20 ms·

Benefits matter, or why I won't work for your Y Combinator startup

• coolsunglasses 14y ago
  Based on how he's valuing his PTO, he's valuing his time at either $328, $218, or $447 per diem. I hope he's not valuing his PTO based on the salary he's getting. I'm a 24 year old with no college degree and I currently cost about $800 per day on contract. (Not hypothetical, billing at that rate right now.) I'd rather make twice as much money consulting, pick my own damn healthcare plan, go to whatever conferences I want without asking^H^H^H^H^H^Hbegging, and stash that much more money towards runway. I just left a YC company myself. I would only work for a YC company because it was time for me to learn, it no longer is. It's time for me to earn, so I'll contract until I get a business rolling. If you approach working at a YC company like a piker, you're going to be disappointed. It's an opportunity to build up a network and learn how startups work so that you can eventually do your own thing. (IMHO anyway) Employee equity is consistently pathetic. Not worth it. It also doesn't seem like he's asking for what he wants. Does he not know how to negotiate? Tell the YC founders what you want. People are really bad at getting what they want unless it's offered to them on a silver platter. Edit: The whole post, frankly, seems like an advertisement for his irrationality with regards to the expected value of perks.
  • ccarter84 14y ago
    cool story bro'
    • coolsunglasses 14y ago
      I know the point you're making, but let me make clearer the point I'm making: He thinks he's doing himself a favor and getting what he's "worth", but that doesn't seem to be the case.
      • ccarter84 14y ago
        Ah, agreed - congrats on getting out of the rat race and properly compensated yourself
  • fusiongyro 14y ago
    Another way of looking at it is that he's trading ~$500 per day for less risk. You're in a position to soak risk, and he isn't. It doesn't make either of you irrational.
    • coolsunglasses 14y ago
      That's a fair statement, but I'm trying to fight a different sort of risk than going without a paycheck.
      • fusiongyro 14y ago
        Care to elaborate?
        • coolsunglasses 14y ago
          I value independence and eventual ramen profitability far, far higher than the average person. A life spent working for other people instead of customers or fans is a huge risk and I'm running from it.
  • etchalon 14y ago
    As a contractor, if you're taking in 800 dollars a day, and buying your own health insurance, you are not taking in 800 dollars a day. In fact, your take home pay is probably less than his (at least on the high-end of the per-diem). 1. You're paying a higher marginal tax rate on your earnings than he is on his salary. Self-employment tax is a real bitch. 2. If you're buying your own health insurance, the benefits you get for the price are undoubtable lower than the benefits he gets with his (paid for) package, or you're paying through the nose. "Group plans" are generally better, and cheaper, than individual plans. 3. Should something terrible happen to you, or should you fail to find work for awhile, you are not eligible for unemployment. I see lots of folks swear by "being a contractor" when they're young, only to start searching for a salaried position after a few bad experiences. When I took over my company, the absolute first thing I did was switch every "contractor" to a full-time employee. It's better for both parties.
    • coolsunglasses 14y ago
      I've been contracting for a long time, I know the risks and it's not just about the money. It's about the self ownership. Of course it's better for the company, they want the ability to coerce the employee and hold their livelihood/healthcare hostage. With my arrangement, I keep the same healthcare plan no matter who I'm working for or what I'm doing.
      • etchalon 14y ago
        Huh? You can basically always keep your health insurance. You just have to pay a higher premium than your employer paid for it. They aren't "holding your health care hostage", they're given you a benefit of being a part of a group; a risk pool insurance companies are willing to give discounted rates to. Get fired, or quit? Just call the insurance company and ask what it'd cost to keep your coverage as is. There's generally ALWAYS an individual plan available with the exact same benefit levels. Health insurance used to be a hostage game due primarily to pre-existing conditions. That's becoming less of an issue thanks to new laws (and if you were employable, was never much of an issue anyway). However, I did not mean "just" insurance. Contractor arrangements are terrible for both the contractor and the company, in the long run.
  • hkmurakami 14y ago
    Just FYI, insurance premiums can skyrocket one you get older or develop serious health issues (and such health issues really can come suddenly -- autoimmune diseases, etc). I think you've built a wonderful position for yourself, but I'd urge you to be mindful of thepotential pitfalls in the future.
    • rdl 14y ago
      A lot of the health insurance risk is changing in 2014, though, so it's actually viable to have lower coverage insurance now and plan to upgrade IFF a major medical condition happens. (yes, this makes no sense from an insurance market perspective for the insurers)
      • hkmurakami 14y ago
        I presume this is one of the provisions in the Obama administration health care act (something along the lines of accepting people with previous known medical conditions, iirc). I'm not too knowledgeable on the exact scenarios and how much more (if any) such people with serious medical issues would pay, but I agree with you that this is something to be cognizant of.
      • vellum 14y ago
        You sure? Since 2014 is when no one can get denied and everyone has to have healthcare, I think there's some uncertainty in the market. If the system gets too many expensive cases, and not enough payees, premiums could skyrocket.
• adnam 14y ago
  The entitlement culture in the tech industry is mind boggling. One day we may look back and wonder how we ever had it so good. Perhaps we'll even envy the person paid $1 per day to suck the gold off our old circuit boards.
  • obviouslygreen 14y ago
    Those of us with an ounce of humility or perspective (I suspect that includes you) seem less likely to have that kind of problem... though honestly, I don't think this "entitlement culture" is an industry-wide problem. It seems, from what I'm seeing, largely concentrated on the coasts, particularly the one mentioned in this post. Attitudes and perspectives are vastly different in other places, even more than you would normally expect outside of tech.
  • nthj 14y ago
    Entitlement is when you're a welfare recipient smoking dope and watching TV all day and demanding everybody else cover your existence. Demanding market rates is a rational response to a job offer, and I do not understand why otherwise rational engineers romanticize working for less than they are worth simply because "engineers make a lot of money."
  • vhiremath4 14y ago
    People in tech don't realize just how lucky they are. I'm 20 with no wife or kids, and I'm making more per year than certainly almost all of my friends will be making after they choose to actually finish college and get a salaried job. However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). Ridiculous.
    • nthj 14y ago
      > However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). That's how “market rate“ works. A profession's salary has nothing to do with what you deserve and everything to do with how your specific combination of skills are valued by the free market.
• danso 14y ago
  > Though they brag about their "Unlimited Vacation" (today's buzzword), they offered only 15 days of PTO, standard for any professional job in the United States. Has anyone ever tried to take advantage of "Unlimited Vacation" at an early startup? I mean, sincerely tried to invoke that contractual promise as a way to take 3+ weeks consecutively?
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  • jyothepro 14y ago
    this will never happen. They say unlimited vacation policy as long as ur manager approves.
  • selectout 14y ago
    Not me personally but an engineer at my current startup is taking 5 weeks off but the typical "Unlimited Vacation" also mentions as long as you get your work done. So they will be taking 5 weeks off traveling the world, but they are still getting work done (not the typical hours by any means, but getting what needs to be done accomplished).
    • PeterisP 14y ago
      5 weeks travelling and doing work = 0 weeks vacation. It is really great, it is flextime+great office+telecommuting which are all nice things; but it's apples-and-oranges compared to a vacation. I mean, all the psych research says that it takes at least 4+ days until people really get work off their mind, and the work-mindset starts a few days before returning. So vacations start to be effective at a minimum of 2 consecutive, uninterrupted weeks (coincidentally a legal requirement in a bunch of countries). If you're taking vacation in small blocks or continue to think about work on vacation, then you and the company lose the working days spent, but aren't getting the expected recovery/productivity/burnout-prevention/etc benefits for which vacations are actually implemented.
      • emillerm 14y ago
• michaelochurch 14y ago
  The prestige asset generated by YC is interesting, because I bet it's going to have an unintended consequence of increasing the social difference between founders and employees. If you're a YC founder, you're in the club. You were picked. It's great if you succeed; if you fail, you have a network. If you're a YC employee, you're just an employee of a small startup. YC founders seem, at least from this, to be blind to the fact that their employees aren't able to cash in on the prestige of being YC and will therefore expect hard currency. I think that crappy benefits send a pretty awful signal: we're not committed enough to making your life not suck. A 25-year-old founder is going to think of that stuff as an afterthought, while the 40-year-old is thinking, "kid, if I wanted to take on that kind of risk and insanity, I'd have your job". Health insurance is a goddamn mess and a company can't expect to get it right in an afternoon, but it is important.
  • FD3SA 14y ago
    As you've noted here, it seems like most startups support the traditional executive/employee status divide, but with better marketing. Using startup culture as a substitute for benefits, compensation and autonomy within a company is now standard practice. Unfortunately, it just a variation of the old Sociopath/Clueless/Loser paradigm (I am a frequent patron of your blog). I recently discovered a blog with some interesting proposals on how to run a company, and an economy, in a radically different non-sociopathic manner. I submitted the link to HN , but didn't receive any traction. Perhaps you may find it interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402277
    • euroclydon 14y ago
      Is there anything going on on that blog these days? The analysis of The Office was captivating, but I can't even find those posts by Googling for them... What's the URL?
      • wr1472 14y ago
        http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
• johndavi 14y ago
  It's really not (only) that "benefits matter," but that this kind of comprehensive yet simple calculus is missing when most people consider a startup gig. Whenever I lost or was on the verge of losing an employee to a startup, it was pretty convincing to walk them through what "hey, you get a whole percent of the company!" really means, even in a nine figure acquisition... and then compare that totally-at-risk, totally unlikely result (as the OP does) to the much better, and not-at-risk, salary + bonus from Large Company. Difference is of course when you pick that lottery winner and 1% post-dilution is actually something. And that's what everyone's playing, right?
• seeingfurther 14y ago
  Every thing comes down to risk vs reward. Founders risk it all to found companies and rightfully have the greatest reward. Startup employees haven't risked as much but their risk is compensated with appropriate equity the earlier they join and the more risk they take on in the form of lower salary and benefits. YC definitively reduces risk and increases the potential for reward. It's easier for YC companies to raise funding (allowing them to pay market salary and benefits faster) and they have been vetted so we can assume the idea and team have a better shot at success. If you want to work in startups, working for a YC company is a better risk vs reward scenario as compared to a non-YC company. In regards to the post, just ask for more equity in scenario 1. IMHO the first 10 engineers should roughly own all of the "20%" first round option pool and should be able to get the company to an exit, massive profits or the next round. EDIT: last sentence for clarity.
  • uribs 14y ago
    Isn't simply being profitable a much better credential than being vetted by YC?
    • seeingfurther 14y ago
      It's not that black and white. But being profitable is definitely a great data point.
  • jroseattle 14y ago
    Heh, well kind of. I've learned that founders have a much greater risk/reward ratio than employees. The ratio is really not even close. The assumption that founders risk it "all" is a fallacy. The assumption that employees have less risk is also inaccurate. It depends on the situation, sure -- but I know plenty of startups founded by people who can crash and burn and not have their livelihood affected. As for "risk compensated with appropriate equity", I'd have to say that most early-stage employees get screwed. The only case where early-stage pans out with commensurate reward at the employee level is when a company goes public. Given that most successful exits nowadays are through acquisition, most early employees are simply hosed.
• edent 14y ago
  From a UK perspective - this post is nuts! I've worked with a few London based startups (and interviewed for several). Holiday 28 days minimum - as per law https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement Rarely offered health care but - for all its flaws - our National Health Service is pretty good. Shares - yup, they're almost always going to be worthless. Pension - every company has offered me at least 5% matched pension - some more. The Government is mandating that even small employers will have to put you in a pension scheme soon - which is good. "Soft" benefits like gym membership / conferences / etc depend very much on how confident the business is in itself. If it can afford them, it likely will - because they know that people can get them at mega-corps. Pay - ah, there's the kicker. Yes, most startups try to save on the salary costs. Usually they get a pretty rude awakening when they try to hire someone with more than 5 minutes' experience. So they try to make it better with "up-titling". I could have been "Global Head of X" at a company barely looking at sales outside the city. Joining a start-up is fun. But, like a pyramid scheme, you've got to get in early if you want to reap the share bonanza benefits. I do wonder why the UK scene doesn't seem quite so vibrant - especially as healthcare costs (which I understand to be the biggest burden in the US) are essentially nil.
  • coolsunglasses 14y ago
    Things the UK lacks: A culture that promotes self-actualization and risk-taking at the expense of your family or future family. YC Centralized (location) and relatively easy to access angel money. Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Strong culture of entrepreneurship in alumni organizations (Stanford LOVES this stuff) Lots of high quality incubators besides YC (my last startup I served as CTO at incubated at StartX) --- You're not going to get me to move to the UK unless there's an aggressive visa program and seed money involved.
    • rayiner 14y ago
      > Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Silicon Valley VC money is a tiny speck compared to the money flowing through the capital markets of The City. So that begs the question: why is it harder to just walk out the door and round up seed money in London?
• jpdoctor 14y ago
  20 years of experience and he's only now figuring out that you don't join a startup for the money and benefits? :sheesh:
• arbuge 14y ago
  Just curious on the part where he says that the stock is most likely worthless. Are there any hard numbers on the average outcome of YC startups, and startups in general? I mean, all else being equal, what is the expected value of 0.5% of the equity of the average startup at stage X these days?
  • genericresponse 14y ago
    The expected value of 0.5% of the equity in that startup should be 0.5% of the valuation. That said, not everyone has the savings or investments to offset that level of risk. For someone with a "low" risk-tolerance, that value drops dramatically. Remember risk in our (assumed rational) finance market is as much tied to your ability to have enough liquidity as it is to have a positive outcome.
    • arbuge 14y ago
      Pre-exit valuations are the opinions of just one - a few investors though. Hard data from previous exits is a different thing altogether.
    • khuey 14y ago
      In other words, money has a non-linear utility function. People often forget that when reasoning about financial matters.
  • jodi 14y ago
    Here are a couple ways that common stock can become worthless: - The most obvious and common, the company fails / does not exit - The company raises money and the investors have liquidation preferences. This means that the investor is guaranteed to make 3 times what they put in when the company is acquired. So, for example, if you raise 10 million dollars and your investors have 3x liquidation preferences, you have to sell the company for over 30 million before common shareholders see any money at all. So in this situation (and it is common), the common stock is essentially worthless.
    • guelo 14y ago
• Zimahl 14y ago
  Here's what a good benefits package looks like from a company who cares about attracting senior employees, and not just college kids: - Agreement to pay for 3 conferences per year(Surge, Velocity, and ChefConf), an $18k/year benefit - $2500/year FSA, Employer funded - 401k, 5% match. (II end up with $24,750/year in my 401K plan) - Full health insurance for myself and my daughter, no Premium - Health club membership - $150/month Clipper card budget - 30 days of PTO, a $9,840/year benefit I work in the Portland area and have had the opportunity to work at some pretty great companies around here but there is no way to get much other than the 401k benefit (and even then a 5% match may not happen) and maybe the health club membership. Health insurance will sometimes cover yourself but once you add a spouse and/or kids it's going to cost the company a lot more so there is going to be a premium. I currently work downtown and my company covers my parking (which isn't cheap) but others haven't. I don't know about the Bay area but there is no way you'd get 30 days of PTO from anywhere here, I've never heard of that even from a non-profit I interviewed with once.
  • jaggederest 14y ago
    I've worked for 3 startups in Portland that offered those benefits. I now work remotely for a Fortune 100 that gives me a major portion of those benefits, plus a higher salary. It can be done, my Portland-based comrade. I'll buy you a beer sometime if you like.
    • Zimahl 14y ago
      I can see one or two of those things being covered but even 30 days of PTO? That's 6 weeks per year that you won't be in the office. Portland (OR), USA, right? Not Portland, Spain/France/Norway? :P
      • jaggederest 14y ago
        Correct. Two of the three had no specified rules besides "take some", but I took a lot. Work got done, nobody cared.
  • BryantD 14y ago
• devmvc 14y ago
  I totally agree. Have seen the same in Germany, with both US and German startups, both in Hamburg and Berlin. They talk all the time how cool is to work in nice locations in the city have a great Mac and being part of something great. I have always visited such an interviews, because wanted to be a part of these startup environment. However getting 30% less salary and no real benefits, except for talking to hipsters all day long, has never been the purpose of my life.
• jedberg 14y ago
  I always advise folks who are looking to work for a startup to value their stock at $0. Will you be happy and enjoy the work you are doing for the salary and benefits alone?
  • bm1362 14y ago
    I agree; as a new grad I don't think about the money (it's all good!) but more so the experience- Will I learn from these people? Will it make me a better engineer? The two most important factors IMO: the tech and the team.
  • khuey 14y ago
    If you fail to do the right 83b thing for your circumstances they can be worth even less than $0.
• joeframbach 14y ago
  Font size and contrast matter, or why I won't read your blog post
  • MBCook 14y ago
    I found it odd that the individual lines seem to be written your as opposed to paragraphs. I'm on my phone. In landscape it's readable, but in portrait the lines break weird like an email program wrapped them wrong.
  • IheartApplesDix 14y ago
    In Firefox: View, Page Style, No Style.
  • msoad 14y ago
    Use lynx :D
• vnorby 14y ago
  I don't think it's fair to bunch all 400+ Y Combinator companies together like this. You'll probably find good and bad benefits packages with the same frequency across all small startups. Y Combinator certainly does not get their hands dirty in the operational, HR, or recruitment strategies of their funded companies; that's really up to the founders. Perhaps what you want to say is that you don't like the benefits packages that startups with young founders provide, because they don't understand what a more senior engineer expects on that side of the compensation equation. That might be more fair.
  • mikeg8 14y ago
    Best response I've seen. Right on the money
• aresant 14y ago
  From the Author's bio: "I'm just this guy who used to enjoy tech, now I would rather build bicycles. I still work in the tech industry, for the money, but I no longer call myself a "technologist"." So points well made that a guy with children, in mid-career, and without much of a passion for the field he's working in finds a Y-Combinator offer to be less compelling than a more traditional package. But I'm not sure what the takeaway should be for Y-Combinator companies. I'm sure you could come up with a whole list of why it's compelling to join a Y-Combinator startup, the one that strikes me is that providing great value to a Y-Combinator start-up puts you in a great position to leverage your own attention from PG and crew. So at some level the lesson here feels like how can Y-Combinator recruiters (or CEO recruiters) minimize distractions from candidates that ultimately don't want the job you're offering? The answer is to highlight the tangible benefits of being part of a Y-Combinator startup while candidly addressing what "you're not" so the wrong candidates don't waste their time, or yours.
  • phillmv 14y ago
    Listen, I know that once we turn forty we're all put out to pasture in the Great Programmer Iceberg and left to fend for ourselves but: I think the takeaway is, you're not building something sustainable if you can't attract people with kids. Kids are a very natural and common lifecycle event for people over the age of 25. In terms of dollars and cents, the notion that you're building a team of "world class talent" that doesn't include anyone over the age of 30 is silly. Not that the vast majority of startups need world class talent, but that's neither her nor there.
    • jimray 14y ago
      This is so well stated. It's something I (age 34, married, no kid(s) (yet)) think about a lot. I live and work in a city (San Francisco) and in an industry (web developer) where being 10 years older than the median age of my neighbors and colleagues feels like a liability. I feel like I've just figured a few important things out and I'm already past my prime.
    • anigbrowl 14y ago
      Not to mention the huge and underserved market for people with kids, grandkids etc. Now I like startup culture or I wouldn't have been on HN so long, but in all the excitement and hipness of disrupting things, it's easy to forget that there's a large number of people who are not interested in that attitude, but want products that help to stabilize or enhance their life. Marketing to these people is basically selling to the tortoise rather than the hare [1], and success in doing so probably means building that attitude from the inside out.Tortoises aren't very exciting to look at, but there are a lot of them and they are pretty successful in evolutionary terms. So don't grudge them their lettuce. 1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare
• apalmer 14y ago
  He makes a pretty good argument really. You don't run a successful business with the mindset of 'i shouldn't be entitled', i have no idea why an employee shouldnt have the same mindset. Capitalism, your supposed to go after every tangible benefit possible, and minimize every cost possible. How folks plan to run a business that way and yet feel its 'entitlement' for an employee to do the same thing is weird to me.
  • khuey 14y ago
    Everyone wants capitalism to apply to their inflows and not to their outflows.
• gambiting 14y ago
  The thought that in the US your health insurance depends on your workplace makes me a little sick inside.
• sybhn 14y ago
  A side question on his net calculation, how did he end up with 63% tax rate? anyone care to elaborate
  • SeckinJohn 14y ago
    I am curious about this too. Please elaborate if you know anything about this.
  • oijaf888 14y ago
    Just using rough numbers: 33% federal income tax 6.2% on the first 113K for Social Security 1.45% for Medicare 9.3% for CA state income tax Plus any local taxes? Gets to about 50% there. I know in NYC when the company I was with sold, my total tax rate was 52% on it.
    • sybhn 14y ago
      right, i would expect 50% to go to the tax man, unless waiting long enough to get into long term capital gain. His 63% threw me off there, sounds like France!
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• joeblau 14y ago
  Just based on reading the Author's concerns, it seems like there would be too much risk for him to join any start-up. People aren't starting companies at YC so they can have a "good benefits" package. In their eyes, they are trying to disrupt industry and change the world. Joining a start-up for a good benefits package with hopes and dreams of making enough money to buy a house is a pretty big bet to make.
• frostli 14y ago
  The assumption in the post is: he doesn't really believe in those companies. He only thought the company will go at most 2X of the current valuation and will never have a chance to go IPO itself. In the start-up world, if you don't think the company is going to grow then what's the point joining the team? It sounds like the author is looking for settling down, a stable income which is more suitable with bigger companies like Google. It's weird to compare two different kinds of companies. High risk high return, low risk low return always holds. He's looking for something with low risk and of course, he doesn't want to work with any Y Companies. No right or wrong tho, personal choice.
• johnnyg 14y ago
  You could have written a post comparing your experience with YC offered salary/benefits to non-YC/non-start up offers. It could have been good for people job hunting or interested generally at an "inside look" at the market. There's nothing wrong with looking at all your free market offers and making your choice. For some reason I can't understand though, you crossed the line into "YC companies owe me better". They don't. They owe you what ever offer they seem reasonable if they took the time you interview you. You owe them consideration of their offer and an answer. That's the dance.
• cletus 14y ago
  The problem here I think is the disparity between being the last cofounder (15-30% equity before dilution typically) and being the first employee (1-2%) vs working for a more established company. If you compare the compensation for being an early employee in such a startup with working for an established company (eg Google, Facebook) then I think you'll find the employee of the latter will be better off in the long term 95% of the time and by a significant margin (disclaimer: I work for Google). Now some people and some ideas can genuinely attract people to work for peanuts. I remember hearing about Square, then valued at $40m with their first round of funding (IIRC) and thinking "man I'd give anything to work for them" given the idea and the track record (Jack Dorsey basically). The problem I think is that many startups think they have this kind of cachet just because they worked for Facebook in 2006. Social proof counts for something but it doesn't make you a great entrepreneur. Being a great entrepreneur makes you a great entrepreneur and that means running some kind of company that had some kind of impact (and, ideally, some significant exit). Startups aren't for financial security. They are for the frontiermen who are hoping to strike it rich in the gold rush. Most don't but some do. To the OP: you make very valid points and given your circumstances and preferences (and mine FWIW), I agree: working for an established company will give you a far better expected financial outcome at lower risk. EDIT: I should clarify that there are of course non-financial reasons to work for a small startup. Less bureaucracy, it can be exciting, variety of work, degree of impact and so on. A lot of people are willing to make those tradeoffs and sacrifice some financial return for the privilege. This isn't unique to the startup world. Games programmers, for example, typically get paid crap (until you get to be the lead developer on a big title and get a % of the revenue, etc). All of this is simply supply and demand. That all being said, living without health insurance in the US is incredibly risky. Generally only large employers have the clout to negotiate good plans with providers for reasonable premiums. The other stuff (extra PTO, conferences especially, etc) are more luxuries than necessities but they do of course contribute to the overall financial outcome.
  • rohern 14y ago
    > Startups aren't for financial security. They are for the frontiermen who are hoping to strike it rich in the gold rush. Most don't but some do. I think you mean "Founding a startup is for the frontiermen..." Being an employee is not. Being an employee is a losing proposition far more often than the 95% you cited.
• rdl 14y ago
  I don't think benefits are the main reason to work anywhere -- doing meaningful work and working with great people far exceeds financial benefit, and salary/bonus/equity should dominate fringe benefits. However, why do benefits packages need to be uniform? I personally hate having "benefits" in my compensation which come out of my salary which I don't really want. Sometimes companies get tax savings (i.e. they can deduct, I can't), but VERY RARELY do they get actual dollar savings (health insurance is one weird case, due to some people being more expensive to insure than they could ever pay, and that risk being spread across a group). My personal ideal benefits package is: 0) Private office, 24x7 hvac, a door, decent security, locking storage, parking on-site ideally with a guard or gate. Essentially non-negotiable (or, wfh). EV parking would be nice too soon. 1) Max 401k match and maybe even profit sharing (in California, I'd happily take $1 of salary and put it into employer 401k match) -- I think you can get up to 46k/yr max, so 15k personal contribution, 5% salary match, and the rest as profit share up to 46k. 2) FSA, Transportation accounts (fully deductible for employer, and non-taxed). I ended up buying a bunch of air filters and condoms when I had an FSA, and I guess I could find a use for a TSA. 3) As much hardware as I realistically can use ($10-20k/yr -- not just computers, but I'd love to have a budget for a hw lab). Someone recently questioned whether a $4k per developer laptop budget was legitimate, and I seriously question why someone would deny a $1-2k marginal expense on a worker generating >$500k/yr in returns. 4) Conference/books/etc. (time is the big cost for the company there, not the cost) -- and "if you're speaking at a conference related to work, we cover nice travel) 5) Free food/etc. (i.e. RG's "unlimited Seamless"). Bad food is of negative value, since I'll feel obligated to eat it. 6) Decent travel when travel is required. Not first class, but helping you make it less painful -- either letting you do your own bookings (I'm better than any corp travel agent I've used), or doing it for you. Optimize for ff status. I pretty much need a $65/day car vs. a $30/day car (and tend to pay for the upgrade out of pocket when it's not covered), but would in exchange prefer a more complex $300 routed ticket vs. a $500 direct flight, and would stay on starwood points sometimes vs. paying cash. 7) I prefer to keep my health insurance separate from the company, for practical and philosophical reasons. (I pay $118/mo for better coverage than ~any company I've seen). Give me $5k/yr into my HSA instead, and pay any other marginal insurance benefit to me as extra salary or more RAM or something. 8) Use of company resources for personal projects (e.g. hosting a tech user's group, or helping friends launch their own startups by letting them use conference rooms when meeting with people, etc. etc. I'm curious if people are "picky" like me, or would just prefer a bunch of benefits as a package. There are HR reasons to give everyone the same thing, but IMO one of the advantages of being a small startup is being able to customize packages for people. If I hired someone with sick kids, I'd obviously make sure there were a group health insurance plan for him or her. If I hired someone who was on an H1B or otherwise needed citizenship sponsorship, I'd call in favors with undersecretaries to write letters on his behalf. etc. There's no need for a small company to act like a megacorp.
• codyZ 14y ago
  angryasian speaks the truth. Different priorities for different people. If you want their talent, cater to their priorities.
• tlrobinson 14y ago
  "Most of them are children fresh out of college" Who's the child here?
  • rocky1138 14y ago
    I was thinking the same. It's very dangerous to a career to come right out and say such a thing. What happens if he ends up working for another YC company? His employers will know how he feels about them and it could hurt relations.
• twakefield 14y ago
  "That $375k would then be subject to 63% taxes, netting me $138,750, or a 20% down-payment on my piece of the american dream. The other company does the right thing, so I only see a 15% capital gains tax" A bit of an aside but could someone elaborate on this? Is the OP referring to an 83(b) election? If so, isn't that his responsibility (of course, the company should advise him to do this). Or is this referring to something else? At any rate, my impression is that there would be California taxes as well on that income, bringing the taxes well above 15%.
  • johnnygoods 14y ago
    I think he is referring to the company letting him purchase his options as they vest, so that the eventual sale of the stock will be of a long-term capital asset, rather than short term and subject to his marginal tax rate.
  • james_alonso 14y ago
    He's talking about early-exercise stock options vs instalment exercise stock options. Early-exercise let's you exercise the shares from day 1, before they're vested. It starts the clock running on long-term capital gains treatment, so you're more likely to qualify for that lower rate than if you exercise later. You do have to pay for the shares out of pocket though so it's a risky move - could end up having paid cash for worthless shares, especially in an early stage company.
  • oijaf888 14y ago
    Yeah I didn't understand that either, unless as the other commenter mentioned they allow you to do a cashless exercise as you vest, however you are still possibly subject to AMT. AFAIK all ISOs are possibly subject to AMT whereas if you convert it to a NSO its just regular income.
  • vellum 14y ago
    Yup, California treats capital gains as regular income, so he gets hit with an additional 13.3%.
• kevingibbon 14y ago
  I've never understood why startups position themselves this way? If you have 10M in the bank pay your employees what they fucking deserve! In an internet startup your engineers are all you actually have. Ideas are worth nothing. Living in San Francisco is expensive as fuck. You should do everything to make your employees lives easier so they can concentrate more time to work.
• pg 14y ago
  This entire thesis is a red herring. I doubt we've ever had a conversation with a startup about what sort of benefits they should offer. Since the startups in a position to hire lots of people will presumably have raised money from later stage investors, if anyone is giving them advice about this, it would probably be them. FWIW, if anyone did ask my advice about what benefits to offer, I'd tell them to err on the side of generosity. I certainly tell them to err on that side with equity grants.
  • zallarak 14y ago
    Interesting you say this, because when I was an employee at a YC company, I was told that YC partners thought I was overpaid (while making "below market" and working lots of overtime and heavily contributing, and basically using my necessity as leverage to negotiate what partners thought was an 'overpaid' salary). NOTE: I am very grateful for my time there, but I wanted to point this out.
    • michaelochurch 14y ago
      I have no idea who you are or what company you worked for, but a lot of things are blamed on "investors" that are actually management's own detested ideas. It's a somewhat dishonest negotiation tactic: It's Not Up To Me. It's unfair that YC is being singled out here. These are genuine VC-istan issues, not limited to YC startups. All of the YC founders I know are great, but sample size is small.
  • guptaneil 14y ago
    I'd argue that being less generous with benefits is a good filter for hiring candidates that are genuinely interested in what the startup's doing (which is crucial in early employees) rather than somebody who's just looking for another job, like the author. Edit: To clarify, there is huge difference between offering no benefits and offering fewer benefits than a large company. I'm not advocating treating employees like crap. I'm saying that there is a potential benefit to startups who don't try to compete on monetary benefits. Startups should provide as many benefits as possible, but not worry about competing with the financial packages that a large company can provide. Also, if you disagree, please give your reasoning below. Downvoting to show disagreement just seems lazy.
• pclark 14y ago
  I don't understand what this has to do with Y Combinator.
• rohern 14y ago
  I think the most interesting question raised by this article is, "Why are the smart people graduating from college willing to get shafted by startups?" Why are schools failing to teach engineers about caring for their own careers? I do not think most business majors would put up with kind of crap. They are all taught to negotiate for salary and to get high earnings early as a basis for later demands. They also understand how stock options work and that 0.5% over a four-year vesting cycle with no protection in the event of acquisition is an atrociously bad deal.
  • dopamean 14y ago
    Someone else here mentioned something about joining a startup because it can be a great opportunity to learn. Maybe you can get something out of it other than money that is very valuable. This kind of thinking would appeal to a young kid straight out of college and perhaps not to a 40 year old with kids who wants to buy a house. Different strokes...
  • bearmf 14y ago
    Negotiating for salary is useless for a business major who cannot get a job. You are also vastly overestimating their average intellectual capabilities with respect to options vesting rules. CS graduates have it very good right now, much, much better than business majors.
• meerita 14y ago
  The panorama in Spain for many startups: - 30k/year (minus all the taxes) ~21/23k/y - 28 days for holidays. - No health insurances (free health insurance on the country) - No conferences - No pluses. Profitable companies: a bit more of money, but not that much: 35K/year. About shares, as usual: the promise. some of them makes you sign something but to opt those you need to stay around 5 years, wait to be IPO or you can sell the opt to the company for a really stupid price. With taxes you pay the pension, etc.
  • herdrick 14y ago
    How much does a house cost where those startups are?
    • meerita 14y ago
      by house you mean housing for companies or families? A house in Barcelona costs around 200k-500k.
• eliben 14y ago
  I've always found it amusing how very important $150/month Clipper passes are deemed by devs earning $200K salaries.
• wbharding 14y ago
  As a CEO/Founder running a business that is revenue-sensitive, my developer-side completely agrees with the "FYPM" attitude of OP. Every story I see about the supposed "tech talent crunch" makes me wince at the fact that the average web developer salary is about the same from when I started my company five years ago to now. If there's really a shortage, the makers ought to be getting paid: in dollars, not kool aid. This isn't even to mention the "glory deficit" that goes with being an employee. With today's incubator explosion, any decent technologist can own 50%+ of their own company. If they're going to work for yours, you'd better pay them. And spend more time glorifying those who want to work as a team, rather than those that chase the CEO/Founder glory (a common blog post written by CEOs, Founders and VCs).
• suyash 14y ago
  Great Post: Fuck You, Pay me!!
• zallarak 14y ago
  I think the fear people have in choosing a larger company is that they're going to miss out on working with smart people on interesting problems, having work-ownership, etc. This was my personal fear. I've worked at 2 early-stage "prestigious enough" startups and now work at a much larger company that offers a much better work-life balance/salary/benefits/etc. What I've found is that contrary to my fears, it does indeed have "smart people, interesting problems to work on", etc. - without the BS you have to deal with at smaller and/or unprofitable startups (bad benefits, hours, etc.). To be fair, it's harder to find larger companies that offer this, and the one I'm at isn't massive, it's no more than 50 people. Unless invalidated startups begin offering better equity packages (because most can't usually afford to pay market salaries) they are going to see talent leave. It baffles me to think that companies think they can get away with this. And to those engineers who accept below-market salaries and small equity packages I ask you to question why - know that even if you work your *ss off and the product succeeds, your equity payout is probably in the tens of thousands at most - a typical bonus for a lot of entry/mid-level software engineers.
• ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I clicked through to his LinkedIn resume (always on the look out for solid DevOps types). I think it is great that Michael understands exactly what he wants in terms of a compensation package. And for a variety of reasons, its pretty clear that a "startup" isn't going to meet those needs. So he's currently "Contractor at Self-Employed" which is also fine because you really do have a lot of flexibility as a contractor that you don't have as a rank-and-file employee at BigCo. But the anger and the hurt, that is not healthy. The impression that rant leaves me with is that Michael feels he brings great value to the organization, and wants to be compensated commensurately with that value. And yet nobody has agreed to his terms. It may be they can't (reading his list is a lot of capital to invest in a single employee), it may be they disagree about value, or it may be they have structural issues around it (managing the expectations of other employees, Etc.) The "shut up and pay me what I'm worth" mantra is not a healthy internal dialog, it instantly makes you enemies with the very person you're trying to be friends with, the guy with the job. Worse it focuses your effort on the wrong question. Lets use a very simple analogy for how this can go wrong. Lets say you own a bicycle, and one of the tires has a slow leak. You go into an "inflation" store and the sales guy has really nice compressors, they've got pressure values that are accurate to within 1/10th PSI, they have valves to deliver exactly the right amount of inflation, large multi-gallon storage tanks to deliver air efficiently and on time, and valves, a most wondrous universal valving system that pretty much guarantees you will never have a tire that this thing can't inflate. All for the low low price of $899. And the bike rider says, "I really just need a hand pump, I'm prepared to pay $25 for it..." Now is our consumer some ignorant boob that can't see the value of a truly fine tire inflation apparatus? No. And the sales guy shouldn't get mad if the customer isn't willing to over pay so much to achieve their goal of keeping a leaky tire from going flat. The key is that it isn't that the tire inflator isn't "worth" the money, its that the problem isn't worth the inflater's price. It would work, but the extra cost doesn't bring extra value. So Michael's rant might be he cannot find a company yet that has the size problems that he can solve. No doubt there are such companies, but the larger the problem size, the harder it is to connect with the person who is looking. Some folks take the path of being 'under employed' to get at least some benefits while they seek out the right spot, some start their own thing, but yelling at the YC founders and insinuating that their goal in life is to fleece their employees in the pursuit of their own success does Michael a disservice.
• jacoblyles 14y ago
  It's true that Bay Area startups spread their equity shamefully thin. Doubling the equity stakes for employees wouldn't dilute the founders much for most startups and it would feel a lot more fair when everybody is working late at night.
  • throwawayhooray 14y ago
    It's really funny when Founders are stodgy about giving more than a single percentage of equity per employee when those early employees will probably work just as many hours.
• lubujackson 14y ago
  The takeaway from this is if you want to build a startup run by adults (gray neckbeards), these are their concerns. Forget the foosball and lunches, focus on healthcare for families and gym memberships. It's not 1995 anymore. Now there ARE candidates who have been there and done that. It's clearly better to have employees with startup experience who don't operate always in crisis mode.
• aashaykumar92 14y ago
  Benefits, or lack thereof, is your central point. I'm not quite sure that by comparing a YC-startup to another startup in the same round of funding, especially in the later rounds, it says much about YC or their founders. In fact, I'd argue there is no correlation. When a company has been backed by several investors, the founders don't usually carry a huge weight in deciding the benefits of each of their employees...they most likely listen to their advisors/investors. If you think a company should offer a higher salary and/or better benefits, then best is to be frank and tell them. Especially since you are experienced and you've been given offers, a simple email or call saying "Hey guys, I think what you're doing is great but there are other companies at the same stage as you giving much better salaries/benefits", I like to think they'd be open to listening and looking to change. A illogical correlation + complaint on HN is not exactly doing yourself or anyone any good.
• thom 14y ago
  You forgot the #humblebrag hashtag.
• vivekajayshah 14y ago
  Startups benefits don't have to suck! Our company has worked with dozens of startups to provide amazing benefits - for usually less than 3-4% of employee salaries. Check us out: http://www.simplyinsured.com http://www.simplyinsured.com
• mrkurt 14y ago
  There's some awfully strange stuff in this particular post, though I generally agree that startups tend to lowball people on offers. For instance: > I turned them down because they were preparing to make me a below-market offer in exchange for what I expected to be an insulting amount of equity, and a non-existant benefits package. There are three possible answers to an offer: yes, no, counter. It's really odd to focus this much on salary + benefits without even taking the time to counter. We're not-entirely-dissimilar from the YC company he was describing, and the simple truth is that we lack many on paper benefits because we haven't taken the time to formalize many of them. Which means there's lots of leeway to ask for stuff. There's no strict "3 conferences per year" but I'm pretty sure everyone in the company goes to any conference they want to (including Velocity, and ChefConf ... you might see them there). > The YCombinator company probably didn't care enough to have their lawyer draw up the paperwork so that their employees can execute on their stock options from the first day to avoid AMT. Really? I'm pretty sure the standard docs nearly all YC companies use are pretty solid, and they'll usually even have their lawyers help with an 83b election. There's a lot of math and snark based on a "probably" that's probably wrong. > Both companies offer the same, worthless stock options of 0.50% of the company, before an expected dilution. If they just raised at a $40mm valuation, 0.5% equity is literally worth $200k to them right now (in the sense that they could exchanged another 0.5% of the company for $200k). If they're anything like us, they don't want to give up equity anyway. We would happily give a higher salary with no equity to new hires. Equity is really a chance to trade some salary for a large check if things go incredibly well. It's not the rational choice at early employee levels, but it's a chance to get a little of the risk/reward action. The reality is that higher equity levels (ie: founder levels) come with a huge amount of risk, which often isn't feasible for people that can pull large salaries.
  • danielweber 14y ago
    If they just raised at a $40mm valuation, 0.5% equity is literally worth $200k to them right now True for a stock grant, but these are stock options.
    • mrkurt 14y ago
      The strike price on options is usually really low relative to fund raising valuations. It's not vastly different than an equity grant, at least in the cases where it matters (ie: good ones). I think everyone would prefer to just give actual equity, but the tax implications are pretty terrible for the recipient.
• DividesByZero 14y ago
  " All start-ups today are about supporting advertising in one way or another." Ouch. It must suck to be in an ecosystem where that's true.
• prince_hakeem 14y ago
  Sorry kids, he's dead on balls accurate with his posting. I've been saying the same thing for years to startups that want to hire me. Risk/reward makes no sense for anyone but founders. The only way is if you're pretty sure they'll get acquired and you get a good bump in comp. from it. Otherwise nobody senior level should be working for any of these startups today. Go look at AngelList and see how pathetic these offers are for senior level people. Offers for the same money I made in 2000. Talent shortage my ass. More like moron that's a good developer shortage. Feeling better everyday about bailing on the whole startup world and taking a job at a giant tech company. Way less stress, more money, time, and freedom. Eff YC and eff the startups that are continually lowballing developer talent.
• philco 14y ago
  I don't think he gets it. The choice is clear, do you want to earn, or do you want to learn? Going to an early stage startup as a non-founder is learning...you don't have the upside of a founder, but you're exposed to a lot of really cool shit. You want to earn? Then go earn where people will pay you what you want? The post had nothing to do with benefits, it had everything to do with money. IF you want to make money, and you don't care about the problems you're solving, and you don't care about learning, then go work for Oracle. Stop bitching.
  • lazyjones 14y ago
    > Going to an early stage startup as a non-founder is learning Really? So startups do not need any experienced developers and architects? It's the other way round, the founders usually need to do the learning (fast!) and they'd better hire experienced people who can teach them something.
    • whynotbalu 14y ago
      Your argument about experience probably holds a ton of water in other domains, but I question that it applies to every technology startup. A lot of technology startups are better off not hiring any any experienced folks (developers, business people, whatever) for a long long time. Young people learn and adapt faster and are less blinded by past knowledge and heuristics by how the world operates, so there are tons of technology startups that can probably go a long time without bringing on experienced folks. This is a specific argument, cannot be generalized for all startups. Full Disclosure: I'm a "young person".
• confluence 14y ago
  I'll repost a previous comment for the benefit of the HN community concerning exactly this situation for start-up employees from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362 (great discussion there btw), for those who missed it the first time around (hope that's ok): ... Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It'd be better to bump your salary up $10-20K than to get the stock. 2. Unless it's liquid - it's worthless. 3. Valuations pre-cashflow - are useless. Anybody can value anything at insane levels using just one dollar. I value HN at $1 billion by offering to buy only 1 share of 1 billion in common stock for $1 right now. See the implicit valuation leverage. I took a dollar, then invented the billion. 4. If you work for a "nasty" startup - one which people can consider to be negative long term to one or more parties - expect eventual collapse or flat line growth (Zynga/Groupon). 5. Companies exist to make management, investors and founders rich - they hold the vast majority of the stock - and benefit greatly from path dependence and network effects. You on the other hand don't. Expect to be screwed at any time. Think of it like this. Managers/founders of most companies are pretty dipshit - how is it that they can own so much more stock? Simple. Be there earlier! Akin to how old money works. Imagine if you were the first person to squat land near what has now become Manhattan. You'd easily be worth hundreds of millions. There is obviously some skill in researching, predicting, working and acquiring land that will soon appreciate in value. But it's not worth nearly that much. Path dependence, luck and network effects do that. See GFC boom and that dumbass cousin who made and almost certainly lost millions in housing to understand how this works out. Startups really aren't that different to a speculative investment in a house during boom times. Once you understand this - a lot of things start to make a hell of a lot more sense. 6. PG says be relentlessly resourceful. That's useful. But even better is to be relentlessly cynical. Free t-shirts? Just an easy way to drop your salary and indoctrinate you - scratch that - it's a god damn uniform - freedom be damned! Free food? You took a $30-$40K pay cut to take the damn job - the food isn't worth a tenth of that + you're now working during lunch hours! Free hardware? That's only $2-$4K. Hackathons? That's just work during your free time - or if it's during work time, it's a startup product you should own, but don't. More days off? Aren't you already working 60+ hours a week today! Culture shit after work? That's just more indoctrination. Gym membership? Only $200-500 - peanuts! Flexible work hours? That just means work more, but do it at times that aren't 9-5. Parental leave? Big companies and Europe have had that for ages. Oh, and that culture fit crap? That's just discrimination - rebranded! What? You don't like what other late 20s upper-class educated males like? Be gone heathen! End advice. Not saying big companies or government jobs are any better. But at the very least you're already cynical about those things and demand to get paid well enough in risk-adjusted terms.
• lnanek2 14y ago
  He doesn't sound like he is interested in startups. He has a kid, a big time draw, he says he is going to work 20 hours a week contracting on the side, a big time draw, he wants expensive benefits, a big money draw from the company hurting its runway and making the founders waste time fundraising more often, he gets told he can take unlimited vacation yet decides he'll still hold them to the 15 number, so the extra freedom you get at a smaller younger company isn't even used by him, he says he is saving up for a house, a big distraction from just paying for food and rent, etc.. Someone scrimping and saving every penny and working a side job is not going to grab some hardware that helps them work, or take a cab when they need it to get to an important meeting, or work overnight, etc. they are going to scrimp and save and be less effective and clock out ASAP each day to do their contracting or spend time with their kid. It doesn't really surprise me that he then considers joining a C round company the same as joining a freshly funded YC company and that he thinks both will just sell to a talent acquisition. And that he doesn't think a smaller earlier company gives him a lot more independence and control over what happens to the company. You can find a lot of founders who definitely will not go for a talent acquisition, which you would do if you are going for a big win. And joining a later round at the same equity means much less upside for the big win. You aren't going to be part of as many big valuation increases. But if you aren't putting a lot into the startup and are spending time on kids, contacting on the side, saving up for a house, I kind of doubt you are going for a big win at your company anyway. It's OK if you aren't going for a big win, but should you join a startup if you aren't? Should you say joining a startup is a bad idea when you are intentionally making all the choices that make it a bad idea? I don't think he's really in a position to even understand the cost benefits of more cash/benefits vs. more equity and more runway and better startup performance since he doesn't care about the startup's performance, so of course he prefers more cash/benefits.
• Aloha 14y ago
  I'm a contractor, I work for one of the largest telecom companies in the world. Anyone who has worked for this company knows how well known it is for endless bureaucracy, which is fine, because they pay me even if I cant actually do any work. I make around to slightly above market rates. I have no benefits. I pay for health insurance. I have no paid vacation. I don't get catered lunches. I don't get a foosball table either. Even though I'm a field service engineer, I don't even have a company vehicle. I'm a mid-career telecom engineer, I've been doing telecom support and IT Service for 10 years, I would love to find a permanent position, every perm role I have made it into, I've been either downsized or outsourced out of. So I contract. So when I see someone like this bemoaning their very good situation, I can't help but roll my eyes a little.
• trustfundbaby 14y ago
  can someone explain this to me please? > The YCombinator company probably didn't care enough to have their lawyer draw up the paperwork so that their employees can execute on their stock options from the first day to avoid AMT. what does "executing" on stock options mean? how does it work with vesting?
• onan_barbarian 14y ago
  You have to wonder about someone who has interviewed with "about a dozen" YC companies and turned them all down for the same reason. If the pattern is that obvious, what's he doing going back for interviews 4..12? In a shock development, apparently YC companies don't slaver over "senior" employees who have stuff like this in their profiles: "I'm just this guy who used to enjoy tech, now I would rather build bicycles. I still work in the tech industry, for the money, but I no longer call myself a "technologist"." Wow, you can really feel the passion.
• just2n 14y ago
  > I'm not going to mention salaries, but I'm a senior engineer with 20 years of experience and can command a pretty good salary. Why is it everyone is still afraid or committed to upholding this "taboo" about talk regarding salaries? Companies LOVE this. What's fair? Fuck if I know. I don't know what anyone else makes but my close friends, and that's a tiny sampling. While you're sharing advice, why intentionally spread ignorance? "Fuck you, pay me" you say. But what if my asking price is unbeknownst to me below market for someone of my experience, work ethic, age, and talent? That has an impact on both me AND you. Think about it.
• miah_ 14y ago
  As a transgender women working in the Bay I can say that no 'startup' has ever proven to me that they cared when it comes to benefits. I still have yet to land a job anywhere that doesn't have explicit exclusions for transgendered people in their insurance policies. Yay. I get paid well. Its a good thing too because paying out of pocket for health care is shit even when you make six figures.