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Comment by kenhwang | Hacker News Reader

I echo the comp aspect. I pretty much had a best case non-unicorn startup exit; wonderful benefits pre-acquisition, actual unlimited PTO, and normal ~40hr/workweek, acquired almost immediately after receiving my shares, golden handcuffs after. My total comp was more or less equivalent to my peers doing the big 4 grind over the same time period. They had zero risk and I had to win the start up lotto.

But if I had to do it all over again, I still might do the startup route. It's just more fun. There's more to life than money.

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I think a huge part of whether it is more fun or not is about where you are in life. Startup life was great for me when I was young and single, and enjoyed the startup lifestyle of excitement and risk. Now that I am older and have a wife and kid, I really like the stability, predictability, and salary of a job with a bigger company.

Agreed. It definitely depends on your tolerance to risk. Not everyone wants to be part of frat party that takes up half your days and weekends that could potentially disappear tomorrow without notice.

Absolutely. Also, startups are intense, which goes both ways.

Intense can be great if you're looking for that, and the startup is doing well.

Intense can be terrible if the startup isn't doing well and/or the atmosphere has gone acrid. It is now intensely bad.

It's like a polite disagreement with a casual acquaintance versus bitter fight with a close friend.

When startups derail, they really do go far off the rails.

Also who you are in life.

When I was younger I didn't have chances. It's incredibly privileged to be able to take a position somewhere you might not have a job in 2 months because you have enough stashed away or enough family wealth that if you fail, you can pick yourself back up easily.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to imply it is just about stage of your life in terms of age and family status, but more just your stage of your life in terms of financial needs and tolerance for risk. For some people that need for lower risk and financial stability comes when they are older, and for some people they start out needing that financial stability at a young age.

>But if I had to do it all over again, I still might do the startup route. It's just more fun. There's more to life than money.

Easy to say because you have gotten the money. :-D

Yeah and it’s one hundred percent true. If the story wasn’t “I won the lottery” but instead was “I missed out big time” that may change things significantly

I'm a case where I don't really expect to ever see the equity pay out, but I might still have gone the startup route for the fun and the learning. But if I were to go back in time and advise myself, I would have taken more cash and less equity. At the time, I took more equity and less cash.

As someone just starting out, the hidden cost of exercising and the tax bill that follows was staggering. It would have eaten up most of my fledgeling liquidity and dug into my rainy day fund.

My advice to my former self would be to take more cash over equity and invest that cash in the public markets. Diversify your investments to reduce the risk of the giant startup bet you're about to make. Compounding is a hell of a thing, even over four years, and people tend to forget to account for investment returns when they value their cash.

Not really. I've applied for a startup, got accepted, the next day received a one in a lifetime opportunity to do something I've been dreaming of (security research at a huge and famous company). Went to do the dream job only to quit after 6 weeks and return to the startup. Best decision ever. I didn't win the lottery ticket, but I am also not coming back to a regular job. Yes, you usually get paid less (or much less), yes my peers climb the corporate ladder, have better cars and houses, but I have a more rewarding job, I get to work remotely and travel often, and I can work from home whenever I want. I also hate the hierarchy that eventually comes as the company grows.

Why have I been told to begin your career at a startup, before you work at a big corp in order to "level up" your work environment? I took that advice and it has just left me starving for better compensation and, and am pretty lacking skills-wise. And now I'm still unfit to get an offer at the big tech corps, or even a chance for an interview.

There's only a narrow window in your life where many of the cons of working for a startup don't ruin you. That window happens to overlap with the beginning of your career. If you have the skill to make it into a big corp at the beginning of your career, you can do it again later in your career -- they'll still be there later.

I'm of the opinion that the generalist skill set you typically get from a startup is far more valuable than the specialist (and typically exclusive to the corp) skill set you get from the corp, and I'll even argue that the entry level skill set of the corp is pretty damn useless, but that's only from anecdotal evidence.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, startups dance at the edge of survival.

I agree -- to an extent.

Some of the skills learned in big mature organisations tend to be very narrow and specific to the tools that the big organisation uses.

Some ... but not all.

The man-management and general engineering skills are still pretty transferable.

How long did it take you to receive your shares, if you don't mind me asking?

Less than a year. More shares than non-essential employees, but far far far less shares than founders/executives.

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