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I'll be honest. When I first read this post nearly three years ago, I barely knew what Git was, the stock market was crashing hard every day, hundreds of thousa

I'll be honest. When I first read this post nearly three years ago, I barely knew what Git was, the stock market was crashing hard every day, hundreds of thousands were being laid off, and turning down that offer seemed pretty foolish. Now I can't live without GitHub.

jrockway 15y ago
Honestly, I don't think turning down an offer is ever a real problem. You can always ask for the offer again; does a company as big as Microsoft ever have enough smart programmers? People come and go every day. There is probably room for you somewhere.
- hammock 15y ago
  This is very true, just want to add the caveat that the notion of low cost of foregone opportunity you are talking about could apply to mature-stage companies, not necessarily fast-growing ones. Also there is tremendous selection bias in which of these "I turned down X to do Y" stories get told, of course.
  - notJim 15y ago
    I would definitely read the "How I turned down a $300,000 job at bigcorp to found a startup that crashed and burned 18 months later" story.
    - ksolanki 15y ago
      Such a story may or may not make it to HN front page, but it sure is a risk that one has to take. And as pointed out, the offers from Microsoft et al are not going away for smart people. Of course, tonnes of smart folks would have taken the offer and lived happily ever after, so I do admire Tom's guts.
    - tlipcon 15y ago
      I turned down a job at Google (not 300k but hey, it's Google!) to join a startup. The startup started to sink about 2 years later. I learned a ton and didn't regret it for an instant. Moved on to a new startup 2 years ago when it became clear the first was a dead end. Google recruiters continued to ping me religiously every 6 months regardless. Moral of the story: Google, MSFT, Facebook, etc will all still be there in 2 years. Especially if you're early in your career and don't need the cash today, go wherever you will learn the most.
      - akronim 15y ago
        it was 300k over 3 years... so your offer probably wasn't that far off!
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]

jrockway 15y ago

Honestly, I don't think turning down an offer is ever a real problem. You can always ask for the offer again; does a company as big as Microsoft ever have enough smart programmers? People come and go every day. There is probably room for you somewhere.

hammock 15y ago
This is very true, just want to add the caveat that the notion of low cost of foregone opportunity you are talking about could apply to mature-stage companies, not necessarily fast-growing ones. Also there is tremendous selection bias in which of these "I turned down X to do Y" stories get told, of course.
- notJim 15y ago
  I would definitely read the "How I turned down a $300,000 job at bigcorp to found a startup that crashed and burned 18 months later" story.
  - ksolanki 15y ago
    Such a story may or may not make it to HN front page, but it sure is a risk that one has to take. And as pointed out, the offers from Microsoft et al are not going away for smart people. Of course, tonnes of smart folks would have taken the offer and lived happily ever after, so I do admire Tom's guts.
  - tlipcon 15y ago
    I turned down a job at Google (not 300k but hey, it's Google!) to join a startup. The startup started to sink about 2 years later. I learned a ton and didn't regret it for an instant. Moved on to a new startup 2 years ago when it became clear the first was a dead end. Google recruiters continued to ping me religiously every 6 months regardless. Moral of the story: Google, MSFT, Facebook, etc will all still be there in 2 years. Especially if you're early in your career and don't need the cash today, go wherever you will learn the most.
    - akronim 15y ago
      it was 300k over 3 years... so your offer probably wasn't that far off!
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]