3 ms·

You don't do startups for the money. So, your calculations are correct. Having dabbled in both startups, small business and big corporations, I can speak to my

You don't do startups for the money. So, your calculations are correct. Having dabbled in both startups, small business and big corporations, I can speak to my own experience. There is a great combination of inexperience, solidarity and overly ambitious, common purpose that makes startups electric for me. Every person believes their personal contribution can make or break the business. That type of purpose and excitement is unique to the small, ambitious startup that doesn't exist anywhere else. And for me, there's nothing like it. I imagine their might be corporate cultures that try to replicate the environment, but I haven't found it yet. The exit money is something most of us chalk up to the lies we tell ourselves. For a small number of us it happens, but for the rest of us, it doesn't. As for interesting projects, it's a combination of interesting work and immediate impact on the business that doesn't exist with bigger companies. I hope that helps.

nostrademons 14y ago
"That type of purpose and excitement is unique to the small, ambitious startup that doesn't exist anywhere else." Not necessarily. That's what the atmosphere is on the GFiber team. That's what it's like, more or less, on the Doodle team. I've personally got a research project in search quality that's years away from showing anything useful, so I try to keep my own pace sustainable, but I go to work every day knowing that I'll have some tangible progress by the end of the day and that if we succeed it'll change the world on an order similar to the original invention of Google.
- relaunched 14y ago
  I'm glad to hear that, but in my professional experience, I've yet to run into that; and maybe one day I will.
austinee 14y ago
Thanks for replying! I certainly agree that you’re more likely to get the things you mention at a startup, but it’s possible to get those elsewhere (I have them now, with the exception of inexperience). Since I only need one job, I care more about the upper bound than the expected value. Everyone has a different definition of ‘interesting’, but, IMO, Microsoft Research has more interesting work than pretty much any startup out there. Since I don’t have a PhD, there’s no way I’d get hired there; I’m just using them to illustrate a point. As nostrademons points out, Google’s also full of interesting projects. Their process is notoriously slow, so I can’t tell if my resume was thrown into a black hole, or if it’s actually being considered, but that’s at least within the realm of possibility. Even IBM, which is known for not being a great place to work, has teams that are doing really cool stuff. Here in Austin, I’ve heard very good things about their Linux group, and, of course, IBM Research has lots of groups working on fun problems.

nostrademons 14y ago

"That type of purpose and excitement is unique to the small, ambitious startup that doesn't exist anywhere else." Not necessarily. That's what the atmosphere is on the GFiber team. That's what it's like, more or less, on the Doodle team. I've personally got a research project in search quality that's years away from showing anything useful, so I try to keep my own pace sustainable, but I go to work every day knowing that I'll have some tangible progress by the end of the day and that if we succeed it'll change the world on an order similar to the original invention of Google.

relaunched 14y ago
I'm glad to hear that, but in my professional experience, I've yet to run into that; and maybe one day I will.

austinee 14y ago

Thanks for replying! I certainly agree that you’re more likely to get the things you mention at a startup, but it’s possible to get those elsewhere (I have them now, with the exception of inexperience). Since I only need one job, I care more about the upper bound than the expected value. Everyone has a different definition of ‘interesting’, but, IMO, Microsoft Research has more interesting work than pretty much any startup out there. Since I don’t have a PhD, there’s no way I’d get hired there; I’m just using them to illustrate a point. As nostrademons points out, Google’s also full of interesting projects. Their process is notoriously slow, so I can’t tell if my resume was thrown into a black hole, or if it’s actually being considered, but that’s at least within the realm of possibility. Even IBM, which is known for not being a great place to work, has teams that are doing really cool stuff. Here in Austin, I’ve heard very good things about their Linux group, and, of course, IBM Research has lots of groups working on fun problems.