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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

by 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
buro9 14y ago
> "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"." Actually, I love that. If our company was a little further along and I could afford to hire him I'd make an approach. I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things, it's a tool we use. I prefer to have a techie who is able to feel the tactile quality in the process of bicycle building (bespoke frame-building through to just getting your hands dirty piecing components together) as I'd hope such an eye would course through everything that person did. If he's a tech guy with 20 years experience, and that eye for a quality build and the aesthetic utility in a bicycle, then I'd be keen to see whether his work reflects it. Companies go through phases, and the beg, borrow and steal... and poor package and renumeration... is the first phase and we should all seek to get beyond that quickly. A business should be sustainable. To me that means that the costs of the business should be able to be fully met and not externalised: a good package for good people is part of that. As soon as it's possible to, that should be in place... because if we're not building a sustainable business then what are we doing?
- Schwolop 14y ago
  > I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things Absolutely agreed. I just wrote about this recently[1], arguing that to be the best programmer, you really need to do something else as a specialty, and have programming simply as your trade. Programming is a value enhancer on another skill, and (in my opinion) is less value if it's the only thing you can offer. Effectively, your skill caps out at some point, and to continue increasing your impact you need to draw on something else too. [1] http://www.drtomallen.com/1/post/2013/03/more-than-a-programmer.html http://www.drtomallen.com/1/post/2013/03/more-than-a-program...
  - kyllo 14y ago
    That's easier said than done. Programming is such a hard and specialized field, that very few people can be fully competent at it and have another field of business expertise. There are two general paths to that: 1. Study CS in school, get employed as a programmer in an unrelated industry and attempt to absorb industry knowledge from your coworkers outside the IT department (easier to do at a small company). Industry knowledge will inform your code projects and put them in context, but your job is still to write code and not to participate in business decisions. 2. Study business admin or econ in school, get employed in marketing or operations, and attempt to learn programming on the side. You can use programming skills to write personal automation scripts and maybe some internal productivity apps to share with your colleagues, but will not be asked or trusted to work on any production codebase as that is not part of your job description, and they already hired dedicated programmers to do that. You do not have a lot of time to work on coding anyway, because you have other responsibilities. Things can get more fuzzy at a small company where people tend to wear more hats. But at most big companies, job descriptions are pretty specialized, and programming either is your job or it isn't.
yalogin 14y ago
I guess the point of his post is the YC companies are only attractive to some one below 25 years of age with no family to care about. That would mean the YC companies are all looking for the few talented below 25 yr old people.
- rohern 14y ago
  The additional advantage of this age group being that they generally have no experience with salary negotiations or normal work-life balance. In fact, if they're coming out of a top CS program, they are probably used to bonkers work-life balance, which is exactly what a startup will demand of them.
michael_miller 14y ago
The takeaway is that YC companies need to offer more equity, if they hope to attract people like the OP. At the end of the day, most YC companies don't have money to fund the salary and benefits packages the OP wants. This is expected for startups, the idea is that you get paid in equity instead of cash/benefits. Given more equity, the OP could sacrifice some savings to pay for the benefits he wants (clipper card, health insurance for his daughter, health club membership, etc.), with the idea that the expected value of his stock would pay for these benefits in the long run. It seems pretty clear that he feels YC companies are not offering enough equity to make this tradeoff worthwhile. Thus, the only practical solution for YC companies to attract talent like the author is to provide more equity.
- danielweber 14y ago
  YC companies need to offer more equity If they don't have a seat on the board, they have no reason to trust that their equity will not be diluted into dust.
angersock 14y ago
"But I'm not sure what the takeaway should be for Y-Combinator companies." It seems like a core assertion of the article (and in the comments) is that being a YC company means very little to anyone other than the founders. Honest question: A few years out, how much does it matter to employees? Do they get to go the clubhouse? What's in it for them, other than a hope that their paychecks will come more reliably? For founders, YC, fuck yeah--but I don't think for employees the value prop is there compared with having actual awesome compensation.
chetanahuja 14y ago
Actually I'd be interested in hearing about these so called "tangible" benefits of being an employee (not a founder) at a YC funded start-up vs working at any other company, all else being equal (your quality of prior work, strength of your references etc.) ? Personally, a potential hire's having been at a yc vs a non-yc company has no bearing on my decision either way.
CountSessine 14y ago
I'm about 40 years old. I have two kids. I'm not sure that I would ever have called myself a 'technologist' - but I love programming and I love technology - maybe even more than I did when I was 20. But the point of the article is that working for a YC startup isn't in ANYONE's interest. You don't get the security of a large established company, but you also don't get any of the equity that the founders get. And there are plenty of medium-to-large size companies that have well-established business models that are great places to work, have awesome technology, and are solving difficult problems. Working for a startup without equity has no up-side and plenty of down-side. Unless the YC startup is doing something you really believe in - and I don't just mean 'cool tech' - I mean something that you can feel good about having participated in 10 years from now, something that made you or the world better - insist on equity. Otherwise you're being exploited.

by aresant 14y ago

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

buro9 14y ago

> "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"." Actually, I love that. If our company was a little further along and I could afford to hire him I'd make an approach. I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things, it's a tool we use. I prefer to have a techie who is able to feel the tactile quality in the process of bicycle building (bespoke frame-building through to just getting your hands dirty piecing components together) as I'd hope such an eye would course through everything that person did. If he's a tech guy with 20 years experience, and that eye for a quality build and the aesthetic utility in a bicycle, then I'd be keen to see whether his work reflects it. Companies go through phases, and the beg, borrow and steal... and poor package and renumeration... is the first phase and we should all seek to get beyond that quickly. A business should be sustainable. To me that means that the costs of the business should be able to be fully met and not externalised: a good package for good people is part of that. As soon as it's possible to, that should be in place... because if we're not building a sustainable business then what are we doing?

Schwolop 14y ago
> I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all of things Absolutely agreed. I just wrote about this recently[1], arguing that to be the best programmer, you really need to do something else as a specialty, and have programming simply as your trade. Programming is a value enhancer on another skill, and (in my opinion) is less value if it's the only thing you can offer. Effectively, your skill caps out at some point, and to continue increasing your impact you need to draw on something else too. [1] http://www.drtomallen.com/1/post/2013/03/more-than-a-programmer.html http://www.drtomallen.com/1/post/2013/03/more-than-a-program...
- kyllo 14y ago
  That's easier said than done. Programming is such a hard and specialized field, that very few people can be fully competent at it and have another field of business expertise. There are two general paths to that: 1. Study CS in school, get employed as a programmer in an unrelated industry and attempt to absorb industry knowledge from your coworkers outside the IT department (easier to do at a small company). Industry knowledge will inform your code projects and put them in context, but your job is still to write code and not to participate in business decisions. 2. Study business admin or econ in school, get employed in marketing or operations, and attempt to learn programming on the side. You can use programming skills to write personal automation scripts and maybe some internal productivity apps to share with your colleagues, but will not be asked or trusted to work on any production codebase as that is not part of your job description, and they already hired dedicated programmers to do that. You do not have a lot of time to work on coding anyway, because you have other responsibilities. Things can get more fuzzy at a small company where people tend to wear more hats. But at most big companies, job descriptions are pretty specialized, and programming either is your job or it isn't.

yalogin 14y ago

I guess the point of his post is the YC companies are only attractive to some one below 25 years of age with no family to care about. That would mean the YC companies are all looking for the few talented below 25 yr old people.

rohern 14y ago
The additional advantage of this age group being that they generally have no experience with salary negotiations or normal work-life balance. In fact, if they're coming out of a top CS program, they are probably used to bonkers work-life balance, which is exactly what a startup will demand of them.

michael_miller 14y ago

The takeaway is that YC companies need to offer more equity, if they hope to attract people like the OP. At the end of the day, most YC companies don't have money to fund the salary and benefits packages the OP wants. This is expected for startups, the idea is that you get paid in equity instead of cash/benefits. Given more equity, the OP could sacrifice some savings to pay for the benefits he wants (clipper card, health insurance for his daughter, health club membership, etc.), with the idea that the expected value of his stock would pay for these benefits in the long run. It seems pretty clear that he feels YC companies are not offering enough equity to make this tradeoff worthwhile. Thus, the only practical solution for YC companies to attract talent like the author is to provide more equity.

danielweber 14y ago
YC companies need to offer more equity If they don't have a seat on the board, they have no reason to trust that their equity will not be diluted into dust.

angersock 14y ago

"But I'm not sure what the takeaway should be for Y-Combinator companies." It seems like a core assertion of the article (and in the comments) is that being a YC company means very little to anyone other than the founders. Honest question: A few years out, how much does it matter to employees? Do they get to go the clubhouse? What's in it for them, other than a hope that their paychecks will come more reliably? For founders, YC, fuck yeah--but I don't think for employees the value prop is there compared with having actual awesome compensation.

chetanahuja 14y ago

Actually I'd be interested in hearing about these so called "tangible" benefits of being an employee (not a founder) at a YC funded start-up vs working at any other company, all else being equal (your quality of prior work, strength of your references etc.) ? Personally, a potential hire's having been at a yc vs a non-yc company has no bearing on my decision either way.

CountSessine 14y ago

I'm about 40 years old. I have two kids. I'm not sure that I would ever have called myself a 'technologist' - but I love programming and I love technology - maybe even more than I did when I was 20. But the point of the article is that working for a YC startup isn't in ANYONE's interest. You don't get the security of a large established company, but you also don't get any of the equity that the founders get. And there are plenty of medium-to-large size companies that have well-established business models that are great places to work, have awesome technology, and are solving difficult problems. Working for a startup without equity has no up-side and plenty of down-side. Unless the YC startup is doing something you really believe in - and I don't just mean 'cool tech' - I mean something that you can feel good about having participated in 10 years from now, something that made you or the world better - insist on equity. Otherwise you're being exploited.