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> Employers that allow people to "work on their passions" use that as a bargaining chip to lower salaries. That sounds like every startup job pitch.

by koolba 6y ago

bluefirebrand 6y ago
Big difference is that Startups usually offer some amount of equity. Instead of just being exploited, you're gambling on taking a lower salary now and having it pay off later. It never really pays off later for game programmers.
- neonological 6y ago
  Honestly it’s a losing gamble too. You rarely win those options.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    Often the dice are loaded, you can find many stories on here on about some financial trickery whereby the options become low value or worthless as the founders and VC's cash out. I personally evaluate them at $0 because of this. It's a shame too because that sounds like my ideal work setup.
    - hhjinks 6y ago
      Pretty sure this article was posted on HN, which is why I remembered it: https://marker.medium.com/my-company-sold-for-100-million-and-i-got-zilch-how-can-that-be-f7be0563f1f8 https://marker.medium.com/my-company-sold-for-100-million-an...
- xiphias2 6y ago
  What startups fail to disclose is that the equity they offer is not the same class as the investors have, even though they are taking a huge risk of the startup failing.
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    Even if the equity is in the same category, it's unlikely to be extremely valuable. A $2M exit sounds great until you factor in the extra taxes and 5 to 10 years to realize that. Many software developers could make a substantial amount of that, without the risk, simply by aggressively working career changes.
skrtskrt 6y ago
To be fair, part of the startup pitch is also that you'll be building systems from the ground up and getting exposure to lots of different aspects of engineering, rather than being stuck optimizing or maintaining one small part of that gigantic unknowable web of technology you can get at a larger company.

> Employers that allow people to "work on their passions" use that as a bargaining chip to lower salaries. That sounds like every startup job pitch.

by koolba 6y ago

> Employers that allow people to "work on their passions" use that as a bargaining chip to lower salaries. That sounds like every startup job pitch.

bluefirebrand 6y ago

Big difference is that Startups usually offer some amount of equity. Instead of just being exploited, you're gambling on taking a lower salary now and having it pay off later. It never really pays off later for game programmers.

neonological 6y ago
Honestly it’s a losing gamble too. You rarely win those options.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  Often the dice are loaded, you can find many stories on here on about some financial trickery whereby the options become low value or worthless as the founders and VC's cash out. I personally evaluate them at $0 because of this. It's a shame too because that sounds like my ideal work setup.
  - hhjinks 6y ago
    Pretty sure this article was posted on HN, which is why I remembered it: https://marker.medium.com/my-company-sold-for-100-million-and-i-got-zilch-how-can-that-be-f7be0563f1f8 https://marker.medium.com/my-company-sold-for-100-million-an...
xiphias2 6y ago
What startups fail to disclose is that the equity they offer is not the same class as the investors have, even though they are taking a huge risk of the startup failing.
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  Even if the equity is in the same category, it's unlikely to be extremely valuable. A $2M exit sounds great until you factor in the extra taxes and 5 to 10 years to realize that. Many software developers could make a substantial amount of that, without the risk, simply by aggressively working career changes.

skrtskrt 6y ago

To be fair, part of the startup pitch is also that you'll be building systems from the ground up and getting exposure to lots of different aspects of engineering, rather than being stuck optimizing or maintaining one small part of that gigantic unknowable web of technology you can get at a larger company.