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I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true tha

by pg 13y ago

I used to advise people to go work for an existing company for a few years before trying to start their own, but I now think that was bad advice. It's true that you learn things working for a big company, but you learn more, faster, starting your own. A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. The one point in this article that's valid is the last one. Startups take over your life. So if you want to focus on other things besides work, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ktd 13y ago
>A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. I feel like the fact that you funded these people constitutes a very significant selection effect here.
nostrademons 13y ago
You're getting a biased sample at YC, because everybody who wishes they'd stayed at their corporate job longer stays at the corporate job. Or they wash out and go back to corporate life before applying to YC, or you sense their lack of passion for their startup at the interview stage and don't let them in. Corporate life, after all, is the "default" choice, the one that doesn't take any particular decision to make. If I had to advise people, I'd say "It's time to do a startup when you have more trouble concentrating on your job because you're distracted by your startup idea than you have trouble concentrating on your startup because you're distracted by your job." That comes at different times for different people, and it's not uncommon for someone to bounce between the two of them multiple times during their lifetime. Above all, I don't think it's a binary choice: it's silly to think in terms of "I'm a startup person" or "I'm a big company person", you should evaluate every opportunity available to you on its own merits rather than relying on your preconceptions of what you think it'll be like.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
What are the advantages of being an employee of a startup vs an employee of a big corporation, besides working with smart people?
mjn 13y ago
> So if you want to focus on other things besides work, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup. Or, alternately: if you're a rational agent interested in maximizing risk-adjusted returns, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup.
- pg 13y ago
  Depends how good you are. If you're very good, you have better expected value working for yourself than averaging your work together with a bunch of other people. If not you're better off working for someone else. (You're making a common statistical mistake here. You're concluding that because 1/x startups succeed, the odds of each person's startup succeeding is 1/x. You can see this clearly if you ask what the probability is that someone is over 6 feet tall. Although 1/x people are, the probability for each person is either 1 or 0. And while no one's chances of succeeding are 1, the startup case is closer to the height example than to rolling dice. Someone like the young Bill Gates would have a much higher probability of succeeding than a person selected at random.)
  - mjn 13y ago
    Of course, most people who think they are two standard deviations above the mean in expected returns, are not in fact that much out of the ordinary (monetarily, anyway). So the a priori expected return also needs to adjust for the risk that your self-assessment is incorrect. You are making a common mistake inherent in backwards-looking risk assessment, considering the Bill Gates example after Bill Gates is already massively wealthy. Prior to Bill Gates founding Microsoft, or even in its early years, his main advantages were in coming from a wealthy family, and few people bet on his company getting exceptionally huge (as evidenced by the early Microsoft market cap, which was not exactly tens of billions). I would argue the ultimate outcome there, whether Bill Gates "succeeds" into $50b or "fails" into a mere $10m, is closer to rolling dice, and not reliably predictable. In any case, Bill Gates was a trust-fund kid with a multi-million inheritance backstopping him, so is excluded from the field of consideration I'm positing here, which is what decision is best for kids who come from less-wealthy families.
  - 13y ago
mrmaddog 13y ago
What are your thoughts on joining a big company vs joining a startup (as opposed to starting a company yourself)? On average, it seems one would still learn faster and be able to take on many new roles as an employee at a startup, but an employe also is in a chaotic world that he or she doesn't completely control (and often working with incomplete information). Do you think this trade-off is worth it? And, since I'm guessing you lean towards 'yes' on that question, do you think there are different questions a prospective startup-employee should ask as opposed to the questions a potential investor in the startup would ask?
- pg 13y ago
  That would be a good middle ground. You'd learn a lot more about how startups operate in a startup than in a big company. If you join early enough your experience will be close to that of a founder.
- ivv 13y ago
  Joining, not launching, a start-up is what the article's author is actually comparing to a corp job: "Should I join Microsoft or a startup?" Financially and over the long term, a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time. And yet you won't get rich. The chances of getting rich as an employee of a startup are admittedly small, but nonzero.
    - ivv 13y ago
      The chances of you getting rich (say, hitting $1M) by accumulating some capital from your corp job and then using it to pick the right stocks on the market are probably greater than working at a start-up with a sub-1% equity and a reduced pay and waiting for the big exit, which in this case would have to be well in the over $100M territory. Working at a start-up obviously has its non-monetary benefits over other forms of employment, but getting rich, on average, is probably not one of them.
unono 13y ago
As usual, PG is 100% right, fighting for us hackers. The article, and others like it, are nefarious corporate PR pieces put out by Microsoft, Google, Apple and others designed to trick us into not realizing the tremendous power we now hold. With the advent of internet,, the transaction costs that first led to the corporation have almost disappeared. This is 'The Age Of The Virtual Corporation'. Work for The Man and you'll just make Larry Ellison, Steve Balmer, Tim Cook richer.
- rybosome 13y ago
  At first I thought this was satire, so bizarre was the vitriol against big corp. I work at one of the big "nefarious corporate" companies, and my life is incredibly happy; I'm proud of getting a job here and proud of the work I do. More importantly, I have time and money to travel, play music, live a healthier lifestyle and generally enjoy life outside of (and in addition to) work. Who gives a shit if "The Man" is getting rich off my work? I don't envy what he has. Being able to afford a Lotus wouldn't make me nearly as happy as spending time with my wife. If you feel compelled to pursue a startup because it's your passion, that's wonderful...but doing so with the expectation of riches is unrealistic, statistically speaking. Plus, growth in wealth is proven not to linearly increase happiness. EDIT: But who am I to tell you how you (or anyone) how to live their life? If that's your path, then by all means pursue it.
  - unono 13y ago
    I'm not even that concerned about getting rich. It's more about doing exactly what I want, when I want, and making a big impact (in terms of helping people) - without giving the billionaires any more power and money. As Jesus said - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. I'm an atheist, but there's a solid truth in that saying. If you can't make a living on your own, it's OK to join that corp, but otherwise, it's the modern version of dealing with the devil.
    - rybosome 13y ago
      > It's more about doing exactly what I want, when I want, and making a big impact (in terms of helping people) - without giving the billionaires any more power and money. > ...it's the modern version of dealing with the devil. Hey, I get that bureaucracy sucks. It is an inevitable function of increased size. Have you had experience at any of the big companies you name, though? I don't mean to be challenging, but my view of them was more negative before I joined one; all of my meaningful work experience prior had been with very small employers, so I assumed big corporate life was like a Dilbert strip. Finding what motivates you is a difficult and intensely personal process, so it shouldn't be approached as a universal truth. For me, I've found that I really enjoy programming for its own sake. Although I will always treasure the memories and experience I got working at a startup, I am also very satisfied working in a larger setting; I still get to do what I care about most in a work setting, which is to design software and write code. Taking a job that gives me the opportunity to do what I love while also allowing time to pursue my passions outside of work is a perfectly reasonable way to live my life - hardly "dealing with the devil". I asked earlier, "who am I to tell you how to live your life?", but the inverse applies as well.
staunch 13y ago
The strongest reason that it's bad advice is that existing companies are very hard to quit for most people. The comforts they provide are so compelling that few escape, even when they might quite desperately want to. Existing companies almost(!) completely satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And beyond simply being compelling, they're extremely consuming, of time and energy. Just imagine how many more great startups would exist if Google (and others) didn't have 100k of the best developers strapped into The Matrix (:D)
- deleted 13y ago
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  - deleted 13y ago
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altcognito 13y ago
As a developer, any job where you get to do a deep variety of tasks is likely going to be good early in your career. I worked at a small company that allowed me to learn how to manage production servers and write code that ran millions of dollars worth of business. It was hard. But I learned a lot (and made some mistakes). The problem? It was a small company, and there was no depth. There are limits to how far you can go on your own generally speaking. (in particular if the company is not expanding/hiring) I never really got into the business side of things, but something similar applies. If you want to learn a lot about how business is done, you're going to have to get in on the very early stages, getting your hands dirty, curating customers, and seeing how/participating in how the business plan is put together.
beachstartup 13y ago
> A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner sure, when things turn out positive, people wish they would have made the decision sooner. also - wished they had quit their corporate job sooner, or wished they'd never taken the corporate job to begin with? big difference. either way i'm willing to bet that out of most people who failed to receive funding, then ran out of money and had to find another job, generally under less than ideal conditions, are glad they've got some corporate experience on the resume.
emiliobumachar 13y ago
"I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer." Do you usually keep in touch with the ones who fail?
jfoster 13y ago
They say that, but is it possible that they are undervaluing what they learnt in those few years? I left my job to start a company. On reflection, the two periods during which I've learnt the most have been the last couple of years in my job, and the first 6 months of starting a company. I don't think the second period of learning would've been nearly as fruitful without the first period of learning, though. Perhaps it depends on the circumstances of the corporate job. I had the good fortune of having an excellent manager and an interesting role. Most corporate jobs mightn't be like that.

by pg 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ktd 13y ago

>A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner. I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer. I feel like the fact that you funded these people constitutes a very significant selection effect here.

nostrademons 13y ago

You're getting a biased sample at YC, because everybody who wishes they'd stayed at their corporate job longer stays at the corporate job. Or they wash out and go back to corporate life before applying to YC, or you sense their lack of passion for their startup at the interview stage and don't let them in. Corporate life, after all, is the "default" choice, the one that doesn't take any particular decision to make. If I had to advise people, I'd say "It's time to do a startup when you have more trouble concentrating on your job because you're distracted by your startup idea than you have trouble concentrating on your startup because you're distracted by your job." That comes at different times for different people, and it's not uncommon for someone to bounce between the two of them multiple times during their lifetime. Above all, I don't think it's a binary choice: it's silly to think in terms of "I'm a startup person" or "I'm a big company person", you should evaluate every opportunity available to you on its own merits rather than relying on your preconceptions of what you think it'll be like.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

What are the advantages of being an employee of a startup vs an employee of a big corporation, besides working with smart people?

mjn 13y ago

> So if you want to focus on other things besides work, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup. Or, alternately: if you're a rational agent interested in maximizing risk-adjusted returns, you're better off with a regular job than trying to start a startup.

pg 13y ago
Depends how good you are. If you're very good, you have better expected value working for yourself than averaging your work together with a bunch of other people. If not you're better off working for someone else. (You're making a common statistical mistake here. You're concluding that because 1/x startups succeed, the odds of each person's startup succeeding is 1/x. You can see this clearly if you ask what the probability is that someone is over 6 feet tall. Although 1/x people are, the probability for each person is either 1 or 0. And while no one's chances of succeeding are 1, the startup case is closer to the height example than to rolling dice. Someone like the young Bill Gates would have a much higher probability of succeeding than a person selected at random.)
- mjn 13y ago
  Of course, most people who think they are two standard deviations above the mean in expected returns, are not in fact that much out of the ordinary (monetarily, anyway). So the a priori expected return also needs to adjust for the risk that your self-assessment is incorrect. You are making a common mistake inherent in backwards-looking risk assessment, considering the Bill Gates example after Bill Gates is already massively wealthy. Prior to Bill Gates founding Microsoft, or even in its early years, his main advantages were in coming from a wealthy family, and few people bet on his company getting exceptionally huge (as evidenced by the early Microsoft market cap, which was not exactly tens of billions). I would argue the ultimate outcome there, whether Bill Gates "succeeds" into $50b or "fails" into a mere $10m, is closer to rolling dice, and not reliably predictable. In any case, Bill Gates was a trust-fund kid with a multi-million inheritance backstopping him, so is excluded from the field of consideration I'm positing here, which is what decision is best for kids who come from less-wealthy families.
- 13y ago

mrmaddog 13y ago

What are your thoughts on joining a big company vs joining a startup (as opposed to starting a company yourself)? On average, it seems one would still learn faster and be able to take on many new roles as an employee at a startup, but an employe also is in a chaotic world that he or she doesn't completely control (and often working with incomplete information). Do you think this trade-off is worth it? And, since I'm guessing you lean towards 'yes' on that question, do you think there are different questions a prospective startup-employee should ask as opposed to the questions a potential investor in the startup would ask?

pg 13y ago
That would be a good middle ground. You'd learn a lot more about how startups operate in a startup than in a big company. If you join early enough your experience will be close to that of a founder.
ivv 13y ago
Joining, not launching, a start-up is what the article's author is actually comparing to a corp job: "Should I join Microsoft or a startup?" Financially and over the long term, a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time. And yet you won't get rich. The chances of getting rich as an employee of a startup are admittedly small, but nonzero.
  - ivv 13y ago
    The chances of you getting rich (say, hitting $1M) by accumulating some capital from your corp job and then using it to pick the right stocks on the market are probably greater than working at a start-up with a sub-1% equity and a reduced pay and waiting for the big exit, which in this case would have to be well in the over $100M territory. Working at a start-up obviously has its non-monetary benefits over other forms of employment, but getting rich, on average, is probably not one of them.

unono 13y ago

As usual, PG is 100% right, fighting for us hackers. The article, and others like it, are nefarious corporate PR pieces put out by Microsoft, Google, Apple and others designed to trick us into not realizing the tremendous power we now hold. With the advent of internet,, the transaction costs that first led to the corporation have almost disappeared. This is 'The Age Of The Virtual Corporation'. Work for The Man and you'll just make Larry Ellison, Steve Balmer, Tim Cook richer.

rybosome 13y ago
At first I thought this was satire, so bizarre was the vitriol against big corp. I work at one of the big "nefarious corporate" companies, and my life is incredibly happy; I'm proud of getting a job here and proud of the work I do. More importantly, I have time and money to travel, play music, live a healthier lifestyle and generally enjoy life outside of (and in addition to) work. Who gives a shit if "The Man" is getting rich off my work? I don't envy what he has. Being able to afford a Lotus wouldn't make me nearly as happy as spending time with my wife. If you feel compelled to pursue a startup because it's your passion, that's wonderful...but doing so with the expectation of riches is unrealistic, statistically speaking. Plus, growth in wealth is proven not to linearly increase happiness. EDIT: But who am I to tell you how you (or anyone) how to live their life? If that's your path, then by all means pursue it.
- unono 13y ago
  I'm not even that concerned about getting rich. It's more about doing exactly what I want, when I want, and making a big impact (in terms of helping people) - without giving the billionaires any more power and money. As Jesus said - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. I'm an atheist, but there's a solid truth in that saying. If you can't make a living on your own, it's OK to join that corp, but otherwise, it's the modern version of dealing with the devil.
  - rybosome 13y ago
    > It's more about doing exactly what I want, when I want, and making a big impact (in terms of helping people) - without giving the billionaires any more power and money. > ...it's the modern version of dealing with the devil. Hey, I get that bureaucracy sucks. It is an inevitable function of increased size. Have you had experience at any of the big companies you name, though? I don't mean to be challenging, but my view of them was more negative before I joined one; all of my meaningful work experience prior had been with very small employers, so I assumed big corporate life was like a Dilbert strip. Finding what motivates you is a difficult and intensely personal process, so it shouldn't be approached as a universal truth. For me, I've found that I really enjoy programming for its own sake. Although I will always treasure the memories and experience I got working at a startup, I am also very satisfied working in a larger setting; I still get to do what I care about most in a work setting, which is to design software and write code. Taking a job that gives me the opportunity to do what I love while also allowing time to pursue my passions outside of work is a perfectly reasonable way to live my life - hardly "dealing with the devil". I asked earlier, "who am I to tell you how to live your life?", but the inverse applies as well.

staunch 13y ago

The strongest reason that it's bad advice is that existing companies are very hard to quit for most people. The comforts they provide are so compelling that few escape, even when they might quite desperately want to. Existing companies almost(!) completely satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And beyond simply being compelling, they're extremely consuming, of time and energy. Just imagine how many more great startups would exist if Google (and others) didn't have 100k of the best developers strapped into The Matrix (:D)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

altcognito 13y ago

As a developer, any job where you get to do a deep variety of tasks is likely going to be good early in your career. I worked at a small company that allowed me to learn how to manage production servers and write code that ran millions of dollars worth of business. It was hard. But I learned a lot (and made some mistakes). The problem? It was a small company, and there was no depth. There are limits to how far you can go on your own generally speaking. (in particular if the company is not expanding/hiring) I never really got into the business side of things, but something similar applies. If you want to learn a lot about how business is done, you're going to have to get in on the very early stages, getting your hands dirty, curating customers, and seeing how/participating in how the business plan is put together.

beachstartup 13y ago

> A lot of people we've funded have said they wished they'd quit their corporate job sooner sure, when things turn out positive, people wish they would have made the decision sooner. also - wished they had quit their corporate job sooner, or wished they'd never taken the corporate job to begin with? big difference. either way i'm willing to bet that out of most people who failed to receive funding, then ran out of money and had to find another job, generally under less than ideal conditions, are glad they've got some corporate experience on the resume.

emiliobumachar 13y ago

"I don't remember any saying they wished they'd stayed in it longer." Do you usually keep in touch with the ones who fail?

jfoster 13y ago

They say that, but is it possible that they are undervaluing what they learnt in those few years? I left my job to start a company. On reflection, the two periods during which I've learnt the most have been the last couple of years in my job, and the first 6 months of starting a company. I don't think the second period of learning would've been nearly as fruitful without the first period of learning, though. Perhaps it depends on the circumstances of the corporate job. I had the good fortune of having an excellent manager and an interesting role. Most corporate jobs mightn't be like that.