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Oh, totally agree - what you optimize for is a personal preference. I don't have a wife nor kids and that significantly affects the constraints of what I'm will

Oh, totally agree - what you optimize for is a personal preference. I don't have a wife nor kids and that significantly affects the constraints of what I'm willing to do. And I've got nothing against anyone who chooses to work for FAANG, this is just my personal outlook: if you're concerned about money, you should take it from the people willing to pay you for your work. But if you've got an investor willing to pay you to develop something, then you better not be thinking about your own personal "total comp," because you've got (a) employees who need to be paid and (b) investors who want to see your company amount to something. As someone who's never had "a real job," I can promise you - my friend at FAANG contemplating quitting to pursue their own ideas - the grass is always greener on the other side.

kodah 4y ago
> if you're concerned about money, you should take it from the people willing to pay you for your work I think this is half-right. When I evaluate startups I'm often expecting FAANG pay, but I don't expect some of the benefits. Generally the hefty expectation is in RSUs, because at a FAANG those are almost a third of what I make. I also don't accept inflated future leaning valuations, I rate them at current value. If I'm taking a gamble on a third of my salary I want to put the risk multiplier on that third, so I'll charge more. Passion can get you so far in startups, but if you're engineer (especially not engineer zero) then you likely won't walk away with much unless you're accurately assessing risk. That said, there's a fair amount of startups that are not worried about having a reputation of early engineers working away with very little. That said, I still have a mortgage and that's what informs my strategy when dealing with startups. If I didn't have a mortgage, I'd probably accept lower RSUs and a higher cash incentive.

kodah 4y ago

> if you're concerned about money, you should take it from the people willing to pay you for your work I think this is half-right. When I evaluate startups I'm often expecting FAANG pay, but I don't expect some of the benefits. Generally the hefty expectation is in RSUs, because at a FAANG those are almost a third of what I make. I also don't accept inflated future leaning valuations, I rate them at current value. If I'm taking a gamble on a third of my salary I want to put the risk multiplier on that third, so I'll charge more. Passion can get you so far in startups, but if you're engineer (especially not engineer zero) then you likely won't walk away with much unless you're accurately assessing risk. That said, there's a fair amount of startups that are not worried about having a reputation of early engineers working away with very little. That said, I still have a mortgage and that's what informs my strategy when dealing with startups. If I didn't have a mortgage, I'd probably accept lower RSUs and a higher cash incentive.