3 ms·

I find that I really connect with about 1 in 4 of jwz's rants. It is a general rule that anytime there is someone above you in the hierarchy, they are going to

by brk 15y ago

I find that I really connect with about 1 in 4 of jwz's rants. It is a general rule that anytime there is someone above you in the hierarchy, they are going to make $2 for every $1.50 you make. Of COURSE the VC's will make more money than you. And the people who put the actual money into the funds should make even more than THEM. The startup world, and economy in general has changed dramatically from the last time jwz was heavily involved, IMO. It's good that he made what qualifies as his own fuck you money and can now look in on things from the outside and comment thoughtfully. For a lot of people though, working 80 hour weeks grinding out a startup or 3 is still the most probable way of banking a decent retirement fund AND still having some life left to enjoy. I don't think that I'd advise many people to do a 30 year career of crazy startups, but it's kind of a geek lottery and worth the gamble for lots of people. I don't really see where this is using his name to sell a con. If that were the case, I would think Arrington would pick someone who hadn't dropped out of the game a decade ago to sell his 'con'.

bigiain 15y ago
"I don't think that I'd advise many people to do a 30 year career of crazy startups" And that's at least what _I_ took away from jwz's rant - doing it to get rich is a mug's game, choose to do "crazy startup" type things because you love doing it. You may get rich, you may not - truth is most of us can't tell from the inside whether we're "improving our chances" or not by slogging through as something we hate, it's ~90% likely to fail anyway. In the long run your chances of "happiness" are probably significantly improved by doing what you love now (instead of what you think might be outrageously lucrative).
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
gnufied 15y ago
First thing, Michael Arrington does not understand one thing about software engineering. I have slogged for 4 years in a startup for very little equity and I know for a fact that, sleeping in office and not taking shower for days - does not mean somehow you are creating more. For a lot of us, we had little social life outside office and staying in office meant, staying somewhere I belonged. Glued to computer screen, does not mean - I was creating more, I was probably just fixing mistakes that wouldn't have been made, if clarity of thought would have been applied.Heck to be entirely honest, sometimes I would spend entire night on #ruby-lang, adding little to actual product. Michael Arrington, picks something jwz wrote in 1994 as an argument for - that is the only way to build software. Michael Arrington has not build anything himself. At best, he has an outsider perspective at least about actual act of writing code. And if you read between the lines, jwz burned out pretty fast, so much so that - he no longer makes software, now as VC you choose whether you want to invest in a company whose founders burn out and leave the mess or you will invest in a company which is here for long term. Here is the bottom line though - you will probably still work hard (occasionally), but not because Michael Arrington told you so, not because EA bosses are ready with a whip and probably because you love doing what you do and that is entirely different thing altogether.
guelo 15y ago
> working 80 hour weeks grinding out a startup or 3 is still the most probable way of banking a decent retirement fund Seems doubtful to me. Does anyone have statistics on how many non-founder VC funded engineers have made even $1 million off of equity? I'm going to guess it's less than 1:20,000 employees, a suckers bet. If you're willing to work hard you have a much better chance by starting your own boot-strapped non-pie-in-the-sky business that just sells something at a profit.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Depends on what time period we are talking about - if over 4 years, then $1 million is a handsome return for an early stage (non founding, first 10) engineer at a successful startup. If over 8 years, then $1 million equity return works out to be $125K/year - not as exciting. I'd suggest the odds for a $1million equity return over eight years is closer to 1/20. Still lousy odds, but a great engineer can shift them by making the company successful.
  - steve8918 15y ago
    I know engineers that have made over $250k/yr total compensation (including salary, bonus, and stock options) over the last 2 years alone. And this is for a well established post-IPO company (not Google). I think their take home just from monthly vesting stock was roughly $150k over 2 years. I still remember the thread where someone asked about how much people made out on an exit, and it seemed like firmly 80% of the people who responded said that they got screwed by the founders or VC, and only one said that he made enough for a downpayment on a house. So to me, 5% odds to make $1MM over 8 years seems really high. It would be an interesting statistic to see how many startups have been started since 2008 and what their success rate has been.

by brk 15y ago

bigiain 15y ago

"I don't think that I'd advise many people to do a 30 year career of crazy startups" And that's at least what _I_ took away from jwz's rant - doing it to get rich is a mug's game, choose to do "crazy startup" type things because you love doing it. You may get rich, you may not - truth is most of us can't tell from the inside whether we're "improving our chances" or not by slogging through as something we hate, it's ~90% likely to fail anyway. In the long run your chances of "happiness" are probably significantly improved by doing what you love now (instead of what you think might be outrageously lucrative).

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

gnufied 15y ago

First thing, Michael Arrington does not understand one thing about software engineering. I have slogged for 4 years in a startup for very little equity and I know for a fact that, sleeping in office and not taking shower for days - does not mean somehow you are creating more. For a lot of us, we had little social life outside office and staying in office meant, staying somewhere I belonged. Glued to computer screen, does not mean - I was creating more, I was probably just fixing mistakes that wouldn't have been made, if clarity of thought would have been applied.Heck to be entirely honest, sometimes I would spend entire night on #ruby-lang, adding little to actual product. Michael Arrington, picks something jwz wrote in 1994 as an argument for - that is the only way to build software. Michael Arrington has not build anything himself. At best, he has an outsider perspective at least about actual act of writing code. And if you read between the lines, jwz burned out pretty fast, so much so that - he no longer makes software, now as VC you choose whether you want to invest in a company whose founders burn out and leave the mess or you will invest in a company which is here for long term. Here is the bottom line though - you will probably still work hard (occasionally), but not because Michael Arrington told you so, not because EA bosses are ready with a whip and probably because you love doing what you do and that is entirely different thing altogether.

guelo 15y ago

> working 80 hour weeks grinding out a startup or 3 is still the most probable way of banking a decent retirement fund Seems doubtful to me. Does anyone have statistics on how many non-founder VC funded engineers have made even $1 million off of equity? I'm going to guess it's less than 1:20,000 employees, a suckers bet. If you're willing to work hard you have a much better chance by starting your own boot-strapped non-pie-in-the-sky business that just sells something at a profit.

ghshephard 15y ago
Depends on what time period we are talking about - if over 4 years, then $1 million is a handsome return for an early stage (non founding, first 10) engineer at a successful startup. If over 8 years, then $1 million equity return works out to be $125K/year - not as exciting. I'd suggest the odds for a $1million equity return over eight years is closer to 1/20. Still lousy odds, but a great engineer can shift them by making the company successful.
- steve8918 15y ago
  I know engineers that have made over $250k/yr total compensation (including salary, bonus, and stock options) over the last 2 years alone. And this is for a well established post-IPO company (not Google). I think their take home just from monthly vesting stock was roughly $150k over 2 years. I still remember the thread where someone asked about how much people made out on an exit, and it seemed like firmly 80% of the people who responded said that they got screwed by the founders or VC, and only one said that he made enough for a downpayment on a house. So to me, 5% odds to make $1MM over 8 years seems really high. It would be an interesting statistic to see how many startups have been started since 2008 and what their success rate has been.