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By pay similar to BigTech do you mean the cash you get paid at a startup/scale up is similar to cash + liquid public RSUs? Equity in private companies especial

By pay similar to BigTech do you mean the cash you get paid at a startup/scale up is similar to cash + liquid public RSUs? Equity in private companies especially in today’s climate is statistically meaningless. And if you look at the companies that pay the most + have the largest number of opportunities, they are the “small number” of BigTech companies And back to the Bay Area argument. Most of the major public tech companies have offices all over the US that pay the same with a much lower cost of living.

tibbar 2y ago
Let me try to state your overall point, as I understand it: "The primary goal of a tech career is generally to get a high-paying, low-risk job. Many of those jobs are in Big Tech. You should optimize for getting one of those jobs (but ideally not in the Bay Area, because it has a high cost of living.) To do that, you should primarily focus on grinding Leetcode and system design, because those are what Big Tech will evaluate you on. There are no loopholes worth speaking of, and you will be competing with many other engineers for the same positions." Feel free to correct me if I'm not getting it right. I have no particular issue with someone whose career strategy is the one above. It's actually important information for someone to learn, especially if they come from a small town, like I did, where Google et al. never darken your door. However, that approach is not a common one in my community. Instead, I see people who exited startups as founders or early employees, people who had particular skills directly recruited by BigTech and others, people who worked at private companies with regular internal liquidity events. People who worked on stuff, by and large, that was interesting to them. People who have plenty of job opportunities, and don't feel like they're one of a thousand people competing for each position. By and large, I prefer this approach.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Again, we can look at statistics instead of suffering from survivorship bias. The vast majority of employees in startups will not see outsized gains from exits especially in todays climate where the IPO market is dead and acquisitions are going for much less.
throwaway2037 2y ago
> Equity in private companies especially in today’s climate is statistically meaningless. Does that include Stripe and SpaceX?
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Stripe has given their employees a chance to sell their equity via a tender offer. SpaceX I’m not sure There has to be a market of people who actually want to buy the equity and the company has to allow it. In the case of “scale up” early startups - the type the original commenter said he works for - usually either there is no one that wants to buy the equity or it’s a steep discount

tibbar 2y ago

Let me try to state your overall point, as I understand it: "The primary goal of a tech career is generally to get a high-paying, low-risk job. Many of those jobs are in Big Tech. You should optimize for getting one of those jobs (but ideally not in the Bay Area, because it has a high cost of living.) To do that, you should primarily focus on grinding Leetcode and system design, because those are what Big Tech will evaluate you on. There are no loopholes worth speaking of, and you will be competing with many other engineers for the same positions." Feel free to correct me if I'm not getting it right. I have no particular issue with someone whose career strategy is the one above. It's actually important information for someone to learn, especially if they come from a small town, like I did, where Google et al. never darken your door. However, that approach is not a common one in my community. Instead, I see people who exited startups as founders or early employees, people who had particular skills directly recruited by BigTech and others, people who worked at private companies with regular internal liquidity events. People who worked on stuff, by and large, that was interesting to them. People who have plenty of job opportunities, and don't feel like they're one of a thousand people competing for each position. By and large, I prefer this approach.

scarface_74 2y ago
Again, we can look at statistics instead of suffering from survivorship bias. The vast majority of employees in startups will not see outsized gains from exits especially in todays climate where the IPO market is dead and acquisitions are going for much less.

throwaway2037 2y ago

> Equity in private companies especially in today’s climate is statistically meaningless. Does that include Stripe and SpaceX?

scarface_74 2y ago
Stripe has given their employees a chance to sell their equity via a tender offer. SpaceX I’m not sure There has to be a market of people who actually want to buy the equity and the company has to allow it. In the case of “scale up” early startups - the type the original commenter said he works for - usually either there is no one that wants to buy the equity or it’s a steep discount