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> "Besides that, there are some mental hurdles you have to overcome by yourself about understanding the risk-reward of a startup. Taking a 30-40% salary cut is

> "Besides that, there are some mental hurdles you have to overcome by yourself about understanding the risk-reward of a startup. Taking a 30-40% salary cut is just one of those." Uh... how about... no. So very, very tired of founders trying to convince everyone that tiny stake as an employee in a startup is worth a giant haircut, or really, any haircut at all. If you want me to take a huge haircut, bring meaningful equity to the table. It's laughable how some startups want you to take a $20-30K haircut in exchange for equity that, if the startup exits big after years of toil, might buy you a Smart car. Sometimes recruiters cold call me and try to pitch me on some startup or another, and then ask if I'm amenable to taking a haircut in exchange for equity. At this point I'm tempted to just issue a blanket "hell no".

lrobb 15y ago
That describes the typical job post on angel list... It makes me wonder how guys can make it past an algorithms class yet not be able to do a simple spreadsheet projection.
halefx 15y ago
Haircut..? Is this some meme I don't know?
- brown9-2 15y ago
  Not a meme, it's a common euphemism for taking less than the full amount on a payment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haircut_(finance) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haircut_(finance) For example, "The bondholders will have to agree to take a large haircut in order for the Greek debt restructuring agreement to go through."
amcintyre 15y ago
>So very, very tired of founders trying to convince everyone that tiny stake as an employee in a startup is worth a giant haircut, or really, any haircut at all. Agreed. If engineering matters so little to a company that they can neither spend money nor equity on decent engineers, then I don't need to be there.
rdl 15y ago
I'd take less cash to work for a really awesome startup (or a really awesome group within a larger company), with great coworkers, solving an important problem, etc. That's the reason for taking a pay cut to work for a startup; the equity from the startup is just a bonus on top of that.

lrobb 15y ago

That describes the typical job post on angel list... It makes me wonder how guys can make it past an algorithms class yet not be able to do a simple spreadsheet projection.

halefx 15y ago

Haircut..? Is this some meme I don't know?

brown9-2 15y ago
Not a meme, it's a common euphemism for taking less than the full amount on a payment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haircut_(finance) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haircut_(finance) For example, "The bondholders will have to agree to take a large haircut in order for the Greek debt restructuring agreement to go through."

amcintyre 15y ago

>So very, very tired of founders trying to convince everyone that tiny stake as an employee in a startup is worth a giant haircut, or really, any haircut at all. Agreed. If engineering matters so little to a company that they can neither spend money nor equity on decent engineers, then I don't need to be there.

rdl 15y ago

I'd take less cash to work for a really awesome startup (or a really awesome group within a larger company), with great coworkers, solving an important problem, etc. That's the reason for taking a pay cut to work for a startup; the equity from the startup is just a bonus on top of that.