4 ms·

I’ve never had these abuses working for a startup. I feel like you have to push back against things instead of just going with it. Or choose the position better

by Grimm1 5y ago

I’ve never had these abuses working for a startup. I feel like you have to push back against things instead of just going with it. Or choose the position better because they sound like bad jobs regardless of the type of business. That’s what I can’t help thinking when I hear that because I’ve now worked for 5 different startups and while there was some crunch time occasionally the majority by far was an 8 hour day and then I was out, even for one of the companies when I was the 4th engineer. And they just closed another 20 million round recently. I really don’t think people do enough due diligence about where they should work plain and simple. Work is a mutual contract where you want to try to extract as much value from your employer while negotiating to the point they’ll still hire you. And a lot of the negotiation is figuring out if it’s a good job anyway and walking away to another option if you get the sense it’s not a good from either a financial, time or social perspective.

harikb 5y ago
We either need agents who will negotiate on the employees behave or some kind of training that is part of a 4 year degree. Negotiations and finances are hard - this is why some people are good at selling and some are not. Engineers are usually good at their primary job and usually not that good at defending against other social engineering tactics founders use edit: don’t want to blame founders, they also need to preserve their equity for future employees but there has to be a better balance
zepto 5y ago
> I feel like you have to push back against things instead of just going with it. In a bad startup you typically can’t ‘push back’ meaningfully. If the management doesn’t understand how to treat people well, people pushing back won’t educate them, and employees have to get work done to justify their presence rather than fighting battles all the time.
- Grimm1 5y ago
  In that case, you leave. If you're a decent engineer you'll find work in a few weeks and any other startup will be happy to have you. Unfortunately for non engineers I understand that may be more difficult and for those starting out too. So matter of perspective definitely since engineers aren't the only employees at a startup, but I would hope with due dilligence that is caught while you're interviewing.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > In that case, you leave. Depending on how long it takes you to get to this point, it could have cost you a great deal in lost opportunity and benefits. The fact that you can get another job is irrelevant to that. Which is the point of this overall thread - you could easily have been better off at an established company.
    - Grimm1 5y ago
      I don't know how that follows, you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org. If that's the thought you'll have quite the rude awakening. Everything you just said is true of working at a big co as well. Plenty of people at big cos have bad bosses, plenty get over worked. Plenty feel they have no input etc etc, this is a human organizational and work issue that is true of both small startup and big org. I've listened to my mother gripe about some of the biggest financial companies in the world from various positions all the way to fairly senior management for the last 20 years with everything that has been said here. The only solution she had was to jump to another company after investing sometimes up to 5 years of her time in places like that.
      - zepto 5y ago
        > you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org No, but you will be paid more over time and switching jobs won’t cost you deferred payment in terms of vesting. If you can land a startup job with the same salary and benefits as a bigco, then by all means do so. This is more about the poor value of deferred compensation.
        Grimm1 5y ago
        > In a bad startup you typically can’t ‘push back’ meaningfully. If the management doesn’t understand how to treat people well, people pushing back won’t educate them, and employees have to get work done to justify their presence rather than fighting battles all the time. Is what started our sub thread here, I didn't believe we've been talking financials. If we have been, then in base salary I guess I still disagree, but yeah at least with RSUs it's hard to beat. That said I've interviewed for startups where the base salary for an IC position was like 230k+, they're rarer, founded by exceptional past founders who raised ridiculous sized rounds, and all just as rare as a job at a FAANG so I don't know, is the real problem that all 85th percentile and below of all jobs pay like shit or treat people poorly?
sgtnoodle 5y ago
There's certainly some selection bias on these sorts of threads, but I agree with you that it's important for individuals to take as much responsibility as they can for the outcome they expect. That means vetting a company before joining it, pushing back during negotiations and being willing to walk away, giving necessary feedback to your coworkers regardless of their title, and personally practicing the style of leadership you expect from others. It takes a team of people though, and if the team isn't solid then you need to either try to fix it or walk away. A good team will build individuals up and support them rather than wear down and exploit them. I just passed the 5 year mark at my current company. When I joined there were about 30 people, and now it's probably around 400. I took 4 days off this week, but on Friday afternoon I popped into the old "office", which are some portable buildings on a cattle ranch. It turned out to be the once-every-few-years junk cleanup day, and the CEO, possibly a billionaire on paper at this point, was limping around with leather gloves and a sore back, and all he had to talk about was the recent ultrasound of his first baby, and how proud he is of how the company has grown since the last cleanup day.

by Grimm1 5y ago

harikb 5y ago

We either need agents who will negotiate on the employees behave or some kind of training that is part of a 4 year degree. Negotiations and finances are hard - this is why some people are good at selling and some are not. Engineers are usually good at their primary job and usually not that good at defending against other social engineering tactics founders use edit: don’t want to blame founders, they also need to preserve their equity for future employees but there has to be a better balance

zepto 5y ago

> I feel like you have to push back against things instead of just going with it. In a bad startup you typically can’t ‘push back’ meaningfully. If the management doesn’t understand how to treat people well, people pushing back won’t educate them, and employees have to get work done to justify their presence rather than fighting battles all the time.

Grimm1 5y ago
In that case, you leave. If you're a decent engineer you'll find work in a few weeks and any other startup will be happy to have you. Unfortunately for non engineers I understand that may be more difficult and for those starting out too. So matter of perspective definitely since engineers aren't the only employees at a startup, but I would hope with due dilligence that is caught while you're interviewing.
- zepto 5y ago
  > In that case, you leave. Depending on how long it takes you to get to this point, it could have cost you a great deal in lost opportunity and benefits. The fact that you can get another job is irrelevant to that. Which is the point of this overall thread - you could easily have been better off at an established company.
  - Grimm1 5y ago
    I don't know how that follows, you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org. If that's the thought you'll have quite the rude awakening. Everything you just said is true of working at a big co as well. Plenty of people at big cos have bad bosses, plenty get over worked. Plenty feel they have no input etc etc, this is a human organizational and work issue that is true of both small startup and big org. I've listened to my mother gripe about some of the biggest financial companies in the world from various positions all the way to fairly senior management for the last 20 years with everything that has been said here. The only solution she had was to jump to another company after investing sometimes up to 5 years of her time in places like that.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > you're not going to necessarily escape terrible bosses just by going to an established org No, but you will be paid more over time and switching jobs won’t cost you deferred payment in terms of vesting. If you can land a startup job with the same salary and benefits as a bigco, then by all means do so. This is more about the poor value of deferred compensation.
      - Grimm1 5y ago
        > In a bad startup you typically can’t ‘push back’ meaningfully. If the management doesn’t understand how to treat people well, people pushing back won’t educate them, and employees have to get work done to justify their presence rather than fighting battles all the time. Is what started our sub thread here, I didn't believe we've been talking financials. If we have been, then in base salary I guess I still disagree, but yeah at least with RSUs it's hard to beat. That said I've interviewed for startups where the base salary for an IC position was like 230k+, they're rarer, founded by exceptional past founders who raised ridiculous sized rounds, and all just as rare as a job at a FAANG so I don't know, is the real problem that all 85th percentile and below of all jobs pay like shit or treat people poorly?

sgtnoodle 5y ago

There's certainly some selection bias on these sorts of threads, but I agree with you that it's important for individuals to take as much responsibility as they can for the outcome they expect. That means vetting a company before joining it, pushing back during negotiations and being willing to walk away, giving necessary feedback to your coworkers regardless of their title, and personally practicing the style of leadership you expect from others. It takes a team of people though, and if the team isn't solid then you need to either try to fix it or walk away. A good team will build individuals up and support them rather than wear down and exploit them. I just passed the 5 year mark at my current company. When I joined there were about 30 people, and now it's probably around 400. I took 4 days off this week, but on Friday afternoon I popped into the old "office", which are some portable buildings on a cattle ranch. It turned out to be the once-every-few-years junk cleanup day, and the CEO, possibly a billionaire on paper at this point, was limping around with leather gloves and a sore back, and all he had to talk about was the recent ultrasound of his first baby, and how proud he is of how the company has grown since the last cleanup day.