4 ms·

This is great advise - if everyone could be a businessman, all of us would be and nobody would be an employee. Employees only care about their salary / stock o

This is great advise - if everyone could be a businessman, all of us would be and nobody would be an employee. Employees only care about their salary / stock options and professional growth and fulfilment. If an employee isn't confident in your ability to manage the business, they will jump ship (which is their right to do so, just as it is yours to fire them when the business falters). And so it is best to keep them focused and motivated on the job they have to do. There maybe some employees that you think have partnership or managerial potential. You should be confident you can groom them, and thus can share some business information with them and observe how they make the best use of that to help you grow your company and / or advance your goals.

palata 4y ago
I disagree. Startup employees care about making a good product, too. That's the rule when you join a startup: you won't have the highest salary, and maybe your startup bankrupts in 6 months, but you get to have more impact. If you don't want the risk and don't want to care, go in an established company. But that all means that you should be transparent with startup employees, because many decisions depend on that at all level. If you hire employees who believe that they have infinite time and money to get the product to work, then you probably did not hire well, IMO.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Sure, employees should care about making a good product, and should be provided all relevant info they need for that. They however do not need to know everything about how the business is run. Their focus should be on making the product.
  - palata 4y ago
    I would argue that it is often relevant for the technical employees to have an idea about how business is going: who wants the product, how they (intend to) use it, and also who discussed a partnership and eventually did not go with the product. As you said, not everyone can be into business. Which also means that not everyone can be technical. Who says that the business people are good at translating requirements from potential clients to technical employees? Isn't it likely that the technical people know more about what is technically possible? If you share too much with your employees, what's the worse case? They leave with that data? So what? If the whole value of the startup is that the founder knows a bunch of business numbers, anyway it doesn't sound very promising. However, if you don't share enough, maybe you miss very good solutions that they would come up with if they had access to all the data. Worse: if your interpretation of what the customers want and what is technically possible is slightly wrong, maybe you will send your whole startup in the wrong direction. All that just because you thought you knew what your technical people needed to make a good product.
etothepii 4y ago
Have you run a startup? Are you a senior dev? Have you managed a team? I'm not asking to be rude, but if you are 45 having run a couple of startups (even if they both failed) I'd be really interested in this opinion and what experiences got you to it. If, however, you're still at college and this is "pure philosophy" it's of much less interest.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Yes. Two. One I quit (no technical challenges, and partners were happy with business as it was), and the other I was edged out of by the partners as we didn't share the same values and vision. The only caveat is they are in India which has a very risk-averse work culture.

palata 4y ago

I disagree. Startup employees care about making a good product, too. That's the rule when you join a startup: you won't have the highest salary, and maybe your startup bankrupts in 6 months, but you get to have more impact. If you don't want the risk and don't want to care, go in an established company. But that all means that you should be transparent with startup employees, because many decisions depend on that at all level. If you hire employees who believe that they have infinite time and money to get the product to work, then you probably did not hire well, IMO.

webmobdev 4y ago
Sure, employees should care about making a good product, and should be provided all relevant info they need for that. They however do not need to know everything about how the business is run. Their focus should be on making the product.
- palata 4y ago
  I would argue that it is often relevant for the technical employees to have an idea about how business is going: who wants the product, how they (intend to) use it, and also who discussed a partnership and eventually did not go with the product. As you said, not everyone can be into business. Which also means that not everyone can be technical. Who says that the business people are good at translating requirements from potential clients to technical employees? Isn't it likely that the technical people know more about what is technically possible? If you share too much with your employees, what's the worse case? They leave with that data? So what? If the whole value of the startup is that the founder knows a bunch of business numbers, anyway it doesn't sound very promising. However, if you don't share enough, maybe you miss very good solutions that they would come up with if they had access to all the data. Worse: if your interpretation of what the customers want and what is technically possible is slightly wrong, maybe you will send your whole startup in the wrong direction. All that just because you thought you knew what your technical people needed to make a good product.

etothepii 4y ago

Have you run a startup? Are you a senior dev? Have you managed a team? I'm not asking to be rude, but if you are 45 having run a couple of startups (even if they both failed) I'd be really interested in this opinion and what experiences got you to it. If, however, you're still at college and this is "pure philosophy" it's of much less interest.

webmobdev 4y ago
Yes. Two. One I quit (no technical challenges, and partners were happy with business as it was), and the other I was edged out of by the partners as we didn't share the same values and vision. The only caveat is they are in India which has a very risk-averse work culture.