4 ms·

That's pretty much how a lot of "unicorns" felt in the past 2-3 years

by herval 4y ago

fdgsdfogijq 4y ago
With all of the capital they have, you would think they would hire competent people from big tech. Instead they just find some stanford grad with a few years of experience to manage 50 people. It doesnt even make sense
- herval 4y ago
  I've seen a couple startups with ~10 people and no market fit paying $500k/y to hire a FAANG VP. That's even more damaging than a fresh grad kid managing 50 people!
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Thinking about it, market fit would be the latest point to hire an experienced adult. Preferably from one to two levels below the role a start-up is hiring for, e.g. director level for a VP position. Maybe hire earlier, as soon as an adult is needed to set up proper structure, processes and operations. If a company screws this up, e.g. when inexperienced founders hire former COOs and senior VPs from big names for those big names only, things can turn south pretty well.
  - nostrademons 4y ago
    Getting the FAANG VP is usually critical to landing the next round of funding. If sending $500K/year [1] out the door brings in $50M for your next round of funding, it's well worth it. Particularly if you recognize that your enterprise is a Ponzi scheme [2] and that getting that next round of investors is how everyone gets paid. [1] seems ridiculously low BTW, that's a line manager or extremely skilled software engineer at a FAANG, VPs make multiple millions per year. [2] and anyone running a crypto startup should.
- awhitby 4y ago
  It does if you consider self-selection: the competent person from big tech (i) can see a disaster a mile off (ii) has more to risk
  - JackFr 4y ago
    I’ve seen that in practice. A non-crypto fintech I was at was acquired by a traditional lender and a number of staff took off immediately after the acquisition. A bunch went to FAANG (or FAANGish) places and a bunch jumped to crypto shops. In general the ones who jumped to crypto were either pure promoters or were able developers who had no understanding of finance, economics or the payments system.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    It's more (iii) the narrative. Give us your money to invest in this new, fresh face that's going to change the world. If you're an old face - why haven't you changed the world already? The story isn't as catchy. It has nothing to do with what makes sense. For a large subset of VC (obviously not all) - it's more about what you believe you can sell to others than what you believe is actually going to succeed.
- marcinzm 4y ago
  Competent people will tell leadership what's wrong which leadership perceives as a threat to their egos/power. Incompetent people will tell them they're doing great while simply cashing their checks.
- andirk 4y ago
  Incompetent people usually hire equally incompetent people as to not be found out. I have seen it done subconsciously and outright deliberately.
btown 4y ago
I once heard that a well-known gig economy company would open up new cities by giving employees essentially-unlimited credit cards and telling them to buy whatever they thought was needed, with no controls or multi-person approvals. It'll be interesting to see how VC changes in the modern environment - will they still be all-in on founders willing to unsustainably burn money just to incrementally boost the probability of growth, or will they begin looking more for experienced operating teams who reach and maintain profitability (or a rapid path to get there at all times)?
- herval 4y ago
  > I once heard that a well-known gig economy company would open up new cities by giving employees essentially-unlimited credit cards That's pretty documented in the history of Uber :-)
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    Can anyone recommend a reasonably accurate history of Uber?
    - georgeplusplus 4y ago
      Ubers lie was it would be profitable at scale. They were never profitable at all while growing, but always claimed that if they just had a few more markets they'd finally be profitable. Turns out unsurprisingly, if your revenue is negative and you multiply it by 1000000 it's really negative.
    - CSMastermind 4y ago
      Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber is the most well-known tell-all book. I think they also made a TV miniseries based on the book but I haven't watched it yet. Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination is mostly a summary of the headlines involving the company rather than a tell-all but it's accurate enough if you want to familiarize yourself with the subject. I don't believe anyone has written a book about the technology team specifically which is sad because they actually made some really great technology, especially in the monitoring space, and I would love to hear the story of how that came to be.

That's pretty much how a lot of "unicorns" felt in the past 2-3 years

by herval 4y ago

That's pretty much how a lot of "unicorns" felt in the past 2-3 years

With all of the capital they have, you would think they would hire competent people from big tech. Instead they just find some stanford grad with a few years of experience to manage 50 people. It doesnt even make sense

herval 4y ago
I've seen a couple startups with ~10 people and no market fit paying $500k/y to hire a FAANG VP. That's even more damaging than a fresh grad kid managing 50 people!
- hef19898 4y ago
  Thinking about it, market fit would be the latest point to hire an experienced adult. Preferably from one to two levels below the role a start-up is hiring for, e.g. director level for a VP position. Maybe hire earlier, as soon as an adult is needed to set up proper structure, processes and operations. If a company screws this up, e.g. when inexperienced founders hire former COOs and senior VPs from big names for those big names only, things can turn south pretty well.
- nostrademons 4y ago
  Getting the FAANG VP is usually critical to landing the next round of funding. If sending $500K/year [1] out the door brings in $50M for your next round of funding, it's well worth it. Particularly if you recognize that your enterprise is a Ponzi scheme [2] and that getting that next round of investors is how everyone gets paid. [1] seems ridiculously low BTW, that's a line manager or extremely skilled software engineer at a FAANG, VPs make multiple millions per year. [2] and anyone running a crypto startup should.
awhitby 4y ago
It does if you consider self-selection: the competent person from big tech (i) can see a disaster a mile off (ii) has more to risk
- JackFr 4y ago
  I’ve seen that in practice. A non-crypto fintech I was at was acquired by a traditional lender and a number of staff took off immediately after the acquisition. A bunch went to FAANG (or FAANGish) places and a bunch jumped to crypto shops. In general the ones who jumped to crypto were either pure promoters or were able developers who had no understanding of finance, economics or the payments system.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  It's more (iii) the narrative. Give us your money to invest in this new, fresh face that's going to change the world. If you're an old face - why haven't you changed the world already? The story isn't as catchy. It has nothing to do with what makes sense. For a large subset of VC (obviously not all) - it's more about what you believe you can sell to others than what you believe is actually going to succeed.
marcinzm 4y ago
Competent people will tell leadership what's wrong which leadership perceives as a threat to their egos/power. Incompetent people will tell them they're doing great while simply cashing their checks.
andirk 4y ago
Incompetent people usually hire equally incompetent people as to not be found out. I have seen it done subconsciously and outright deliberately.

btown 4y ago

I once heard that a well-known gig economy company would open up new cities by giving employees essentially-unlimited credit cards and telling them to buy whatever they thought was needed, with no controls or multi-person approvals. It'll be interesting to see how VC changes in the modern environment - will they still be all-in on founders willing to unsustainably burn money just to incrementally boost the probability of growth, or will they begin looking more for experienced operating teams who reach and maintain profitability (or a rapid path to get there at all times)?

herval 4y ago
> I once heard that a well-known gig economy company would open up new cities by giving employees essentially-unlimited credit cards That's pretty documented in the history of Uber :-)
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Can anyone recommend a reasonably accurate history of Uber?
  - georgeplusplus 4y ago
    Ubers lie was it would be profitable at scale. They were never profitable at all while growing, but always claimed that if they just had a few more markets they'd finally be profitable. Turns out unsurprisingly, if your revenue is negative and you multiply it by 1000000 it's really negative.
  - CSMastermind 4y ago
    Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber is the most well-known tell-all book. I think they also made a TV miniseries based on the book but I haven't watched it yet. Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination is mostly a summary of the headlines involving the company rather than a tell-all but it's accurate enough if you want to familiarize yourself with the subject. I don't believe anyone has written a book about the technology team specifically which is sad because they actually made some really great technology, especially in the monitoring space, and I would love to hear the story of how that came to be.