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Founders want employees to have the founder mentality without giving them founder equity. AngelList (which this author is shilling) salaries and equity grants a

Founders want employees to have the founder mentality without giving them founder equity. AngelList (which this author is shilling) salaries and equity grants are pathetically low. So they write fluff pieces about how you’ll learn so much doing a founders laundry. I learned a lot more, faster, as an employee at big tech than at early stage startups. Startup VCs and company need to get out of the business of writing fluff pieces about how great it is to be a startup employee and get into the business of fixing early employee equity grants. The “standard” is pathetic.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ProAm 7y ago
It's similar to getting an artist to do commissions for free because of the all 'exposure' they will get.
dang 7y ago
I've been wondering about this for a long time. On average, what equity level would you say counts as "pathetically low" and what range would you say counts as fair? It seems to me that early employees are underpriced these days, the way that founders used to be, so a correction is probably inevitable. At the same time, there's no way seed-stage startups can match FB levels of compensation—the math just doesn't work. So what would a correction look like?
- throw_14JAS 7y ago
  I generally see <1% for first engineer hires. In order to hire someone who can 1) do the work initially and 2) grow the team, I think a 5-10% grant with a salary that's 60-80% of market is appropriate. At least, that's what it would take for me to join a startup as first engineer versus starting my own business.
  - dang 7y ago
    When you say 'first engineer' do you mean literally the first employee, or early (say 1 thru 5)? If the former, what do you think would be appropriate levels for, say, employees 2 thru 5? If the latter, are you arguing that the first 5 employees should be offered 50% of the company? Just to be clear, I'm not disputing the point and don't have a strong opinion. I'm curious where HN users—who include many prospective early engineers—think the market needs to go. The comments about startup compensation are routinely so negative that it seems clear it needs to move; the question is what range would start to be fairer.
    - sethammons 7y ago
      I land on the idea that the percent is not as important as the raw value if the company hits the targets. 1%? 5%? Of what? If the company plans to get to a $1B valuation, that is different than a company that wants to exit at ~$10M. And since we all know that equity is usually worthless anyway, I think the real way that smaller companies should compete for talent is with other perks. More time off, less days per week, more control over the product's direction, better perks, etc. Oh, and better liquidation preferences that favor employees at the same level as investors because employees _are_ investors if they are taking a pay cut.
      - dang 7y ago
        Of those, it seems to me that more time off and less days per week are mostly out-of-scope for seed-stage startups—it's just too hard for them to survive even when people are working full time and focusing hard. More control over the product's direction (relative to BigCos and large teams) seems already to be part of the startup deal, no? As for better perks, I don't know what you have in mind, but the ones that come to my mind are just fiddling with the margins, and I know a lot of cynical HN users who would argue that's why companies offer "perks" in the first place. This bit, however: better liquidation preferences that favor employees at the same level as investors because employees _are_ investors if they are taking a pay cut seems serious and fair to me, and perhaps something that startups could actually do to stand out. I don't know how doable that is vs. what barriers there might be to it, but I'll ask.
- brenden2 7y ago
  FWIW my Airbnb stock was worth about $1mm/year when I joined (in 2013 as a IC SWE). To be fair, the starting salary was well below market, but I got a raise to bring it up to the market rate about 1 year in. I've since never seen a startup that generous, only FAANGs come close.
  - dang 7y ago
    That's super interesting, but Airbnb in 2013 was long past the seed stage, and when we talk about early engineers that's what we mean, no? Those are the startups that have the chicken/egg problem with hiring. Not that it's a minor point if Airbnb was that far ahead in employee compensation.
  - paulgb 7y ago
    They gave you stock rather than options? Is that usual at that stage? Any offer I've seen from a startup (admittedly a small sample size, and always later stage) has been options rather than stock, and I've never heard of a company providing enough information to actually value the options.
    - brenden2 7y ago
      To clarify, I was granted options, although they did switch to RSUs later on.
      - paulgb 7y ago
        Ah, thanks for the clarification. So they became worth $1mm/year, that wasn't the fair market value when they were granted?
        brenden2 7y ago
        I was granted 36,000 shares (or options to buy shares), vesting over 4 years, with a strike price near $4. IIRC, preferred share price was ~$120 in 2015, but I don't recall the precise details. AFAIK there were no refreshers of any kind while I was there. I think the amount I got was pretty standard for an engineer, but I also know some engineers received 4 or 5 times as much, and others got half that. I think the recruiters had a lot of discretion to decide how much to hand out in order to hire great people.
- genbit 7y ago
  i think vc/founders need to innovate on this topic to: provide better effort/reward incentives, and reduce risk for employees, giving that they have less voting control over equity. Could be something like: - companies keep lower number of employees, higher grants, but demand founder-like effort for early years - early employees get substantial equity grants 5-10%, that must be sold to VCs on secondary offering at next rounds. In that case, employees could directly benefit from startup grows, while reducing risk compared to FAANg, and founder can keep their equity size. Yes, upside is limited, tax/legal work, but could be covered by new refreshment grants from employee pool - YC creates/funds employee union-like organization, that funds/organize activities/benefits for early stage startups - help legally with paying/hiring employees remote with equity package also joining startup and buying out $$$$$ worth of stock options that could turn to 0 is a downside compared to stock grants from FAANg.
  - oliverx0 7y ago
    I really like your second idea!
  - takanori 7y ago
    Idea #2 is genius. In my experience early employees become a liability as you scale and exceed their experience skill level. This makes it a win for them and for the org. Nothing worse than an early employee who is hanging on to a high level role when everyone knows they aren’t cutting it. What are some possible downsides of this?
    - alain94040 7y ago
      In other words, idea #2 is to have a mini-IPO (liquidity event) for the early employees, by round A or B. B might make the most sense. Kind of like a super-bonus or extra warrants. So at least the early employees don't have to wait 7-10 years to see an outcome, but can expect a (smaller) windfall within 1-3 years, to put them on par with high-paying jobs if the company is successful enough to raise a B round.
    - genbit 7y ago
      Downsides could be - more risk for founders raising rounds, since its unconventional - increase of tax complexity for both employees and employer - more complex cap tables and/or processes around converting stocks, since employees are usually owning common stocks, while investors are looking to get new preferred stocks issued for round But I think big vc orgs and especially YC could pioneer / help with new approaches
- balfirevic 7y ago
  Not necessarily a correction, but find a way to make startup game work with remote engineering teams. Either fully remote, or remote-from-headquarters but collocated team. There are going to be challenges, no doubt. Depending on where the team is, there will be legal stuff to figure out, time zone difference will be an issue and it will require some work to maintain the same "all-in-this-together" team atmosphere. On the other hand, you are not competing with FAANG on compensation. For example, in Eastern Europe, even low-level Bay Area salaries are higher than most offers people will get locally. And equity grants are basically unheard of. English levels are very high, culture is pretty compatible with the US. And the level of accessible engineering talent is also very high, since you can outbid the local market easily. There is a pretty well-developed remote contracting ecosystem where I live, but hiring people to be a part of the core team (by US startups) is comparatively rare.
seppin 7y ago
The whole @DHH vs VC's debate on work was so silly. If you have founder/ownership stake in a business, working crazy hours is worth it. If you don't, it's not. Simple.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Reedx 7y ago
Yeah, they usually fall short on equity and terms. With salary startups can't compete vs established companies, fundamentally. As for learning, obviously it depends on the specific companies and what you're interested in. But what Naval is talking about here is becoming a founder. At startups you're wearing more hats, can have a bigger impact and are closer to how things work. You'll probably learn a lot more about being a founder than at a big company where your role is more defined and sandwiched between layers of abstractions, many levels away from the CEO and decisions being made.
- coldfire 7y ago
  Everyone will have different experiences, but I had the same observation as you, and that's why I choose start-ups over big companies for my first two jobs. But then I had to get into the "big" companies for visa reasons, and honestly I don't miss start-up world anymore. The learning has been pretty steep, yes in a start-up you wear more hats. But in my experience, the attention to detail and investment on engineering is higher in bigger companies, simply because they can afford to. Whereas an early stage start-up works more or less on a thin deadline, and if the founders are not engineers themselves, usually engineering gets compromised over velocity. Also, scale. The bigger the company the more challenges they will have (whether in vertical or horizontal scaling). And IMO working at scale, teaches you a lot more than people think.
  - arvinsim 7y ago
    Big companies usually are invested in making things maintainable while startups are usually focused on their first-to-market goal. As a software developer, the differences in goals have a significant impact on how I design and implement code. I prefer big companies because I am usually a stickler for good conventions and proper coding structure.
soup10 7y ago
Just anecdotally I've dabbled with giving employees more equity and it hasn't particularly energized or made them more productive. I think it depends a lot on the person, wether they have that business mentality to be patient and work hard for revenue growth down the road or they are more comfortable with weekly paychecks. Also the person needs to a be good fit for the business as well. You could give a person 5% of AMZN and they'd still never extra-ordinarily productive unless the challenges, skillset and interest were a match.
dustingetz 7y ago
Part of the problem is voting rights, founders want to control 51% for as long as possible and VCs take 20%+ per round
hogFeast 7y ago
Yep, the story he tells about Warren Buffett is also (afaik) not true (this is common for basically all stories that are told about Buffett in SV). By the time that Buffett worked for Graham, he had already studied at Columbia with Graham and worked for a few years at his dad's brokerage business. He worked for Graham for a couple of years, he took a salary (over $100k/year in today's terms), and literally the year after Buffett was running money for other people. He was not a rube who needed Graham's wisdom, he was already Buffett. It is a very odd and specific story to make up. Interestingly, there is a more well know story in the Berkshire lore on this subject about Mozart (google Munger Mozart story). But yes, you are right. The idea that you need to sit at the feet of some guru, and that is the only way you will ever learn is utter horseshit (and likely self-serving). There isn't some secret book with the answers, you have to work it yourself, and build up expertise yourself...you can't borrow expertise (btw, this is something that is kind of common in Asian culture...if you go to a Berkshire Hathaway meeting, you overindex to these cultures that have respect for elders/"guru" culture...if you want to be an entrepreneur, I can't think of a worse attribute).
danShumway 7y ago
> without giving them founder equity To me, it's not a question of monetary reward so much as agency. If you want me to care about something deeply, then I need to have say in how it works. I'm not going to be blindly devoted to a plan that could change at any moment for any reason. Of course, compensation/equity matters as well, but as a programmer I tend to get heavily attached to work that matters. Nothing is more demotivating then feeling like I'm giving up free time and working long hours to build something that doesn't matter or that is poorly managed. And at a certain point, if I'm devoting that kind of energy into something, I'm going to start having opinions about it. With many VC funded startups, workers often get sold on a vision, and then in 4-5 years they get sold to Google and everything they build dies. Workers know that their work isn't going to matter in the long run, and that the vision they're being sold could change at any moment (and in fact is highly likely to change once VCs start putting on more pressure for rapid growth). It's hard to invest emotional energy into something that fragile. Founders have a vested interest in making sure that their baby stays under their control. But if you want me to work like a founder, treat me like a founder. And while equity is a part of that, the biggest thing is that I want a say in how that vision evolves. The way I work on personal projects and the way I work as an employee are different. It's not the money that makes them different, it's the sense of ownership and agency. As an employee I work from a contractual "what are my obligations" perspective, because I recognize that it's not my vision, it's never going to be my vision, and that it would be problematic and against the company's interests for me to try and make it into my vision. This is part of why I am very cautiously optimistic about the rise in popularity of worker collectives. I dislike founders who want the employee enthusiasm that comes with ownership and purpose, but none of the employee opinions and agency that are part of that.
- TheBlerch 7y ago
  Agreed. Could you please elaborate on the “rise in popularity of worker collectives”? Curious what examples you’ve seen, especially in tech and business.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Few ungoing experiments in the US (that I know of), more hype in news articles and conversations about tech policy, which is why my optimism is still very cautious. There are a lot of things that sound good in theory but fall apart when tried out in practice. So I'd like to see more evidence that flat management structures really work at scale before I jump on that train. But in principle it makes enough sense that when I see an article in Slate or similar[0] that's championing them, I don't dismiss it out of hand. I want to see more evidence that any working examples that do exist aren't just very rare, temporary exceptions to the rule that hierarchy is necessary. But the idea seems worth looking at. This principle is the same reason I'm also very cautiously optimistic about ideas like UBI. I'm cautious of anything that sounds great in theory but that has comparatively little practical data behind it. My understanding is collectives are more common in Europe, but it's not clear to me how that experience will map to the US. [0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-...
primax 7y ago
Consultancy firms get a lot of (mostly justified) bashing around here, but I learned as much if not more from my couple of years at Deloitte than I did in a decade at startups.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
steve1977 7y ago
Those fluff pieces also assume there is something to be learned in the first place. Luck is a huge factor in startup success.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ProAm 7y ago

It's similar to getting an artist to do commissions for free because of the all 'exposure' they will get.

dang 7y ago

I've been wondering about this for a long time. On average, what equity level would you say counts as "pathetically low" and what range would you say counts as fair? It seems to me that early employees are underpriced these days, the way that founders used to be, so a correction is probably inevitable. At the same time, there's no way seed-stage startups can match FB levels of compensation—the math just doesn't work. So what would a correction look like?

throw_14JAS 7y ago
I generally see <1% for first engineer hires. In order to hire someone who can 1) do the work initially and 2) grow the team, I think a 5-10% grant with a salary that's 60-80% of market is appropriate. At least, that's what it would take for me to join a startup as first engineer versus starting my own business.
- dang 7y ago
  When you say 'first engineer' do you mean literally the first employee, or early (say 1 thru 5)? If the former, what do you think would be appropriate levels for, say, employees 2 thru 5? If the latter, are you arguing that the first 5 employees should be offered 50% of the company? Just to be clear, I'm not disputing the point and don't have a strong opinion. I'm curious where HN users—who include many prospective early engineers—think the market needs to go. The comments about startup compensation are routinely so negative that it seems clear it needs to move; the question is what range would start to be fairer.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    I land on the idea that the percent is not as important as the raw value if the company hits the targets. 1%? 5%? Of what? If the company plans to get to a $1B valuation, that is different than a company that wants to exit at ~$10M. And since we all know that equity is usually worthless anyway, I think the real way that smaller companies should compete for talent is with other perks. More time off, less days per week, more control over the product's direction, better perks, etc. Oh, and better liquidation preferences that favor employees at the same level as investors because employees _are_ investors if they are taking a pay cut.
    - dang 7y ago
      Of those, it seems to me that more time off and less days per week are mostly out-of-scope for seed-stage startups—it's just too hard for them to survive even when people are working full time and focusing hard. More control over the product's direction (relative to BigCos and large teams) seems already to be part of the startup deal, no? As for better perks, I don't know what you have in mind, but the ones that come to my mind are just fiddling with the margins, and I know a lot of cynical HN users who would argue that's why companies offer "perks" in the first place. This bit, however: better liquidation preferences that favor employees at the same level as investors because employees _are_ investors if they are taking a pay cut seems serious and fair to me, and perhaps something that startups could actually do to stand out. I don't know how doable that is vs. what barriers there might be to it, but I'll ask.
brenden2 7y ago
FWIW my Airbnb stock was worth about $1mm/year when I joined (in 2013 as a IC SWE). To be fair, the starting salary was well below market, but I got a raise to bring it up to the market rate about 1 year in. I've since never seen a startup that generous, only FAANGs come close.
- dang 7y ago
  That's super interesting, but Airbnb in 2013 was long past the seed stage, and when we talk about early engineers that's what we mean, no? Those are the startups that have the chicken/egg problem with hiring. Not that it's a minor point if Airbnb was that far ahead in employee compensation.
- paulgb 7y ago
  They gave you stock rather than options? Is that usual at that stage? Any offer I've seen from a startup (admittedly a small sample size, and always later stage) has been options rather than stock, and I've never heard of a company providing enough information to actually value the options.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    To clarify, I was granted options, although they did switch to RSUs later on.
    - paulgb 7y ago
      Ah, thanks for the clarification. So they became worth $1mm/year, that wasn't the fair market value when they were granted?
      - brenden2 7y ago
        I was granted 36,000 shares (or options to buy shares), vesting over 4 years, with a strike price near $4. IIRC, preferred share price was ~$120 in 2015, but I don't recall the precise details. AFAIK there were no refreshers of any kind while I was there. I think the amount I got was pretty standard for an engineer, but I also know some engineers received 4 or 5 times as much, and others got half that. I think the recruiters had a lot of discretion to decide how much to hand out in order to hire great people.
genbit 7y ago
i think vc/founders need to innovate on this topic to: provide better effort/reward incentives, and reduce risk for employees, giving that they have less voting control over equity. Could be something like: - companies keep lower number of employees, higher grants, but demand founder-like effort for early years - early employees get substantial equity grants 5-10%, that must be sold to VCs on secondary offering at next rounds. In that case, employees could directly benefit from startup grows, while reducing risk compared to FAANg, and founder can keep their equity size. Yes, upside is limited, tax/legal work, but could be covered by new refreshment grants from employee pool - YC creates/funds employee union-like organization, that funds/organize activities/benefits for early stage startups - help legally with paying/hiring employees remote with equity package also joining startup and buying out $$$$$ worth of stock options that could turn to 0 is a downside compared to stock grants from FAANg.
- oliverx0 7y ago
  I really like your second idea!
- takanori 7y ago
  Idea #2 is genius. In my experience early employees become a liability as you scale and exceed their experience skill level. This makes it a win for them and for the org. Nothing worse than an early employee who is hanging on to a high level role when everyone knows they aren’t cutting it. What are some possible downsides of this?
  - alain94040 7y ago
    In other words, idea #2 is to have a mini-IPO (liquidity event) for the early employees, by round A or B. B might make the most sense. Kind of like a super-bonus or extra warrants. So at least the early employees don't have to wait 7-10 years to see an outcome, but can expect a (smaller) windfall within 1-3 years, to put them on par with high-paying jobs if the company is successful enough to raise a B round.
  - genbit 7y ago
    Downsides could be - more risk for founders raising rounds, since its unconventional - increase of tax complexity for both employees and employer - more complex cap tables and/or processes around converting stocks, since employees are usually owning common stocks, while investors are looking to get new preferred stocks issued for round But I think big vc orgs and especially YC could pioneer / help with new approaches
balfirevic 7y ago
Not necessarily a correction, but find a way to make startup game work with remote engineering teams. Either fully remote, or remote-from-headquarters but collocated team. There are going to be challenges, no doubt. Depending on where the team is, there will be legal stuff to figure out, time zone difference will be an issue and it will require some work to maintain the same "all-in-this-together" team atmosphere. On the other hand, you are not competing with FAANG on compensation. For example, in Eastern Europe, even low-level Bay Area salaries are higher than most offers people will get locally. And equity grants are basically unheard of. English levels are very high, culture is pretty compatible with the US. And the level of accessible engineering talent is also very high, since you can outbid the local market easily. There is a pretty well-developed remote contracting ecosystem where I live, but hiring people to be a part of the core team (by US startups) is comparatively rare.

seppin 7y ago

The whole @DHH vs VC's debate on work was so silly. If you have founder/ownership stake in a business, working crazy hours is worth it. If you don't, it's not. Simple.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Reedx 7y ago

Yeah, they usually fall short on equity and terms. With salary startups can't compete vs established companies, fundamentally. As for learning, obviously it depends on the specific companies and what you're interested in. But what Naval is talking about here is becoming a founder. At startups you're wearing more hats, can have a bigger impact and are closer to how things work. You'll probably learn a lot more about being a founder than at a big company where your role is more defined and sandwiched between layers of abstractions, many levels away from the CEO and decisions being made.

coldfire 7y ago
Everyone will have different experiences, but I had the same observation as you, and that's why I choose start-ups over big companies for my first two jobs. But then I had to get into the "big" companies for visa reasons, and honestly I don't miss start-up world anymore. The learning has been pretty steep, yes in a start-up you wear more hats. But in my experience, the attention to detail and investment on engineering is higher in bigger companies, simply because they can afford to. Whereas an early stage start-up works more or less on a thin deadline, and if the founders are not engineers themselves, usually engineering gets compromised over velocity. Also, scale. The bigger the company the more challenges they will have (whether in vertical or horizontal scaling). And IMO working at scale, teaches you a lot more than people think.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  Big companies usually are invested in making things maintainable while startups are usually focused on their first-to-market goal. As a software developer, the differences in goals have a significant impact on how I design and implement code. I prefer big companies because I am usually a stickler for good conventions and proper coding structure.

soup10 7y ago

Just anecdotally I've dabbled with giving employees more equity and it hasn't particularly energized or made them more productive. I think it depends a lot on the person, wether they have that business mentality to be patient and work hard for revenue growth down the road or they are more comfortable with weekly paychecks. Also the person needs to a be good fit for the business as well. You could give a person 5% of AMZN and they'd still never extra-ordinarily productive unless the challenges, skillset and interest were a match.

dustingetz 7y ago

Part of the problem is voting rights, founders want to control 51% for as long as possible and VCs take 20%+ per round

hogFeast 7y ago

Yep, the story he tells about Warren Buffett is also (afaik) not true (this is common for basically all stories that are told about Buffett in SV). By the time that Buffett worked for Graham, he had already studied at Columbia with Graham and worked for a few years at his dad's brokerage business. He worked for Graham for a couple of years, he took a salary (over $100k/year in today's terms), and literally the year after Buffett was running money for other people. He was not a rube who needed Graham's wisdom, he was already Buffett. It is a very odd and specific story to make up. Interestingly, there is a more well know story in the Berkshire lore on this subject about Mozart (google Munger Mozart story). But yes, you are right. The idea that you need to sit at the feet of some guru, and that is the only way you will ever learn is utter horseshit (and likely self-serving). There isn't some secret book with the answers, you have to work it yourself, and build up expertise yourself...you can't borrow expertise (btw, this is something that is kind of common in Asian culture...if you go to a Berkshire Hathaway meeting, you overindex to these cultures that have respect for elders/"guru" culture...if you want to be an entrepreneur, I can't think of a worse attribute).

danShumway 7y ago

> without giving them founder equity To me, it's not a question of monetary reward so much as agency. If you want me to care about something deeply, then I need to have say in how it works. I'm not going to be blindly devoted to a plan that could change at any moment for any reason. Of course, compensation/equity matters as well, but as a programmer I tend to get heavily attached to work that matters. Nothing is more demotivating then feeling like I'm giving up free time and working long hours to build something that doesn't matter or that is poorly managed. And at a certain point, if I'm devoting that kind of energy into something, I'm going to start having opinions about it. With many VC funded startups, workers often get sold on a vision, and then in 4-5 years they get sold to Google and everything they build dies. Workers know that their work isn't going to matter in the long run, and that the vision they're being sold could change at any moment (and in fact is highly likely to change once VCs start putting on more pressure for rapid growth). It's hard to invest emotional energy into something that fragile. Founders have a vested interest in making sure that their baby stays under their control. But if you want me to work like a founder, treat me like a founder. And while equity is a part of that, the biggest thing is that I want a say in how that vision evolves. The way I work on personal projects and the way I work as an employee are different. It's not the money that makes them different, it's the sense of ownership and agency. As an employee I work from a contractual "what are my obligations" perspective, because I recognize that it's not my vision, it's never going to be my vision, and that it would be problematic and against the company's interests for me to try and make it into my vision. This is part of why I am very cautiously optimistic about the rise in popularity of worker collectives. I dislike founders who want the employee enthusiasm that comes with ownership and purpose, but none of the employee opinions and agency that are part of that.

TheBlerch 7y ago
Agreed. Could you please elaborate on the “rise in popularity of worker collectives”? Curious what examples you’ve seen, especially in tech and business.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Few ungoing experiments in the US (that I know of), more hype in news articles and conversations about tech policy, which is why my optimism is still very cautious. There are a lot of things that sound good in theory but fall apart when tried out in practice. So I'd like to see more evidence that flat management structures really work at scale before I jump on that train. But in principle it makes enough sense that when I see an article in Slate or similar[0] that's championing them, I don't dismiss it out of hand. I want to see more evidence that any working examples that do exist aren't just very rare, temporary exceptions to the rule that hierarchy is necessary. But the idea seems worth looking at. This principle is the same reason I'm also very cautiously optimistic about ideas like UBI. I'm cautious of anything that sounds great in theory but that has comparatively little practical data behind it. My understanding is collectives are more common in Europe, but it's not clear to me how that experience will map to the US. [0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-...

primax 7y ago

Consultancy firms get a lot of (mostly justified) bashing around here, but I learned as much if not more from my couple of years at Deloitte than I did in a decade at startups.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

steve1977 7y ago

Those fluff pieces also assume there is something to be learned in the first place. Luck is a huge factor in startup success.