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"We've now funded so many different types of founders that we have enough data to see patterns, and there seems to be no benefit from working for a big company.

by Bahamut 11y ago

"We've now funded so many different types of founders that we have enough data to see patterns, and there seems to be no benefit from working for a big company." Can't say this has been true based on my experience so far at startups - there are a lot of bad managers/executives out there who have no business managing a business and the damage is probably a lot worse at a startup than at a big company. Based on a lot of anecdotal stories from developers, this seems to be an all too common pattern at startups. Also, startups tend to have a bad problem unless bootstrapped - they're beholden to their funders, who can sometimes recommend courses of actions counter to what a good long term business should be doing, causing executives to make bad decisions with regards to treating their employees properly.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
... all of which I've seen play out at big companies, too. Yes, having poorly-perfoming individuals in key roles can hurt a startup much more than a big company. But the experience of working for the startup in that case sucks no more than working for the big company.
golergka 11y ago
> so many ... that we have enough data to see patterns I believe that there's enough data to _see_ patterns, but is there enough data for these patterns to be statistically significant?
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>they're beholden to their funders This. Once you accept funding, you're working for the money people. Forget those narratives of heroic freedom. Your situation isn't really all that different to any other corporate environment. If the money doesn't like you as a founder, you can lose your job (at best) or be back-stabbed out (at worst.) And if the project isn't viable, it dies anyway. So you're still out of a job. There's a cultural difference, in that you have more agency at the start. But the script you follow is already written by the surrounding financial culture. You have no freedom at all to deviate from it - unless you bootstrap.
- habitue 11y ago
  And if you bootstrap, you lose freedom in other ways. What kinds of businesses can be bootstrapped constrains your options. The market becomes your boss, and no amount of soft-skills or convincing arguments can change its mind. Put that way, with investors you can say "At least my bosses are human" (Note, I'm not saying one is better than the other in all cases, just that "bootstrapping gives you ultimate freedom" isn't true)

by Bahamut 11y ago

duncan_bayne 11y ago

... all of which I've seen play out at big companies, too. Yes, having poorly-perfoming individuals in key roles can hurt a startup much more than a big company. But the experience of working for the startup in that case sucks no more than working for the big company.

golergka 11y ago

> so many ... that we have enough data to see patterns I believe that there's enough data to _see_ patterns, but is there enough data for these patterns to be statistically significant?

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

>they're beholden to their funders This. Once you accept funding, you're working for the money people. Forget those narratives of heroic freedom. Your situation isn't really all that different to any other corporate environment. If the money doesn't like you as a founder, you can lose your job (at best) or be back-stabbed out (at worst.) And if the project isn't viable, it dies anyway. So you're still out of a job. There's a cultural difference, in that you have more agency at the start. But the script you follow is already written by the surrounding financial culture. You have no freedom at all to deviate from it - unless you bootstrap.

habitue 11y ago
And if you bootstrap, you lose freedom in other ways. What kinds of businesses can be bootstrapped constrains your options. The market becomes your boss, and no amount of soft-skills or convincing arguments can change its mind. Put that way, with investors you can say "At least my bosses are human" (Note, I'm not saying one is better than the other in all cases, just that "bootstrapping gives you ultimate freedom" isn't true)