8 ms·

Take a paycut to work at a startup

73 points by swombat 16y ago

xutopia 16y ago
Sure... but only if the driving factor for you is the experience you'll get out of it. Taking a pay cut on the idea that a high valuation of your stock options will make up for it is both naive and silly.
seivan 16y ago
I am actually working for free now. Not even a contract signed. And to answer, of course, especially if you're young and inexperienced, who knows maybe it'll work out, and if not, it's another app in your resumé.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  To be honest, that sounds like an accident waiting to happen, for both parties. Who owns the work you produce? Verbal agreements on this are great until push comes to shove. If the company exits, you'll almost certainly get nothing, regardless of what the founders have verbally promised. (not that the company should pass due diligence if the copyright status of their code is murky, but who knows)
tim_iles 16y ago
Two of these factors have been particularly relevant to my situation: lifestyle, and passion. I'm still young enough (28 in London, no major life commitments) to take risks where the pay-offs include loving my job, loving going to work everyday, and finding further personal career development possible and exciting. If this is the worst case scenario and the company fails, I'll have zero regrets.
- revorad 16y ago
  Do you work at a startup?
  - shrikant 16y ago
    Looks like he does: http://www.gigjunkie.net/ http://www.gigjunkie.net/
    - tim_iles 16y ago
      that's the one :) we were finalists in TechCrunch's Europas this year, currently all going to plan...
zslwork 16y ago
what month is we considering http://www.zsl.com http://www.zsl.com
- revorad 16y ago
  Can't the mods delete obvious spam like this? Or can we have a flag button for comments below a certain threshold please?
  - swombat 16y ago
    There is a flag button for comments. Just click on "link" and you will see it.
    - revorad 16y ago
      Thanks! Never noticed that before.
maxklein 16y ago
The question I'd really like answered: Let's say there are 1000 startups - there must be at least 5000 people who work at those startups. Of those 5000, how many of them actually reaped the benefits of working at the startup? How many made some large amount or went on to build their own startups? In other words, these are the theoretical advantages of working at a startup - but does this reflect the real situation on ground?
- patio11 16y ago
  Not that privileged rich people invariably make good decisions, but one would hope they generally have connections and decent advice. Do they tell their kids "Screw investment banking, law, and medicine. That's for the middle class. The smart money is in web 2.0!"?
  - krschultz 16y ago
    The parents push their kids to do that kind of stuff because it will make them wealthy and they will have prestigious titles. That doesn't mean it is the path to happiness. I think it is working out like shit for all the kids who listened to their parents advice. Background: I lived in NYC and am friends with far too many lawyers and wall street bankers with no idea why they are a banker or a lawyer. Almost without fail, I was happier than every single one of them, even though they made twice or more of my salary every year. They work more hours than us in the startup world. We boast about that phase of living at the office and falling asleep at our desk, but at least that war story is half made up and is supposed to end. That's what they do forever. I have a friend. He is 32, a laywer at a corporate law firm. He is not a partner at the firm. He works rediculous hours, often up till 2am on weekends. He works those hours becuase if he doesn't, he will be fired. He doesn't like his job, his boss, his company, or even being a lawyer. But he is working 60+ hours a week because without it he'll lose his $200k a year job. And most of that money goes to paying for his great penthouse apartment. When I graduated college he gave me the advice "whatever you do, save as much money as you can so you can go and do whatever you want if you find out you don't like your career" with the seriousness and tone of a kidnapping victim. A lot of weekends, I come into the office and work. But I roll in at 1 and leave at 8pm, after I had the morning off. My banker friends have conference calls with their boss at 8am on a Sunday the night after we went out. It sucks! All of those guys (and girls) make double what I do. But at the end of the day I'm not sure they put more money in the bank. Their echo chamber values things that ours simply doesn't. We love people making it to be ramen profitable. They think you are a loser if you don't have a BMW, a real rolex, go to bottle clubs on the weekends to drop $300 at a bar, and have a $3000 a month apartment somewhere in the city. I spent half of that, and do basically the exact same things except with a Subaru, a regular bar, and a $1400 a month apartment. At least the doctors have rewarding work most of the time. But I would tell my kids to be an engineer, or a freaking high school teacher, or a circus juggler, long before I told them to try and work on wall street or be a lawyer. You can buy a lot of material goods with their inflated salaries, but I have yet to find one that was actually happy with their job or their life. So they strive to become partner at the firm or a big enough bonus that they could leave and do something less stressful. But when they finally get there, then they raise the bar yet again and sucked back in for a few more years. It looks unbearable. If I could tell my kids to do anything, it would to do what you are doing. Own a business that you can run from anywhere and be your own boss. You probably won't make as much money as working for Goldman, but if you want to surf you can setup shop next to the beach in hawaii and start the day with 2 hours on the beach and work the rest. If you like skiing, move to the mountains and do the same. If you want to travel, pack your laptop and spend half of each day working and half exploring. I imagine you are infinitely happier than people making 5x as much doing the grind in those fields. [Edited the horribly rambling mess into a rambling mess]
nobody_nowhere 16y ago
Protip: Not all startups are created equal. Bonus tip: You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are. Look really, really hard at the size of the market you're entering, and the track record of the founders. For employees, a company that's going to peak at a few million dollars in sales probably won't make you much money based on your equity. Working for people with no track record of success lessens your odds. You're going to learn a lot, no matter what, but it might not be the lessons you're looking for.
- netcan 16y ago
  You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are. I've never worked at a startup, so I'm speaking from ignorance. That said, what always struck me as a problem with the work for equity is just that. Investors are professionals (or competent amateurs) at evaluating startups and understanding the deal. They have access to more information and have more leverage in demanding it. They also do a lot more choosing too. I think this is the one that get lost in an analysis like this. Most startup investors invest in a small portion of the deals that are a signature away and evaluate many more. Employees are much more limited. Sweat is a lot less liquid than money. The problem of receiving risky stock in exchange for labour is like the problem of trying to trade without money in general. A graphic designer is limited to accountants that need designing and want you. An employee is limited to investing in companies that want to hire them.
toxicflavor 16y ago
I would say the only startup worth working on is your own. Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. And the worst thing about it is that it's all couched in an atmosphere of guilt trips and taking-it-for-the-team. Perhaps there are exceptions. I just haven't seen any. I'd rather work for The Man in my day job in a cold corporate environment where everything is explicit from the get-go, get well paid for it and crank out code for my own startup in my free time.
- kingofspain 16y ago
  I'd have to agree. Having worked for almost free for no less than 4 "startups" with absolutely nothing to show for it, I'm a little more hesitant than most to jump in again. There's only so many times someone can say "This time it's different" before you stop listening. Plus I find it hard to feign the appropriate level of passion for leveraging social graphs in a disruptive manner or making business logic sexy. I'm always been a cynical type but the majority of places I've had experience with have given me reason to bolster that outlook :)
  - randall 16y ago
    I think working with one "no hope" startup is good. I've worked with exactly one, and that's what I expect to leave it at. I've also worked with four "has hope" startups (aka I take some cash) and the lessons there are huge. The startups you describe are "no hope" startups. Try to find one that has users, growth and money. You'll dig it and learn a lot.
  - kareemm 16y ago
    Why are you blaming the startup founders? You chose to work for "almost free". And if you have "absolutely nothing to show for it" after working at four startups - where learning is accelerated - it's probably not the startup founders' fault. Don't mean to be harsh but giving responsibility for your decisions to others is a recipe for unhappiness (and cynicism).
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. Isn't working at anybody's startup a recipe for being overworked and underpaid? Nice things about working for someone else's startup for a while: (a) you're not as overworked or underpaid as they are [1]; (b) you have less of your ego invested so you might sleep better; (c) you'll learn to see the world from the startup perspective; (d) you get a taste of the startup lifestyle, which will help you know if you're cut out for it; (e) you'll meet a bunch of other people who enjoy startups -- which is to say, people who are willing to be overworked and underpaid in exchange for some ineffable quality in their working life. Those people can be hard to find once you are out of school. You want to meet them, because if you have your own startup someday you'll need to know who and where they are. (When you are in school, of course, you are always being overworked and underpaid. That's a big reason why startups are always on the hunt for new graduates: They're completely inured to the lifestyle.) And, yes, if you've got the personality for it you can bootstrap a startup in a small amount of spare time while working in your corporate environment. But not everyone enjoys that, and there are many kinds of startup that can't really be done that way. --- [1] If you're working as hard as the founders and getting the same compensation then you are a founder. If you're getting less equity than a founder they had better make up a lot of the difference with cash. If you're working for lousy equity and no cash... yes, you're being exploited. I guess you could argue that the problem with startups is that they have a pronounced tendency to try to lure you into accepting lousy equity and lousy cash, but that can happen at any job.
axiom 16y ago
Considering that this is a startup community, it's really surprising to see the amount of negativity in the comments here and on other "work for a startup" posts. Is it just that a lot of people here have been burned by enough startups that they're cynical?
- lylejohnson 16y ago
  I think sites like HackerNews can give readers like me a bit of a romanticized view of how startups work. Most of the startups that I read about on HackerNews are the ones that are successful enough to, you know, get written about and publicized via HackerNews (or TechCrunch, or whoever). We don't hear much about the numerous failures. I can imagine that if I ran off and joined a startup solely based on the rosy outlook that I got from reading all these success stories, and then found out the hard way how things really are, I might be a bit cynical too.
- timr 16y ago
  I think it's a reaction to the over-the-top rhetoric that gets tossed around on HN, especially the "startups are a great learning experience!" sentiment that seems to prevail. That kind of thinking is a recipe for exploitation, especially of less business-savvy people. I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than working for someone who is starting a company.
  - mscarborough 16y ago
    > I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than working for someone who is starting a company. Well yes, of course. But there is a sweet spot for this for people that want to learn a lot, and do not have the means or motivation for running their own business. So many great technical people are of this persuasion at some point in their lives. Working at a startup that you care about is a great way to fill in the gaps: figuring out what you do not know yet but would like to understand. Working at a large company has its advantages too. You learn how those orgs work, and how to navigate different situations than what you see at startups. Other folks on HN have said it before and better than I, but ultimately if you want to go into business for yourself, until you understand both, you may not understand the full potential of your business.
parbo 16y ago
Who cares if it's a startup or not? I'll take a paycut to work on something challenging and fun.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Wilduck 16y ago
As a soon to be grad, I'd love to work for a startup when I get out of school. However, I would need enough money to live, and to make payments on my student loans. Can these be reconciled? Will I need to find a startup that already has some VC?
- coloris 16y ago
  Recent grad who worked for a startup (the past 6 months) here. You have to be extremely lucky to find a startup that: 1) actually has the funding they say they currently/will have 2) actually will pay you what they told you they would pay you Your best bet as a new grad is finding some impressive startup people who have great track records. Do some cool stuff for them, and tutor/wait tables for real cash on the side. Part-time jobs will reduce your risk of running out of money. Working for the right startup founders will improve the chances that your startup succeeds. I can't find the source on this, but people who have previously failed to start companies are much more likely than not to fail again; people who have been successful in the past are more likely to succeed in the future at starting a company. It's way easier said than done to find the right people. The amount of deception out there for new grads is sickening. People know that new grads don't know jack. You're up against a lot, even if you are smart and you regularly browse HN. Be careful out there. I wish you the best of luck.
jrockway 16y ago
OK, maybe I will. I want to work somewhere where there is a comfy couch and coffee, the languages in use are among Perl, Haskell, and C, and I can open-source everything except the actual product. Where should I work?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- swombat 16y ago
  Considering your good reputation in this community, I'm sure if you contacted a few prominent people they would be aware of opportunities which might suit you.
bpm140 16y ago
People who join startups hoping to make a pile of money with their shares are fooling themselves. For every Google or Facebook, there are ten thousand startups nobody remembers. I'm always direct with my startup hires: "You are unlikely to get rich with these shares. You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company. If you want to be able to make a difference and learn a lot, have a lot of responsibility early on an potentially learn how to run your own startup, then this job (and corresponding lower salary) will be worth it."
- mmt 16y ago
  You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company Do you find that this filters out a certain kind of candidate, perhaps the more generally experienced, or even, specifically, experienced with startups? How is that working out for you? (Only a hint of snarkiness intended. I'm actually curious what the results of the filter have been)
angdis 16y ago
I had a stint at a startup. It never got more than a bit of "angel" funding. Pay was at market rate-- perhaps a bit less. But so what? As everyone knows, most startups eventually "fail". They use up their "runway", and everyone scatters to do other stuff. There's nothing wrong with this. That's just the way it is. What you come away with is a bunch of connections, the opportunity to do cutting edge work with minimal red-tape, and a chance to work with really driven people who are following their dreams. If you're working at a start-up strictly for the promise of riches, you'll be disappointed. There are many good reasons to work at a start-up, but pay IS NOT one of them.
sdizdar 16y ago
As far I understands and I was told by some successful entrepreneurs that startups must not assume that it can build a great team by paying them less. Actually, when growing the team, startups must assume that they will pay more than competitors. Paycut is ok if it is augmented with generous equity (really generous): which basically means first couple of employees. And startups should treat these early employees (which took paycut) as important investors and co-founders.
lkrubner 16y ago
Any business will have its share of disappointments, and some industries are notorious for the projects that get canceled. The gaming industry is a lot like that too. I know of someone (a very good programmer) who spent 9 years working for major gaming companies, and every single one of the games that he worked on was canceled before launch. He was very well paid, but he eventually became burned out and disillusioned, simply because he was never part of a successful product. Mind you, he did not face long hours or poor pay, he simply faced 9 years of working on products that never saw the light of day. And that depressed him.

73 points by swombat 16y ago

Sure... but only if the driving factor for you is the experience you'll get out of it. Taking a pay cut on the idea that a high valuation of your stock options will make up for it is both naive and silly.

seivan 16y ago

I am actually working for free now. Not even a contract signed. And to answer, of course, especially if you're young and inexperienced, who knows maybe it'll work out, and if not, it's another app in your resumé.

pmjordan 16y ago
To be honest, that sounds like an accident waiting to happen, for both parties. Who owns the work you produce? Verbal agreements on this are great until push comes to shove. If the company exits, you'll almost certainly get nothing, regardless of what the founders have verbally promised. (not that the company should pass due diligence if the copyright status of their code is murky, but who knows)

tim_iles 16y ago

Two of these factors have been particularly relevant to my situation: lifestyle, and passion. I'm still young enough (28 in London, no major life commitments) to take risks where the pay-offs include loving my job, loving going to work everyday, and finding further personal career development possible and exciting. If this is the worst case scenario and the company fails, I'll have zero regrets.

revorad 16y ago
Do you work at a startup?
- shrikant 16y ago
  Looks like he does: http://www.gigjunkie.net/ http://www.gigjunkie.net/
  - tim_iles 16y ago
    that's the one :) we were finalists in TechCrunch's Europas this year, currently all going to plan...

zslwork 16y ago

what month is we considering http://www.zsl.com http://www.zsl.com

revorad 16y ago
Can't the mods delete obvious spam like this? Or can we have a flag button for comments below a certain threshold please?
- swombat 16y ago
  There is a flag button for comments. Just click on "link" and you will see it.
  - revorad 16y ago
    Thanks! Never noticed that before.

maxklein 16y ago

The question I'd really like answered: Let's say there are 1000 startups - there must be at least 5000 people who work at those startups. Of those 5000, how many of them actually reaped the benefits of working at the startup? How many made some large amount or went on to build their own startups? In other words, these are the theoretical advantages of working at a startup - but does this reflect the real situation on ground?

patio11 16y ago
Not that privileged rich people invariably make good decisions, but one would hope they generally have connections and decent advice. Do they tell their kids "Screw investment banking, law, and medicine. That's for the middle class. The smart money is in web 2.0!"?
- krschultz 16y ago
  The parents push their kids to do that kind of stuff because it will make them wealthy and they will have prestigious titles. That doesn't mean it is the path to happiness. I think it is working out like shit for all the kids who listened to their parents advice. Background: I lived in NYC and am friends with far too many lawyers and wall street bankers with no idea why they are a banker or a lawyer. Almost without fail, I was happier than every single one of them, even though they made twice or more of my salary every year. They work more hours than us in the startup world. We boast about that phase of living at the office and falling asleep at our desk, but at least that war story is half made up and is supposed to end. That's what they do forever. I have a friend. He is 32, a laywer at a corporate law firm. He is not a partner at the firm. He works rediculous hours, often up till 2am on weekends. He works those hours becuase if he doesn't, he will be fired. He doesn't like his job, his boss, his company, or even being a lawyer. But he is working 60+ hours a week because without it he'll lose his $200k a year job. And most of that money goes to paying for his great penthouse apartment. When I graduated college he gave me the advice "whatever you do, save as much money as you can so you can go and do whatever you want if you find out you don't like your career" with the seriousness and tone of a kidnapping victim. A lot of weekends, I come into the office and work. But I roll in at 1 and leave at 8pm, after I had the morning off. My banker friends have conference calls with their boss at 8am on a Sunday the night after we went out. It sucks! All of those guys (and girls) make double what I do. But at the end of the day I'm not sure they put more money in the bank. Their echo chamber values things that ours simply doesn't. We love people making it to be ramen profitable. They think you are a loser if you don't have a BMW, a real rolex, go to bottle clubs on the weekends to drop $300 at a bar, and have a $3000 a month apartment somewhere in the city. I spent half of that, and do basically the exact same things except with a Subaru, a regular bar, and a $1400 a month apartment. At least the doctors have rewarding work most of the time. But I would tell my kids to be an engineer, or a freaking high school teacher, or a circus juggler, long before I told them to try and work on wall street or be a lawyer. You can buy a lot of material goods with their inflated salaries, but I have yet to find one that was actually happy with their job or their life. So they strive to become partner at the firm or a big enough bonus that they could leave and do something less stressful. But when they finally get there, then they raise the bar yet again and sucked back in for a few more years. It looks unbearable. If I could tell my kids to do anything, it would to do what you are doing. Own a business that you can run from anywhere and be your own boss. You probably won't make as much money as working for Goldman, but if you want to surf you can setup shop next to the beach in hawaii and start the day with 2 hours on the beach and work the rest. If you like skiing, move to the mountains and do the same. If you want to travel, pack your laptop and spend half of each day working and half exploring. I imagine you are infinitely happier than people making 5x as much doing the grind in those fields. [Edited the horribly rambling mess into a rambling mess]

nobody_nowhere 16y ago

Protip: Not all startups are created equal. Bonus tip: You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are. Look really, really hard at the size of the market you're entering, and the track record of the founders. For employees, a company that's going to peak at a few million dollars in sales probably won't make you much money based on your equity. Working for people with no track record of success lessens your odds. You're going to learn a lot, no matter what, but it might not be the lessons you're looking for.

netcan 16y ago
You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are. I've never worked at a startup, so I'm speaking from ignorance. That said, what always struck me as a problem with the work for equity is just that. Investors are professionals (or competent amateurs) at evaluating startups and understanding the deal. They have access to more information and have more leverage in demanding it. They also do a lot more choosing too. I think this is the one that get lost in an analysis like this. Most startup investors invest in a small portion of the deals that are a signature away and evaluate many more. Employees are much more limited. Sweat is a lot less liquid than money. The problem of receiving risky stock in exchange for labour is like the problem of trying to trade without money in general. A graphic designer is limited to accountants that need designing and want you. An employee is limited to investing in companies that want to hire them.

toxicflavor 16y ago

I would say the only startup worth working on is your own. Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. And the worst thing about it is that it's all couched in an atmosphere of guilt trips and taking-it-for-the-team. Perhaps there are exceptions. I just haven't seen any. I'd rather work for The Man in my day job in a cold corporate environment where everything is explicit from the get-go, get well paid for it and crank out code for my own startup in my free time.

kingofspain 16y ago
I'd have to agree. Having worked for almost free for no less than 4 "startups" with absolutely nothing to show for it, I'm a little more hesitant than most to jump in again. There's only so many times someone can say "This time it's different" before you stop listening. Plus I find it hard to feign the appropriate level of passion for leveraging social graphs in a disruptive manner or making business logic sexy. I'm always been a cynical type but the majority of places I've had experience with have given me reason to bolster that outlook :)
- randall 16y ago
  I think working with one "no hope" startup is good. I've worked with exactly one, and that's what I expect to leave it at. I've also worked with four "has hope" startups (aka I take some cash) and the lessons there are huge. The startups you describe are "no hope" startups. Try to find one that has users, growth and money. You'll dig it and learn a lot.
- kareemm 16y ago
  Why are you blaming the startup founders? You chose to work for "almost free". And if you have "absolutely nothing to show for it" after working at four startups - where learning is accelerated - it's probably not the startup founders' fault. Don't mean to be harsh but giving responsibility for your decisions to others is a recipe for unhappiness (and cynicism).
mechanical_fish 16y ago
Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. Isn't working at anybody's startup a recipe for being overworked and underpaid? Nice things about working for someone else's startup for a while: (a) you're not as overworked or underpaid as they are [1]; (b) you have less of your ego invested so you might sleep better; (c) you'll learn to see the world from the startup perspective; (d) you get a taste of the startup lifestyle, which will help you know if you're cut out for it; (e) you'll meet a bunch of other people who enjoy startups -- which is to say, people who are willing to be overworked and underpaid in exchange for some ineffable quality in their working life. Those people can be hard to find once you are out of school. You want to meet them, because if you have your own startup someday you'll need to know who and where they are. (When you are in school, of course, you are always being overworked and underpaid. That's a big reason why startups are always on the hunt for new graduates: They're completely inured to the lifestyle.) And, yes, if you've got the personality for it you can bootstrap a startup in a small amount of spare time while working in your corporate environment. But not everyone enjoys that, and there are many kinds of startup that can't really be done that way. --- [1] If you're working as hard as the founders and getting the same compensation then you are a founder. If you're getting less equity than a founder they had better make up a lot of the difference with cash. If you're working for lousy equity and no cash... yes, you're being exploited. I guess you could argue that the problem with startups is that they have a pronounced tendency to try to lure you into accepting lousy equity and lousy cash, but that can happen at any job.

axiom 16y ago

Considering that this is a startup community, it's really surprising to see the amount of negativity in the comments here and on other "work for a startup" posts. Is it just that a lot of people here have been burned by enough startups that they're cynical?

lylejohnson 16y ago
I think sites like HackerNews can give readers like me a bit of a romanticized view of how startups work. Most of the startups that I read about on HackerNews are the ones that are successful enough to, you know, get written about and publicized via HackerNews (or TechCrunch, or whoever). We don't hear much about the numerous failures. I can imagine that if I ran off and joined a startup solely based on the rosy outlook that I got from reading all these success stories, and then found out the hard way how things really are, I might be a bit cynical too.
timr 16y ago
I think it's a reaction to the over-the-top rhetoric that gets tossed around on HN, especially the "startups are a great learning experience!" sentiment that seems to prevail. That kind of thinking is a recipe for exploitation, especially of less business-savvy people. I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than working for someone who is starting a company.
- mscarborough 16y ago
  > I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than working for someone who is starting a company. Well yes, of course. But there is a sweet spot for this for people that want to learn a lot, and do not have the means or motivation for running their own business. So many great technical people are of this persuasion at some point in their lives. Working at a startup that you care about is a great way to fill in the gaps: figuring out what you do not know yet but would like to understand. Working at a large company has its advantages too. You learn how those orgs work, and how to navigate different situations than what you see at startups. Other folks on HN have said it before and better than I, but ultimately if you want to go into business for yourself, until you understand both, you may not understand the full potential of your business.

parbo 16y ago

Who cares if it's a startup or not? I'll take a paycut to work on something challenging and fun.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Wilduck 16y ago

As a soon to be grad, I'd love to work for a startup when I get out of school. However, I would need enough money to live, and to make payments on my student loans. Can these be reconciled? Will I need to find a startup that already has some VC?

coloris 16y ago
Recent grad who worked for a startup (the past 6 months) here. You have to be extremely lucky to find a startup that: 1) actually has the funding they say they currently/will have 2) actually will pay you what they told you they would pay you Your best bet as a new grad is finding some impressive startup people who have great track records. Do some cool stuff for them, and tutor/wait tables for real cash on the side. Part-time jobs will reduce your risk of running out of money. Working for the right startup founders will improve the chances that your startup succeeds. I can't find the source on this, but people who have previously failed to start companies are much more likely than not to fail again; people who have been successful in the past are more likely to succeed in the future at starting a company. It's way easier said than done to find the right people. The amount of deception out there for new grads is sickening. People know that new grads don't know jack. You're up against a lot, even if you are smart and you regularly browse HN. Be careful out there. I wish you the best of luck.

jrockway 16y ago

OK, maybe I will. I want to work somewhere where there is a comfy couch and coffee, the languages in use are among Perl, Haskell, and C, and I can open-source everything except the actual product. Where should I work?

deleted 16y ago
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swombat 16y ago
Considering your good reputation in this community, I'm sure if you contacted a few prominent people they would be aware of opportunities which might suit you.

bpm140 16y ago

People who join startups hoping to make a pile of money with their shares are fooling themselves. For every Google or Facebook, there are ten thousand startups nobody remembers. I'm always direct with my startup hires: "You are unlikely to get rich with these shares. You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company. If you want to be able to make a difference and learn a lot, have a lot of responsibility early on an potentially learn how to run your own startup, then this job (and corresponding lower salary) will be worth it."

mmt 16y ago
You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company Do you find that this filters out a certain kind of candidate, perhaps the more generally experienced, or even, specifically, experienced with startups? How is that working out for you? (Only a hint of snarkiness intended. I'm actually curious what the results of the filter have been)

angdis 16y ago

I had a stint at a startup. It never got more than a bit of "angel" funding. Pay was at market rate-- perhaps a bit less. But so what? As everyone knows, most startups eventually "fail". They use up their "runway", and everyone scatters to do other stuff. There's nothing wrong with this. That's just the way it is. What you come away with is a bunch of connections, the opportunity to do cutting edge work with minimal red-tape, and a chance to work with really driven people who are following their dreams. If you're working at a start-up strictly for the promise of riches, you'll be disappointed. There are many good reasons to work at a start-up, but pay IS NOT one of them.

sdizdar 16y ago

As far I understands and I was told by some successful entrepreneurs that startups must not assume that it can build a great team by paying them less. Actually, when growing the team, startups must assume that they will pay more than competitors. Paycut is ok if it is augmented with generous equity (really generous): which basically means first couple of employees. And startups should treat these early employees (which took paycut) as important investors and co-founders.

lkrubner 16y ago

Any business will have its share of disappointments, and some industries are notorious for the projects that get canceled. The gaming industry is a lot like that too. I know of someone (a very good programmer) who spent 9 years working for major gaming companies, and every single one of the games that he worked on was canceled before launch. He was very well paid, but he eventually became burned out and disillusioned, simply because he was never part of a successful product. Mind you, he did not face long hours or poor pay, he simply faced 9 years of working on products that never saw the light of day. And that depressed him.