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Imagine you sign up to be a startup founder at YC. It’s a salary job, and the pay is low, very low. The promotion schedule is pre-determined, almost invariant o

by jl2718 5y ago

Imagine you sign up to be a startup founder at YC. It’s a salary job, and the pay is low, very low. The promotion schedule is pre-determined, almost invariant of your success. You develop a specialty and your team is assigned to you, rotating once every two years. Most teams only work on one problem, but if you are one of the very best, you get called to work on many small problems. There is almost no requirement for entry into the program except an extremely brutal training that keeps most people out of it. There are only two benefits. First, you get to be part of something that might change the world for everybody else. Secondly, you will gain respect, experience, and trust to start your own business when you get out. So there you are, on a team with a bunch of people you have never met before. You are now stuck together. If somebody is a problem, you deal with the problem because you can’t get rid of the person. There is a structure, but you’re all on the same path to those roles. All your grievances point to YC and not your team. You’re all getting screwed equally, but no matter how bad it gets, you all chose this, and you all depend on each other. You get a problem you didn’t choose. You might think it’s stupid. Too bad. Your team owns it now, and they depend on you. You succeed or fail together - nobody cares about praise or blame. Your team makes all the decisions. Nobody is looking over your shoulder. Nobody inserts their suggestions. You report only on a need-to-know basis. Nobody can tell you what to do. If you do something wrong, it will come back to you later in the report out, but not now. The only way to get rid of you is by trial of your peers for an ethical violation. So what it comes down to, is that you just do your job, and you don’t worry about anything else. You can and must work effectively with almost anybody in that situation.

ARandomerDude 5y ago
The world you just described is what Hollywood thinks the military is like. The actual military is very different from this.
- jl2718 5y ago
  This is both true and untrue. I hate to say it this way, but, the vast majority of the military doesn’t do anything, so maybe you get a lot of blustering about nothing. The closer you get to combat, the more it is like this. I sat through hundreds of command briefings, and I can’t recall a single instance of tactical spot correction. That could be the basis of a command relief. Orders are superior to any rank.
adenozine 5y ago
Right, well, that's very interesting but is entirely made up. The primary factor of the military is the high-risk and discouragement of dropping out and getting discharged. It's not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. Your comment seems to be a long-winded version of "Why don't we all just work together and get along?" It's impossibly naive to believe such a mindset possible in capital-oriented businesses.
- jl2718 5y ago
  > It's impossibly naive to believe such a mindset possible in capital-oriented businesses. That is the perspective I was inviting to the table by writing this; just that it is a very different situation. I have no validated perspective on whether you are right or not, although I do have one experience failing to disprove the above.
- gumby 5y ago
  > ...the military is ... not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. For a lot of people it is (once you reach the end of your required period). And if you don't want to advance you can simply bump along -- up-or-out only applies to commissioned officers.
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- deleted 5y ago
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- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. There's timing issues in some cases (and more issues during an emergency with stop-loss in effect) but otherwise if you are enlisted, you can not reup after your period of enlistment. If you are commissioned you can resign your commission. And you can almost certainly get another job, on favorable terms, because most public and many private employers apply hiring preference for veterans.
travisjungroth 5y ago
I'm not sure what your conclusion is. YC should model itself after special operations? You just wanted to post an idealized description of special operations?
- jl2718 5y ago
  No; this is just an elaboration on the author’s concept to give perspective on where it may be apt or lacking.
  - travisjungroth 5y ago
    But what's your point? The first word of your comment is "Imagine", then a bunch of description, then the last line is a summary of this imagined world. Ok, I imagined, now what? You've taken a romanticized narrative of the military and then abstracted the terms so they could apply to startups. I can't engage with it as an analogy because it's an imaginary YC on top of an imaginary military. I can't engage with it as a position because you haven't made any claims outside the scope of this world you described.
    - jl2718 5y ago
      Ok well, frankly, I wrote this because I didn’t quite get the author’s point. To begin, military officers do not choose their team. I elaborated on the situation in order to highlight the situational differences between choosing startup cofounders and being put on a military team. I may have put this in an idealized form, but I think it is a bit closer to reality than most civilians would expect, at least in combat operations. P.S. I should also mention that I have zero clue what YC is like in present or past form, so I couldn’t competently draw a direct comparison, instead inviting the reader to make their own.
      - travisjungroth 5y ago
        With your other reply, I think I understand your point better. The situation of the military is super different from startups. Maybe also implied that means that we can't bring over giant lessons. I really agree with this. I think the more different the context, the more specific the ideas you bring over should be (the trend seems to be the more different, the bigger the idea). So instead of trying to tell me the value of communication, I'd rather know in detail how one unit handles debriefings. Then I can maybe pick up some tips or try the whole thing.
dang 5y ago
This doesn't resemble how startups or YC work in any way. In fact, I believe this comment has the fun property that literally every sentence is wrong. Being a startup founder is not a "job at YC", your team isn't "assigned" to you, founders are not specialists, it's not a "salary job", you choose the problem you're working on, you decide who's hired (and fired), usually they're people you've met before, and so on. But here's the best part: > trust to start your own business when you get out You've already started your own business. That's what 'founder' means! Edit: but from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28279288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28279288 I think your point was that being a startup founder is not like being in the military, in which case...good point :)
- dmoy 5y ago
  Right, my interpretation of reading GP's comment was that it, in great detail, explains how it works in the military. Just, using startup terms. I didn't read it as them implying that's how startups actually work. And then, reading between the lines, it seems like a very fair critique that the article doesn't jive with the reality of the military.
- jl2718 5y ago
  I wonder how the reverse (YC version of Army/GWOT) would look in your imagination. Little background: long ago I was involved with the founding of SOFWERX, which was a small experiment with ideas of this sort. Also involved with TF Palladin / JIEDDO down range, which might be more relevant actually.
  - dang 5y ago
    I think your experiences are super interesting and make great contributions to HN, if you want to share more about them.
nonameiguess 5y ago
I was a US Army Officer for 8 years, worked in heavy armored units commanding tanks, and I upvoted this. I understand exactly what you're saying. This may be an "idealized" view of the military, but it's accurate in the broad details. You don't get to choose your team, you don't get to choose your mission, you can't quit, and you get no financial reward for excellence. It's very different from running a startup. That said, the writer of this article does seem to recognize this, and I think his aphorisms are correct. Form a team that all trust each other, one way or another, have well-defined duties but be prepared to do each other's jobs when necessary, be ready for a quick change of mission and focus. I think the analogy falls down in that you really need technical specialists in business. I don't think the Army way of taking someone broadly trained and experienced in "leadership" and putting them in charge whether they know the domain or not is your best bet. We do that in the Army because we don't have a choice and we have a ton of auxiliary staff in the form of senior NCOs and warrant officers and even civilian contractors who are technical experts and can help you with all that. If you have the runway to splurge on that kind of technical support staff to your senior leadership at a startup (and they'll actually listen and not get hurt egos), go for it, but I don't think most do and the founders need to understand the domain they're trying to work in.
valclay 5y ago
This reminded me of this scene from Saving Private Ryan: Private Reiben : Oh, that's brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all? Captain Miller : I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger. Private Reiben : I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then? Captain Miller : Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering." Mellish : [chuckles] He's good. Private Caparzo : I love him.
skeeter2020 5y ago
I don't have experience with the US military, but in Canada officers are very different from NCOs in terms of the individuals, their training and their roles. It feels like you're comparing start-up founder with regular enlisted, which isn't really the point the OP was trying to make.

by jl2718 5y ago

ARandomerDude 5y ago

The world you just described is what Hollywood thinks the military is like. The actual military is very different from this.

jl2718 5y ago
This is both true and untrue. I hate to say it this way, but, the vast majority of the military doesn’t do anything, so maybe you get a lot of blustering about nothing. The closer you get to combat, the more it is like this. I sat through hundreds of command briefings, and I can’t recall a single instance of tactical spot correction. That could be the basis of a command relief. Orders are superior to any rank.

adenozine 5y ago

Right, well, that's very interesting but is entirely made up. The primary factor of the military is the high-risk and discouragement of dropping out and getting discharged. It's not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. Your comment seems to be a long-winded version of "Why don't we all just work together and get along?" It's impossibly naive to believe such a mindset possible in capital-oriented businesses.

jl2718 5y ago
> It's impossibly naive to believe such a mindset possible in capital-oriented businesses. That is the perspective I was inviting to the table by writing this; just that it is a very different situation. I have no validated perspective on whether you are right or not, although I do have one experience failing to disprove the above.
gumby 5y ago
> ...the military is ... not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. For a lot of people it is (once you reach the end of your required period). And if you don't want to advance you can simply bump along -- up-or-out only applies to commissioned officers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 5y ago
> It's not like a job, where if it sucks enough you can just leave and find a new one. There's timing issues in some cases (and more issues during an emergency with stop-loss in effect) but otherwise if you are enlisted, you can not reup after your period of enlistment. If you are commissioned you can resign your commission. And you can almost certainly get another job, on favorable terms, because most public and many private employers apply hiring preference for veterans.

travisjungroth 5y ago

I'm not sure what your conclusion is. YC should model itself after special operations? You just wanted to post an idealized description of special operations?

jl2718 5y ago
No; this is just an elaboration on the author’s concept to give perspective on where it may be apt or lacking.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  But what's your point? The first word of your comment is "Imagine", then a bunch of description, then the last line is a summary of this imagined world. Ok, I imagined, now what? You've taken a romanticized narrative of the military and then abstracted the terms so they could apply to startups. I can't engage with it as an analogy because it's an imaginary YC on top of an imaginary military. I can't engage with it as a position because you haven't made any claims outside the scope of this world you described.
  - jl2718 5y ago
    Ok well, frankly, I wrote this because I didn’t quite get the author’s point. To begin, military officers do not choose their team. I elaborated on the situation in order to highlight the situational differences between choosing startup cofounders and being put on a military team. I may have put this in an idealized form, but I think it is a bit closer to reality than most civilians would expect, at least in combat operations. P.S. I should also mention that I have zero clue what YC is like in present or past form, so I couldn’t competently draw a direct comparison, instead inviting the reader to make their own.
    - travisjungroth 5y ago
      With your other reply, I think I understand your point better. The situation of the military is super different from startups. Maybe also implied that means that we can't bring over giant lessons. I really agree with this. I think the more different the context, the more specific the ideas you bring over should be (the trend seems to be the more different, the bigger the idea). So instead of trying to tell me the value of communication, I'd rather know in detail how one unit handles debriefings. Then I can maybe pick up some tips or try the whole thing.

dang 5y ago

This doesn't resemble how startups or YC work in any way. In fact, I believe this comment has the fun property that literally every sentence is wrong. Being a startup founder is not a "job at YC", your team isn't "assigned" to you, founders are not specialists, it's not a "salary job", you choose the problem you're working on, you decide who's hired (and fired), usually they're people you've met before, and so on. But here's the best part: > trust to start your own business when you get out You've already started your own business. That's what 'founder' means! Edit: but from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28279288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28279288 I think your point was that being a startup founder is not like being in the military, in which case...good point :)

dmoy 5y ago
Right, my interpretation of reading GP's comment was that it, in great detail, explains how it works in the military. Just, using startup terms. I didn't read it as them implying that's how startups actually work. And then, reading between the lines, it seems like a very fair critique that the article doesn't jive with the reality of the military.
jl2718 5y ago
I wonder how the reverse (YC version of Army/GWOT) would look in your imagination. Little background: long ago I was involved with the founding of SOFWERX, which was a small experiment with ideas of this sort. Also involved with TF Palladin / JIEDDO down range, which might be more relevant actually.
- dang 5y ago
  I think your experiences are super interesting and make great contributions to HN, if you want to share more about them.

nonameiguess 5y ago

I was a US Army Officer for 8 years, worked in heavy armored units commanding tanks, and I upvoted this. I understand exactly what you're saying. This may be an "idealized" view of the military, but it's accurate in the broad details. You don't get to choose your team, you don't get to choose your mission, you can't quit, and you get no financial reward for excellence. It's very different from running a startup. That said, the writer of this article does seem to recognize this, and I think his aphorisms are correct. Form a team that all trust each other, one way or another, have well-defined duties but be prepared to do each other's jobs when necessary, be ready for a quick change of mission and focus. I think the analogy falls down in that you really need technical specialists in business. I don't think the Army way of taking someone broadly trained and experienced in "leadership" and putting them in charge whether they know the domain or not is your best bet. We do that in the Army because we don't have a choice and we have a ton of auxiliary staff in the form of senior NCOs and warrant officers and even civilian contractors who are technical experts and can help you with all that. If you have the runway to splurge on that kind of technical support staff to your senior leadership at a startup (and they'll actually listen and not get hurt egos), go for it, but I don't think most do and the founders need to understand the domain they're trying to work in.

valclay 5y ago

This reminded me of this scene from Saving Private Ryan: Private Reiben : Oh, that's brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all? Captain Miller : I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger. Private Reiben : I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then? Captain Miller : Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering." Mellish : [chuckles] He's good. Private Caparzo : I love him.

skeeter2020 5y ago

I don't have experience with the US military, but in Canada officers are very different from NCOs in terms of the individuals, their training and their roles. It feels like you're comparing start-up founder with regular enlisted, which isn't really the point the OP was trying to make.