4 ms·

Also, isn't it unreal how this company was paying the founder 200K a year with no revenue This is par for the course for venture funded startups. There's a wh

Also, isn't it unreal how this company was paying the founder 200K a year with no revenue This is par for the course for venture funded startups. There's a whole class of people in Silicon Valley who make a career out of being the overpaid execs at startups after the first round or two of funding. They typically get paid more than they would ever make if they tried to get a position that matched their skill level at an established company like Apple or Yahoo!. After they do one, they have "Startup CTO" on their resume and then keep bouncing around from startup to startup. What they are doing is financially very low risk (they are making $150K-$200K a year), yet they usually take pride in their entrepreneurial spirit. I would wager that 9 times out of 10 they are hopeless and drive the companies they latch onto into the ground. Their existence is one of the lamer aspects of SV culture that rarely gets mentioned. Note that the guy in the article was actually the founder, not one of the people I just described. It may or may not be unreasonable, but I certainly don't think it is uncommon for him to take the same salary as the other executives brought in from outside.

ja2ke 17y ago
"Their existence is one of the lamer aspects of SV culture that rarely gets mentioned." On the contrary, I think that that's one of laymen's first assumptions about C-level positions at startups. I think that most people hear "tech startup" and still think "~2000 era dotcom, doing nothing but living on a cushion of imaginary or scammed cash." When I tell non tech people I work at a tech related startup, I am almost always given a look or a remark which requires me to say "oh ho ho, its not what you think! It's not like that!" almost a decade later. (The other time I get that sort of look/remark is when I mention that it's also a video game company, but no ho ho, we don't make games where you endlessly decapitate hookers.)
- vaksel 17y ago
  that game would probably be a huge success. Duke Nukem? Winner Grand Theft Auto Series? Winner
  - ja2ke 17y ago
    We constantly joke about making "Beach Sniper" but I don't see that happening.
neilc 17y ago
They typically get paid more than they would ever make if they tried to get a position that matched their skill level at an established company like Apple or Yahoo!. Do you have any evidence for that? A lot of the people I know of who are startup CEOs used to be high-level managers/executives at big companies. I don't know of any evidence to support the idea that high-level executives at startups are any more "overpaid" or incompetent than executives at big companies. I would wager that 9 times out of 10 they are hopeless and drive the companies they latch onto into the ground. They certainly require a different skill set than the technical leadership in a company. A CEO needs to be able to give a convincing pitch to VCs, recruit other top talent, close big deals with customers (often other big companies), and decide on the company's direction. Those are all hard skills for a typical engineer to evaluate.

ja2ke 17y ago

"Their existence is one of the lamer aspects of SV culture that rarely gets mentioned." On the contrary, I think that that's one of laymen's first assumptions about C-level positions at startups. I think that most people hear "tech startup" and still think "~2000 era dotcom, doing nothing but living on a cushion of imaginary or scammed cash." When I tell non tech people I work at a tech related startup, I am almost always given a look or a remark which requires me to say "oh ho ho, its not what you think! It's not like that!" almost a decade later. (The other time I get that sort of look/remark is when I mention that it's also a video game company, but no ho ho, we don't make games where you endlessly decapitate hookers.)

vaksel 17y ago
that game would probably be a huge success. Duke Nukem? Winner Grand Theft Auto Series? Winner
- ja2ke 17y ago
  We constantly joke about making "Beach Sniper" but I don't see that happening.

neilc 17y ago

They typically get paid more than they would ever make if they tried to get a position that matched their skill level at an established company like Apple or Yahoo!. Do you have any evidence for that? A lot of the people I know of who are startup CEOs used to be high-level managers/executives at big companies. I don't know of any evidence to support the idea that high-level executives at startups are any more "overpaid" or incompetent than executives at big companies. I would wager that 9 times out of 10 they are hopeless and drive the companies they latch onto into the ground. They certainly require a different skill set than the technical leadership in a company. A CEO needs to be able to give a convincing pitch to VCs, recruit other top talent, close big deals with customers (often other big companies), and decide on the company's direction. Those are all hard skills for a typical engineer to evaluate.