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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

I LOLed so hard at "The thing was at first I couldn’t find one start-up I wanted to devote the next year or so of my life to building."

Hint: startup is more like 7-10y+ unless you're just playing at it, or it fails. If you go into it expecting it to be a year, it probably will be.

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I think it's a fair characterization of some sort of minimum commitment as an employee. Especially if you're new to the industry sticking around for 5+ years is going to be a waste of time, rarely will the company match your market value.

Keep in mind what was written in the article regarding the author's job at the time was:

  The job was technically sales ...

And:

  Yesterday was my last day there as I’m
  now moving on to something new — planning
  to develop my currently non-existent
  technical skills full time.

So categorizing the author as being new "to the industry" at that point in time (2015/07/30) is nonsensical unless peripheral exposure counts. Not to say this remains the case, mind you, just that the perspective you describe is not applicable to the person the author was at that time.

I will add that a person actually in the industry would be wise to "stick around" their first job or two for at least a year. Failing to do so is a red flag for many companies as bouncing around early in the CV is often interpreted as leaving before being fired.

Sorry, I have little idea what your point is. She's was/is a recent graduate, she's new to any industry. If you "stick around" long without increase in salary, equity or experience (preferable all fo them) you're doing it wrong. How it can be interpreted only matter for people who hasn't manged to get the right experience to be in demand. In my opinion of course.

  Sorry, I have little idea what your point is.

At the time this blog entry was written, she was working in a sales/marketing capacity and not as a coder (her words, not mine). IMHO, this means she was exposed to tech start-ups. She then goes on to say that she had "non-existent technical skills."

My point was that anyone entering into the dev/tech world would be wise to spend a year at their first job in order to:

* Learn about what is involved

* Have time to refine their skills

* Be able to show to other companies that they can survive

"My point was that anyone entering into the dev/tech world would be wise to spend a year"

Yes, but that was what she was looking for when she said "find one start-up I wanted to devote the next year or so to building" and what I agreed with as "some sort of minimum commitment as an employee"?

I wrote the post, as some people have picked up in the comments, the one year is a reference to the minimum time I wanted to spend working for someone at a start-up. I used the word build as when you're an early employee that's the dynamic.

My plan wasn't to leave after the year, just to re-evaluate if I was learning what I wanted to be in the role. As it turned out, I did leave as I wanted to develop my technical skills instead of carrying along the VC/Biz-dev career path.

I agree that if you're starting your own thing then 7-10 years is a good minimum time frame.

Ah, ok! That's a lot more reasonable.

I think the author wanted to work out if startups were a thing they wanted to do.

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