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His initial premise, that laid-off wall streeters would flock to startups, was flawed in many ways. - the tech stack on wall street is totally different than m
by menloparkbum 17y ago
His initial premise, that laid-off wall streeters would flock to startups, was flawed in many ways.
- the tech stack on wall street is totally different than most startups. On Wall Street it's Windows, Solaris, C++ and EXCEL. At most startups, its uh... not those things.
- most startups don't actually need statistical heavyweights. the whole "analytics" thing he is talking about is a small part of MOST startups. that kind of thing is bigger at google and paypal and after the startup is already successful and has millions of users per hour.
- the actually programmers on wall street are the last ones to get fired
- the financial risk situation is wildly different. on wall street it's $150K base + bonus. at a startup it's $60-$80K + worthless equity. To most wall streeters it's worth waiting around an extra 9 months to see if they can get another $150K job.
- the startups in NYC largely suck, anyway. it's not like actual startup programmers are flocking to them, either.
- gruseom 17y agoThat's a much more sensible explanation than the article gives. My point was more superficial: the statements I quoted are contradictory, or at least oxymoronic, because software talent is largely the ability to go through learning curves.
- menloparkbum 17y agoThey are indeed contradictory statements. In this case, I think he's simply wrong. I've met many startup founders in silicon valley who had worked at places like morgan stanley and goldman sachs. Fred Wilson's just upset that they aren't working at HIS startups. And why would they? The pay is bad (compared to wall street, or even working at google), the startups are dumb and there's not even much theoretical upside.