (which I as the CTO and only software engineer wrote alone) and cut me out --leaving me with nothing except the distinction of having sold a startup--while he pocketed all the profits, earned that distinction and went to business school (with all the other twats who train to do the same thing). For all the technical founders out there, do not join a business founder without vetting him/her in a variety of situations and trust his/her heart with your destiny.