This article is very insightful. One of the interesting things about jobs, and a source of frustration and the reason I'm much more interested in being a fou

This article is very insightful. One of the interesting things about jobs, and a source of frustration and the reason I'm much more interested in being a founder than an employee-- is that so many companies are run by people who don't know what they're doing. I've seen this from 20 year old startup "founders" who don't know their industry, to 50 year old billionaires who have lots of business experience, and thus opinions, but no wisdom about running a software company. Even with our industry being around for 40 years or so, there are very few companies where programmers are managed by programmers who understand programming. Too much of the time its "Business" people. So, not only are you going to be incentivized by how well you're paid vs the problems you're given, you're also going to be affected by the quality of the environment ("open plan office? sigh, I can't wait til I have been here long enough to quit.") to the amount of interference and straight up hassle (sometimes even harassment) you are getting from management. Let me give you an example: Last year I worked in an office run by an ex-navy Seal. He cussed, all the time. His motivational technique was to threaten violence- literally. He was a bundle of barely contained psychotic violence and you were just waiting for something to set him off. I half expected he was going to come in some day and shoot up the office. I don't know what his problem was but he was not right in the head. Needless to say, he knew nothing about programming, software, or even business- his entire career had been in the military. Certainly every 5 minutes he wanted to have a meeting about something. He thought it was funny to bring in bongo drums and a cowbell... and if we were too quiet, he would bang on them. For awhile he was showing up at 4pm and trying to get us drunk. I guess that's how they bond in the military. I am not making this up. That company is now on their third team-- they've had %400 turnover in employees over the past 2 years, with the average employee lasting less than 6 months. And they still haven't figured out what the problem is. There's no way to know when getting hired that you're going into an office like that-- and while that's an extreme, over the past 30 years, most of the places I've worked have been dysfunctional to one degree or another. So, you're negotiating your salary, you're also having to figure out how much combat pay premium you need to tack on. And if you're in the business of hiring people, give them meaningful equity and a real vesting schedule if you want them to stay at your startup-- then show them you have the skills to turn the company into a success. You can start by producing a healthy environment for work. (and I don't mean giving me a year supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon.)