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Comment by manigandham | Hacker News Reader

You have a very narrow view of startups if you think that's how they all operate. Many many companies never raise money. Many founders are unpaid, or just paid the bare minimum legally allowed. And numbers alone do not tell of the significant social and psychological pressures while employees can always quit and go work somewhere elsewhere. Even successful acquisitions don't guarantee riches to founders and that's completely overlooking the fact that many don't find success and are left with nothing.

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"while employees can always quit and go work somewhere elsewhere."

This is an exaggeration at best. For the vast majority of employees there is a lead time to begin employment at most places. Typically this will be a minimum of one month (interviews + decision + org readiness to onboard).

By the way, it applies equally to founders as you describe (anecdotally I've seen a number of founders get regular jobs while they wound down a business).

"Left with nothing" except social connections and, exactly like the employees they had to fire when the business failed, a need to generate income from another source.

Founder lionization is absurd.

How is that an exaggeration? I talked about the ability for them to go to another company. Founders cannot just leave and have a much greater lead time if they lose it all.

What social connections do you think founders get that employees somehow dont? And what is this worth? So founding a company and losing everything is fine because you make some friends? If you talk to any entrepreneurs, you'll quickly realize you'll lose more friends and connections than you gain, precisely because of lack of time and ability to relate. It's a very lonely road, not some glamorous jet-setting adventure.

What's absurd is thinking that starting a company is just some hobby that is no different than any normal job. Until you actually do it, it's easy to overlook the incredible personal investment and stress it takes to put something together from nothing. Most companies fail, and many do not raise capital or have some quick meteoric rise but rather suffer through years of trying to make it work. The upside for founders is incredibly rare while the downsides are very common. Employees get paid either way.

It's only a lonely road because of decisions they made themselves.

Maybe if they stopped treating themselves like some anointed class and shared the equity with their employees instead of viewing them like lower-class citizens it wouldn't be so hard to find comrades.

Employees aren't friends and really shouldn't be. Maybe you've had a bad experience with some founders, they certainly are just as varied as people, but the role itself is anything but easy.

> Employees aren't friends and really shouldn't be.

That's a fine view to take! But don't come rattling the cup around going "but poor founders, so lonely, nobody to talk to" when they've made that choice.

You seem to be missing the point, as the prior comments are talking about "social connections" that founders get as a significant benefit, and which I'm saying isn't true.

Nobody is complaining really, certainly not the founders who chose what they do. In fact it seems like people who aren't founders that are complaining about the supposed benefits and lack of work without actually understanding what it entails.

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