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This is an underappreciated observation for new college students. For talented graduates in computer science, electing to start a technology company is an extr

This is an underappreciated observation for new college students. For talented graduates in computer science, electing to start a technology company is an extraordinarily dangerous financial decision. In many ways it's transferring technology risk from larger companies to graduates at their expense. Graduates from top CS institutions command salaries and liquid stock in the $200K-$500K range within their first decade in the workforce, which is a guaranteed payout of $2M-$4M, compounding as their careers advance. Starting a technology company necessarily involves lower salaries, but also substantial compensation in your own company's equity, which is inherently illiquid compared to larger companies. The vast majority of startups end up going to zero, even those started by top graduates, and you never make back that missing $1M-$2M in your career.

opportune 7y ago
If you’re a top CS employee I think if your startup fails you can just go back to being a SWE at FAANG, possibly with a promotion or two, or switch to product work. Yes you miss some money, but you’re also taking a risk for a lot more... for me, losing a few hundred thousand (pretax...) is worth taking a chance at a business
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  I’m not so sure. At least, running a does-nothing start-up is not likely to be seen as work experience in terms of applying to standard CS jobs. It may even be seen as a liability (e.g. “they clearly want to be the CEO / develop a product, how sure are we they will be invested in production quality software / craftsmanship / answering PagerDuty on the weekend?”). I also see a lot of resumes of people just out of college who were rapidly catapulted into some incubator / start-up camp etc. They often have had endless bullet points about “running a business” for ~2 years basically just burning someone else’s money. Do they know the first thing about working 40-50 hours per week grinding through Jira tickets and code review? I don’t believe it. A completely pure new grad who never tried to run a start-up on zero life experience is frankly a lot more likely to put energy and enthusiasm into the basic, unsexy realities of working a real job.
  - opportune 7y ago
    This makes sense to me. I was envisioning more a scenario where you spend some time in the big corporate world before going to a startup, and bringing best practices with you. But I suppose in the context of the thread that’s not exactly relevant. I think if they were managing other engineers for an extended period and solving difficult technical problems as well, you could make an argument for hiring up to a team lead / senior engineer. Perhaps manager, if they have more extensive experience. Of course at most FAANGy places you will need at least 4-6yoe to be hired into these levels too. I think the people sending you those resumes probably don’t understand that they should tailor their resumes for the type of job they’re applying for. And yes, if the startup was truly “does-nothing” that’s absolutely a red mark regarding how valuable their experience was. But it could be somewhat valuable for product work, at least at the entry level

opportune 7y ago

If you’re a top CS employee I think if your startup fails you can just go back to being a SWE at FAANG, possibly with a promotion or two, or switch to product work. Yes you miss some money, but you’re also taking a risk for a lot more... for me, losing a few hundred thousand (pretax...) is worth taking a chance at a business

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
I’m not so sure. At least, running a does-nothing start-up is not likely to be seen as work experience in terms of applying to standard CS jobs. It may even be seen as a liability (e.g. “they clearly want to be the CEO / develop a product, how sure are we they will be invested in production quality software / craftsmanship / answering PagerDuty on the weekend?”). I also see a lot of resumes of people just out of college who were rapidly catapulted into some incubator / start-up camp etc. They often have had endless bullet points about “running a business” for ~2 years basically just burning someone else’s money. Do they know the first thing about working 40-50 hours per week grinding through Jira tickets and code review? I don’t believe it. A completely pure new grad who never tried to run a start-up on zero life experience is frankly a lot more likely to put energy and enthusiasm into the basic, unsexy realities of working a real job.
- opportune 7y ago
  This makes sense to me. I was envisioning more a scenario where you spend some time in the big corporate world before going to a startup, and bringing best practices with you. But I suppose in the context of the thread that’s not exactly relevant. I think if they were managing other engineers for an extended period and solving difficult technical problems as well, you could make an argument for hiring up to a team lead / senior engineer. Perhaps manager, if they have more extensive experience. Of course at most FAANGy places you will need at least 4-6yoe to be hired into these levels too. I think the people sending you those resumes probably don’t understand that they should tailor their resumes for the type of job they’re applying for. And yes, if the startup was truly “does-nothing” that’s absolutely a red mark regarding how valuable their experience was. But it could be somewhat valuable for product work, at least at the entry level