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Comment by phillmv | Hacker News Reader

I left this unvoiced but let's fisk it:

> new startups would be a status step down for them.

No, but highly paid executives can always go to a higher status company; similarly, if you were status-motivated but also a well placed mid career goog eng…

it's not clear to me you _needed_ a sweet bonus in order to switch to your startup, ya know?

>executives do switch companies somewhat routinely.

I think the theory of what I'm trying to advance is, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I personally feel I would be rather loyal to someone paying me fuck you money, but then again I'm well into my own incredible journey, so it's possible I'm now blind to status incentives relative to working at google.

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I'm vocal about this because the concept of "flight risk" is a very old one, particularly in consulting land.

The premise behind flight risk money is that people might not be interested in optimizing their salary by constantly switching jobs, especially because they might really like their current job. But a lot of people have a short list of jobs that they would be interested in if money weren't a factor; many employees (maybe most) aren't in their absolute ideal job, but are balancing money and work life. When you give those people lots of additional money, you change that balance.

This isn't complicated, right? A pretty large group of people (1) like their current job, and (2) would like to start or join a new company.

That's just not the same as what happens with executives. Executives are not waiting for their big break so that they can start a new thing.

Maybe by the time you climb the corporate ranks you're reduced to an efficient profit maximizer but I would presume they suffer similar incentives - there comes a time you'd rather kick back on a beach somewhere rather than Q2 reports.

To be charitable to you, maybe I'm just really underestimating how many people are chomping at the bit to gtfo;

having been self employed for "forever", it's hard for me to empathize: mid career A player at the goog probably could've made the switch much earlier, if leading a startup was what was in their heart of hearts.

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