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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

The only valid reasons for working at a seed-stage / series A startup:

You are a founder.

They are working with a technology or in an industry that you specifically want to work with and it is very hard to work on it professionally, and doing side projects are infeasible.

You need experience and you have no other option to get experience.

You are getting a significant title bump that moves your career forwards.

Invalid reasons for working at a startup:

Equity (getting rich off stock options) - this is very likely to be worthless unless you are a co-founder.

Salary - you would make (much) more at a big company.

Work life balance - you will work harder than you ever have.

Stability - does not exist.

Benefits - very bad.

Learning - they will not have any formal training nor time to train you, so be prepared to self-learn.

---

All that said, I enjoyed my time as an employee at multiple startups. Just go in for the right reasons and your eyes wide open.

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I joined GitLab as #29. My work life balance has never been this good. I've been working here for ~3 years, my benefits have been excellent, I have learned so much. GitLab may be an anomaly and YMMV, but it has been the best company I've ever worked for, period. Nothing has comes close. In the end I love what I do. I don't agree with this post.

would you mind sharing how much equity was granted at gitlab ?

> GitLab may be an anomaly and YMMV

I think this is the crux of his argument. Of course there are outliers, but 90% of the time (I don't know the actual percentage, but I'd venture it's around there - if we're only talking about money I'd say 99.9%) someone will be happier if they go to a more established company.

And people are often disillusioned when their equity becomes worthless, because for years they were told that would be worth millions and they accepted low salaries because of it.

Of course sometimes it does work out great, and I'm happy that it did for you! But statistically, you are incredibly lucky.

Do you have links to any data that shows the statistics on my luck?

There are a lot of assumptions in my argument, but the one with the hardest data will be how many startups succeed. Most people don't join startups thinking they'll fail (they understand it might fail, but if you knew it would fail would you still join?)

Of the high-growth tech startups we're looking at, here's an analysis pointing towards 92% failure rate - https://s3.amazonaws.com/startupcompass-public/StartupGenome... - I suspect the real number is actually much higher if we're including seed stage companies.

Beyond that though, it's mostly me piecing together anecdotal evidence of disgruntled startup employees who left for larger companies and regret not joining immediately after college. There are of course plenty of people who join for the experience, for the smaller team sizes, the autonomy, etcetera. But I think my argument is largely driven by equity. Unless you'd happily except the job offer without the equity it's pretty hard to refute that people join startups because they want equity. And that equity is almost never worth it. If you aren't a single digit employee number at a company with a 10 digit exit, and this is still assuming you didn't get fucked by dilution because of asshole investors, the math just doesn't add up.

The odds of being in that cohort is much less than 1/1000, probably closer to 1/10000. It would take me a bit of effort to find a hard number on it (looking at total number of employees at large exits, find large companies that failed, approximate number of employees at various other startups) - but I actually know people that were employee #X at a company with a 10 digit exit who didn't get screwed by investors and they still would've been better off going to Google in terms of financial compensation.

Also I think a lot of it is ignorance. Many people at startups don't realize how much better it could be at a FAANG company because they've never worked there.

How old are you? Are you supporting a family? Where do you live?

What's the amount of your salary? What's the value of your equity compensation? How much time do you get off?

(your benefits may not be as good as you think)

34, yes, jointly supporting a family, DC, salary you can look up. I am staff frontend dev technically, unlimited time off. Can't speak to the value of my equity compensation.

I joined a series A startup years ago for none of your "valid" reasons and have never regretted it. It was a company that I already knew of and admired their product, and they had enough traction at that point to offer at least several years' worth of runway/stability ie I didn't have to worry about my job disappearing unexpectedly (at least not more so than any other California job). Work-life balance was always totally fine. I learned a ton right from the start, was able to make a big impact, and worked in the smaller "get stuff done" environment that I prefer over bureaucratic organizations.

That is nominally a series A startup, but actually a bootstrapped since series A startup. Big difference.

"Bootstrapping" usually refers to funding the company (in the seed stage) without external investment, whether through pre-selling to customers, relying on founders' savings, doing consulting, etc. I think the term you're looking for is "profitable".

Not quite, since a "profitable" investor-backed company is still usually pushed by those investors to seek further investment, whether the company needs it to continue growing or not. (It just needs it to grow to the level that an investor would care about.)

The concept here is closer to "firing your investors" or "buying back your equity", but they haven't necessarily done that yet.

If you've got board control after the Series A and are profitable, they have zero leverage over your future decisions.

valid: you do not enjoy big company politics. (you’d rather have small company politics)

valid: you want a sense of ownership and responsibility. if you don’t perform, there is a noticeable effect on the company.

valid: you want to be in an environment where others are just as committed as you to the success of the company. you want to treat your work as an endeavor, not as a means to a paycheck.

I think the implicit point is that if you are NOT a cofounder those feelings of ownership are unlikely to be matched by reality. As a non-founder you do not have the input and upside of an owner.

please note that i am referring to the sense of ownership and responsibility that comes from being one of the important cogs. this is reality in a startup.

i don't mean it in a legal/financial sense, and i am not referring to any extrinsic reward, eg financial upside.

> this is reality in a startup

Five-year-old well-funded-and-profitable companies with 50 employees, where you as employee #50 are just there to toil away writing some dumb CRUD backoffice code—are still referred to as "start-ups."

And, in fact, since the other kind of startup dies more often than it succeeds and grows into this kind, most startups that are hiring at any given moment are this kind of startup.

The context in this sub-thread is specifically seed or series A startups.

> valid: you do not enjoy big company politics. (you’d rather have small company politics)

Are there big investors? Welcome to big company politics.

> valid: you want a sense of ownership and responsibility. if you don’t perform, there is a noticeable effect on the company.

Responsibility? Sure. Ownership? Unless you're a founder or a big investor, haha, no. Unless you mean the corpo-speak "ownership," which is just another word for responsibility.

Responsibility might make the work more emotionally rewarding, but it also makes the work more stressful, so I won't sell it for free.

> valid: you want to be in an environment where others are just as committed as you to the success of the company.

They may measure the "success" in terms wildly different from you, the employee, though.

> you want to treat your work as an endeavor, not as a means to a paycheck.

Actually while I might want something more, endeavour doesn't pay rent.

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience.

I don't know how else to get the kind of experience you get at a startup. A big company will give you depth, but a startup will give you breadth.

Also, if you ever plan to be a founder yourself, working at a big company might not give you any useful experience at all.

Also, if you ever plan to be a founder yourself, working at a big company might not give you any useful experience at all.

Alternatively, from experience, while big company might not give you valuable experience it can give you some good people to have in your network. Even if its to ask your former company accountant for advice choosing a billing partner.

Better to be a contractor at large companies and move around. Then you get the depth, plus you can change role when you stop learning.

> You are getting a significant title bump that moves your career forwards.

To add to this. The title of "early member of <insert famous startup company>" holds a lot of weight in SV circles. Whether or not you legitimately helped those companies in the early days, it's a strong signal that you are valuable. And those <insert famous startup company> doesn't have to be a company that necessarily had a huge exit or has a strong economic reputation. For example - early engineer of Yahoo? Ya, people probably think you're worth one's salt.

IMHO - I think this is the main driver people join startups. It's taboo, but vanity feels much more tangible than equity.

The fraction of startups that achieve that level of name recognition is even more miniscule than the fraction of startups that achieve successful exits and let you break even financially.

100% agree - which is part of my point...it's a very irrational view that more often than not doesn't net a high return.

Salary - you would make (much) more at a big company.

Benefits - very bad.

Both of these are valid reasons to work at a startup, if you have a family to feed and care for.

Sometimes any job is a good job, even if it's only temporary while you try to find the perfect gig.

Edit to add:

I've been in exactly this position. I took a dev job with a startup I knew was a complete loser, run by scam artists. But I had to put food on the table. Fortunately, I was only there about eight months before I landed a real job with a real company.

The dodgy company imploded, exactly as I expected it to.

Well, sure, but those are not specific reasons to take a job in a startup, which the comment was about, those are reasons to take any job.

I'd add one more to the "valid reasons": rehab

You see guys working late at their little startup and maybe thing you should tell them it’s not going to happen. Because honestly for most of them it’s not.

But... I want to make the case that it's OK.

Even if it’s never happening they may be happy. If one stops viewing startups as $$$ opportunities and starts viewing them as rehab from the soulless corporate jobs full of soul-wilting mediocrity, politics, legacy, same old shit over and over, and backstabbing, then it might make a kind of sense to work at a startup instead. Take a pay cut and "try some different shit out" with a tightly-knit team.

It’s a chance to work with things that are greenfield and/or new/different/experiment. Maybe it works. It’s a chance to not be bored. You aren’t wedded to it and don’t need to do it forever. Stay up late and code for awhile. Have pizza. Debug. Try. Care.

The gotcha is if people focus on the IMGONNARICH including the management (where it translates to UNDERMARKETYOURCOMP, though maybe one doesn’t care). That’s poisonous but I think there are lots of options where this isn’t true.

The more people I talk to outside the Bay Area, the more I encounter who I think are doing it right. A lot of them are not crazy, they don’t really think IMGONNARICH. They don’t end up in the FEELINGSWILLBECRUSHED state after it doesn't work (because, honestly, it doesn't).

I like people and being around them. I love the feeling of a team pulling together and exploring the dark corners of a problem. So when a break is in order, the answer might be startup rehab. It's cheaper and better for your career than a full-on year off.

I'm currently deciding whether or not to go with a startup for the first time and this post really resonated with me. Thanks!

>You are getting a significant title bump that moves your career forwards.

The title bump rarely moves your career forwards.

You would be surprised. Added responsibility can help you understand things from next level perspective.

While we are talking anecdata, I can personally vouch that startups do move your career forward. However, one should be willing to take more responsibility and demonstrate leadership.

Do I like going to work every day? Do I like my coworkers and the kind of work I'm doing?

These questions have always guided me well.

I guess this might fall under "You need experience and you have no other option to get experience.", but I ended up on the path of working for startups because

1. I never graduated from university (life came up, and I couldn't afford to keep going); but, also,

2. I don't live in the US (I'm Canadian.)

Any of the US bigcorps that want to hire programmers, expect them to get a visa and move to the US.

You know what you need, to get a work visa as a programmer coming to the US?

A college degree!

So, my employer pool was instantly limited to non-US companies. Mostly local Canadian companies. Most of those are very conservative and also expect a college degree. The only ones that aren't, are startups. So that's what I had to do.

The really annoying thing is, I ended up doing work for these Canadian startups that would netted me a $300k USD salary if I had been doing it for a US bigcorp. But, because Canadian salaries are lower, and startup salaries are lower, I was only getting ~$60k.

After years of doing that, I'm a Canadian startup founder... and still only making (i.e. paying myself) $60k.

I guess I'm an object lesson in the value of a college degree!

> I guess I'm an object lesson in the value of a college degree!

As well as the really innefective way we judge talent in the US

pretty sure college degrees are beneficial to getting a visa/work permit in other countries, like Canada or China.

Actually you dont need to have college degree. I don't have high school diploma and I got L1B visa. In case you have enough years of experience, this experience is "translatable" to years of college/degree. There is companies that specialize in writing letters for US Visa applications in which they are go through your experience and how it translated to visa degree requirements. My 18 years of experience were placing me somewhere between BS and MS. Letter for visa application supporting it was 6 pages long.

> Learning - they will not have any formal training nor time to train you, so be prepared to self-learn.

Disagree with this one - yes you will need to self-learn, but learning to self-learn is an invaluable tool in itself. You will learn to be extremely non-reliant on other people, and you will probably need to learn about parts of the stack you did not know about before, and fast. You might learn about project management or giving sales pitches. If you are thinking about starting your own company, you will learn a huge amount about how this happens, and what that means (I learned that I didn't want to do it for example!)

I have learned a huge deal from my startup experience, probably double the rate I was learning at the bigger company I was working at before.

Stability is bad yes, but work life balance can definitely be good in a start-up.

Is "stability" in terms of overall job security, or day-to-day chaos?

Because I would add "chaos" to the list of negatives. The odds are likely you're going to get a C-suite or board that has ADHD-like tendencies, especially when chasing large customers and/or funding rounds.

You will continually be dropping or delaying long-term work for short-term projects to help the company achieve other goals.

I agree with you, though I'd say that this may not apply fully to late-stage startups in Series C or Series D.

This is more seed / A stage. Once solid revenues are established it's a different game. I edited the original comment to reflect this.

> late-stage

At that point, it's just another job. Unless the company is clearly headed for a unicorn IPO, your tiny slice of the company is unlikely to be worth much.

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience.

This was me and I paid for it. Right now I'm on week 8 of 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

I thought standard work weeks were 40 hours (at least in the US)? Are your work weeks normally shorter?

40 hours is the target. In practice, most salaried employees work around 50-60 hours a week -- more if you count checking and responding to email after work / pager duty / etc

I don't think that is true in general. Heavily depends on the employer, industry and country. Also unions play a big part in worktime.

While I'm aware some would call this a rather contrarian opinion, I truly believe that if you're in a salaried position and routinely required to work 45 or more hours a week, whether by actual mandate or "but that's just what we all do here" cultural pressure, there is something wrong with that company, more than likely starting at the top. Many companies have extraordinary crunch periods for one reason or another, and that's fine, but if you're in a crunch period more often than you aren't, that's no longer extraordinary.

Even outside of US, 40h is standard, some places have 35 hour work week. 30 is less than 4 days a week, or 5x6h. I actually think that _might_ be more efficient _and_ healthier, but it's unusually little, I think it's a typo.

in the UK 37.5 after accounting for lunch is common at BT it was 36 hours a week on average (not counting lunch).

Do you mean you're being worked too hard or not hard enough?

30 hour weeks? Don't most people work 40 hour weeks? My first job I worked 60 hour weeks for basically 2 years straight (average, we'd work a ton of hours for a month, then work normal for a week or two, then back up to a ton of hours) and I should have started looking sooner. Instead I waited until I was burnt out and got fired. Only took me two weeks to find a newer, better job where I didn't work more than 40 per week and with a significant pay increase.

Everyone should look for a new job sooner (don’t wait for burnout, don’t wait if you’re not being promoted or seeing comp increases, don’t wait for the promise of reasonable hours). Congrats on the soft landing, sorry to hear you burned out first.

I learned some very valuable lessons at least!

> 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

Sounds terrible

30 hour weeks — Do you mean in addition to a regular full-time job?

omg 30 hour weeks sounds perfect

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