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Tell HN: I've rejected $1.4M offer to work on open-source instead
I've been offered $1.4M (over 4-years) for a senior technical role in a Series-B funded startup
F*ck them!
I'm not slaving away A SECOND of my time to build next capitalist ponzi-bubble
I won't let these bastards become billionaires off my back
What, you're a billion dollar company already? With only 10 clients?
You need growth? What for? To lure in more investors and ride up/justify your crazy valuation?
I'd like to my spend next year contributing to open-source
- tighter_wires 5y agoWhat will you do for income while working on OS?
- coconutbrain 5y agoI don't worry much about it. I can go back to corporate slavery any time. In fact there's massive labor shortage Open-Source brings many more opportunities as a side-effect. Especially networking, eg. "I saw this guy on on GitHub/HackerNews, can we hire him?" Actually, they stumbled upon my GitHub project and that's how they found out about me in the first place
- opendomain 5y agoI am the founder of OpenDomain - I have given domains worth millions to open source for more than 20 years. And I got to tell you - no one appreciates it. I own the domain web3.net - I was originally hoping to let someone use it to promote web3, but now I am considering just selling it.
- coconutbrain 5y agoI donated at least 3 domain names to open-source projects Don't hold on to the domains, I'd suggest donating money directly to the contributors
- seoaeu 5y agoSell/auction the domain, and donate the proceeds to a food bank? They'd surely be more than grateful for it
- davidajackson 5y agoWhat's your email?
- gus_massa 5y agoCash or pie in the sky equity? How many hours per week? Holidays? If this makes you happy and you have enough savings, it fine. But other people may need to work for the salary, or even think that the problem they are solving is interesting, and that's fine too.
- coconutbrain 5y agoA higher than average salary + Tons of stock options My mind is made-up and no million can change this I'd rather die tomorrow than contribute a single line of code to a Venture-Funded startup (I know HN billionaire-wannabes would disagree)
- helsinki 5y agoRight there with you. Never again. Fuck that.
- Minor49er 5y agoIf you don't want the job, I'll take it
- coconutbrain 5y agoYou value money over mental health?
- yannoninator 5y agoyes, food requires money. i have nothing to lose really.
- coconutbrain 5y agoGood thing those Silicon Valley Ponzi-schemes, aka. "Startups" are not the only way to make money!
- yuppie_scum 5y agoOk you’re edgy we get it
- CogitoCogito 5y agoMaybe it wouldn’t induce mental health issues for everyone?
- Minor49er 5y agoNo, because after four years, I'd retire and live the rest of my life doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, starting my own projects on my own time to make any extra money or to simply satisfy my own interests.
- coconutbrain 5y agoYou know the risks? What if things go south and your options are worth zero? 90% of startups fail
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoYes, don't let them become billionaires off your back. Contribute to open source projects like Linux where they can't do that.
- coconutbrain 5y agoMany linux developers are employed. They're getting paid for doing open-source
- Minor49er 5y agoThey're employed by people who want them to make specific changes that drive their own interests, which are often for-profit (hence why they have the funds available to pay someone to make changes to open source)
- Minor49er 5y agoThis reminds me of the scene in Antitrust where Milo, the young computer scientist, meets Gary Winston, the Bill Gates / Steve Jobs figure, for the first time. Milo is set on contributing to open source, saying it will do the world good, but Gary asks him, "How many will be altruistic (with what you do for free), and how many will make billions off of your generosity?"
- yannoninator 5y ago> Contribute to open source projects like Linux where they can't do that. The Linux Foundation 2021 annual report [0] forecasts revenues of over $177M and companies are still involved in the development of Linux and other open source projects under that umbrella. Either way, Linux devs and other open source devs are being "supported" by these big corporations. [0] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/tools/linux-foundation-annual-report-2021/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/tools/linux-foundation-annua...
- tru3_power 5y agoAt the end of the day what are these open source projects you contribute to used for? You could very well be helping out the exact same parties.
- coconutbrain 5y agoThis is true! However, there are startups around like Ghost, Matrix, who are doing all work in open-source Also when you license under GNU, those parasites are scared off rather quickly The truth reason more startups don't that, because they have no leverage, besides the code and/or want to protect their moat at all costs, so they can brag about "we own the IP" when investors are asking "What makes your offering uniquely possible?" Luckily, as serial™ (co)founder i know the game well enough and never went beyond a seed-round
- errcorrectcode 5y agoI think you made a colossal error in long-term judgement. That's what work is. Making money to live on. Everyone has to figure out a way to earn their bread. If you can earn a large pile in a 2-10 year burst of effort, hopefully not at unsustainable, perpetual crash program-effort, that's great. If not, feel free to work as long as you can until you can't. There is no reward or award for hard work, only captured value of results. I tried the whole "purity in obscurity" vanlife thing. You still need money to live, and living comfortably is much better than cutting off your nose to spite your face in obscene austerity. I forfeited $6 megabucks and regret it because it only required enduring a thick-headed buffoon for a few years.