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Most of the downsides are financial - you work for a bit less than you might earn elsewhere and equity usually ends up worthless. Those don't really matter if y

Most of the downsides are financial - you work for a bit less than you might earn elsewhere and equity usually ends up worthless. Those don't really matter if you're earning plenty though. Someone who can command a $150k salary doesn't need to accept a job that they don't enjoy. They have choices. One of those is a startup, where the product itself is often much more interesting. You have real agency over what you're building that you wouldn't have at a BigCo, you're likely to be working on a problem that actually feels like it'd make a difference to customers, and ultimately you have more power over your own destiny. Plus it's can be a smaller, closer team than you might get at a more established company. Add to that the hiring practises in startups are usually something like a quick chat, a tech test, and then an indepth interview rather than 6 rounds of interview and whiteboard tests, and just the process of getting a job in a startup is more appealling.

searchableguy 5y ago
> Most of the downsides are financial - you work for a bit less than you might earn elsewhere and equity usually ends up worthless Considerably less. One of the things I've noticed is people who join early stage startup as early employees get screwed harder on this than latter employees. The early employees work for low cash comp with equity that gets diluted over time. The new hires once the startup is established come from big companies to scale up and receive higher cash + equity comp. > that the hiring practises in startups are usually something like a quick chat, a tech test, and then an indepth interview rather than 6 rounds of interview and whiteboard tests, This doesn't ring true in 2022. It's almost opposite of what YC and other startup incubators would recommend as well - be very selective and careful to hire.

searchableguy 5y ago

> Most of the downsides are financial - you work for a bit less than you might earn elsewhere and equity usually ends up worthless Considerably less. One of the things I've noticed is people who join early stage startup as early employees get screwed harder on this than latter employees. The early employees work for low cash comp with equity that gets diluted over time. The new hires once the startup is established come from big companies to scale up and receive higher cash + equity comp. > that the hiring practises in startups are usually something like a quick chat, a tech test, and then an indepth interview rather than 6 rounds of interview and whiteboard tests, This doesn't ring true in 2022. It's almost opposite of what YC and other startup incubators would recommend as well - be very selective and careful to hire.