4 ms·

kind of my point. I guess it's prestige when you have 'I wrote the youtube player' on your resume when youtube was a startup. if you have 'I wrote the nextvidfl

by zalew 14y ago

kind of my point. I guess it's prestige when you have 'I wrote the youtube player' on your resume when youtube was a startup. if you have 'I wrote the nextvidflixr.io player but we closed down after 3months because the founder was a moron' it's cool story bro, now go home and get your fking shinebox, isn't it? there are startups and startups. //edit: and in my hypothetical example I don't mean the skillset required to write a player, but the position where you worked with successful people that did everything right, rather than the same experience at a wannabe company doomed to fail.

michaelochurch 14y ago
The "career booster" argument is something that the bad startups use to sway clueless young talent. It's not true in general, and a good startup will show you the kind of work you'll be doing and let you decide for yourself. Yes, good startups are good for peoples' careers, but there are only a few of those in existence (that are still startups; I wouldn't count Facebook) at a given time. Oh, and most of the good startups are slow-growth companies you've never heard of, but that are doing genuinely interesting work (machine learning, robotics, etc.) rather than social media. They're very selective and hard to find, but those are much better options than these VC darlings. Social Media is the Reality TV of startups. It's not common because it's good, but because it's cheap. Here, "cheap" pertains to talent (hard to find, especially for non-technical people) more than anything else. It's easier to get a title at a startup, and if you can convince the next employer to take that title seriously, you can swing it to a permanent improvement. I think, though, that unless a startup has distinguished itself as a real engineering shop (and very few have, because very few deserve that accolade) that being a startup engineer is a career negative. Most of these startups have MBA-type management and the Design Paradox implies, so the engineers aren't very good. With a few startups excepted, most startups see engineers as cost centers and give them laughably low equity and if you work at a company like that, you're a chump.
- tptacek 14y ago
  This is a comment that says there are only a few good startups in existence. There is no possible way the author fo the comment can back that argument up. It's a sentiment that stretches past commendable skepticism, past cynicism, and lands with a flatulent thud right in the soft belly of parody. It's like a mirror image of the "sharing economy will render property ownership obsolete". That's too bad, because when it isn't making ludicrous generalizations about the CS/engineering demographics of the whole tech startup sector, it makes a good point about not accepting below-market wages from tech companies.
  - consz 14y ago
    >This is a comment that says there are only a few good startups in existence. There is no possible way the author fo the comment can back that argument up. Why does he have to back it up? Null hypothesis, "There are no good startups", right?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Uncharitably: what he's saying is that there only a few startups he considers good that he can name off the top of his head.
      - michaelochurch 14y ago
        Why is that uncharitable? It's fairly true. I am sure there are a lot of great companies out there that I've never heard of.
        tptacek 14y ago
        Wow, what a dishonest response. Your attempt to repurpose the premise of my comment as if had been yours to begin with ignores your actual assertion, which is "but there are only a few of those [good startups] in existence". I apologize in advance if you are like that guy in that movie who lost his long-term memory and therefore could only remember the last hour of his life and therefore only had my comment to go on in composing that response.
        michaelochurch 14y ago
        Are you John G?

by zalew 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago

The "career booster" argument is something that the bad startups use to sway clueless young talent. It's not true in general, and a good startup will show you the kind of work you'll be doing and let you decide for yourself. Yes, good startups are good for peoples' careers, but there are only a few of those in existence (that are still startups; I wouldn't count Facebook) at a given time. Oh, and most of the good startups are slow-growth companies you've never heard of, but that are doing genuinely interesting work (machine learning, robotics, etc.) rather than social media. They're very selective and hard to find, but those are much better options than these VC darlings. Social Media is the Reality TV of startups. It's not common because it's good, but because it's cheap. Here, "cheap" pertains to talent (hard to find, especially for non-technical people) more than anything else. It's easier to get a title at a startup, and if you can convince the next employer to take that title seriously, you can swing it to a permanent improvement. I think, though, that unless a startup has distinguished itself as a real engineering shop (and very few have, because very few deserve that accolade) that being a startup engineer is a career negative. Most of these startups have MBA-type management and the Design Paradox implies, so the engineers aren't very good. With a few startups excepted, most startups see engineers as cost centers and give them laughably low equity and if you work at a company like that, you're a chump.

tptacek 14y ago
This is a comment that says there are only a few good startups in existence. There is no possible way the author fo the comment can back that argument up. It's a sentiment that stretches past commendable skepticism, past cynicism, and lands with a flatulent thud right in the soft belly of parody. It's like a mirror image of the "sharing economy will render property ownership obsolete". That's too bad, because when it isn't making ludicrous generalizations about the CS/engineering demographics of the whole tech startup sector, it makes a good point about not accepting below-market wages from tech companies.
- consz 14y ago
  >This is a comment that says there are only a few good startups in existence. There is no possible way the author fo the comment can back that argument up. Why does he have to back it up? Null hypothesis, "There are no good startups", right?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Uncharitably: what he's saying is that there only a few startups he considers good that he can name off the top of his head.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      Why is that uncharitable? It's fairly true. I am sure there are a lot of great companies out there that I've never heard of.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Wow, what a dishonest response. Your attempt to repurpose the premise of my comment as if had been yours to begin with ignores your actual assertion, which is "but there are only a few of those [good startups] in existence". I apologize in advance if you are like that guy in that movie who lost his long-term memory and therefore could only remember the last hour of his life and therefore only had my comment to go on in composing that response.
        michaelochurch 14y ago
        Are you John G?