4 ms·
Startups are a terrible way to make money. It is far far easier to make money at a larger company than it is at a startup. It's even worse if you start the comp
by danjl 2y ago
Startups are a terrible way to make money. It is far far easier to make money at a larger company than it is at a startup. It's even worse if you start the company yourself. The chances that you'll ever make money are pretty small, and getting to a regular salary can take 3-7 years. Even the chances of making life-changing quantities of money are much smaller. I've been working in this industry for 40 years and all the people I know who are rich did it at big companies, most recently at Nvidia, earlier at Apple, Sun, Facebook and similar. I know tons of startup founders. Almost none of them made significant money. It's more like authors and artists - start a new company because you are driven by an invisible force and you want to do things that you can't do anywhere else. Maybe you want to run your company differently. Maybe you want to work on something that nobody has figured out how to make profitable. A great reason to take a job at a startup is that you like working with small teams and You think you can learn from your coworkers. Do it because you have no other choice, not because you want to make money.
- cloudedcordial 2y ago> Startups are a terrible way to make money. ...for most people. Even if the company got sold or had an IPO, only the very early employees made life-changing money. There's no guarantee if the company will be at those stages. The news bias towards people who made life-changing money, but does not tend to report the "invisible force".
- icedchai 2y agoThis is all true. But if you're working at a startup only to make money, you're probably doing it wrong.
- mertleee 2y agoWell, I enjoy - enojoyed - working at startups far more than faang for quite some time. The stress was easier to navigate and I felt like I had more levers to learn and grow than I did at Faang. However, times have changed - I want different things in life now. The point of a job is to make money consistently and provide some level of calm. Optimizing for that now since I'm tired of making blind startup bets.
- scarface_74 2y agoWhy else would anyone work anywhere besides for the money unless it’s a non profit?
- icedchai 2y agoI said only for the money. There are other factors: interesting problems, cool tech, ability to have greater impact, building something from scratch... I could go on.