> I didn't get to keep any upside. I had most of the risks of a startup, but very little of the payoff.
That sounds super exploitative tbh. Using people’s passion and naivety to give you free moonshots.
That sounds super exploitative tbh. Using people’s passion and naivety to give you free moonshots.
You're an employee, you work for a guaranteed salary now in return for someone else shouldering the risk. That's the nature of the deal. If you want to share in the upside, you have to share the risk.
It's not like anyone's being forced to do this extra work (unlike, say, game dev, which is exploitative). It's just an option for people who want to tackle interesting projects.
> I realized that to get it to actually ship I had to sacrifice nights and weekends.
If you have to work nights and weekends, but get none of the benefits for it, you might as well work nights and weekends on your _own_ side project.
It’s paying your salary. Not having a salary, or having a lower and/or unreliable one, is part of the risk of a start-up.
> you might as well work nights and weekends on your _own_ side project
Nights and weekends plus working days. Not just nights and weekends. Start-up means all in. Hobby means just nights and week-ends.
It is exploitative by the company to expect you to work nights and weekends, but then all the possible benefits go to the company. If you're going to do work on your nights and weekends, then do work for yourself, not for a company that won't compensate you for it.
The above has nothing to do with whether or not it's like a startup; it's speaking only to the deal in question being exploitative.
(Side note: I don't have a problem working some nights and the occasional weekend for my job. But it's very rarely expected of me; it tends to happen when I make a commitment to delivering something in a certain timeframe and then it turns out my guess as to how long it would take was wrong. Because I'm flexible, so is my company; if I need to take a half day to help my daughter with something, nobody is going to push back on that. I just wanted to make it clear that I don't consider the occasional night/weekend exploitative automatically... just that the situation described by the OP appeared to be so.)
We’re disagreeing, not talking past each other. (Which is fine!)
Above-market salaries, bonuses and the promise of promotion (within the company or without) are fair compensation for aggressive work expectations. The upside is sharply capped in comparison with start-ups. But the downside has been practically eliminated. Nobody bemoans investment bankers, who have largely this compensation model.
If the person's job includes working nights and weekend and compensates fairly for it, and they have the option of working on an official side project _instead_ of their normal work, then I agree with your analysis of the situation.
If the person's job does not normally include nights and weekends, and they are compensated based on that, and adding the official side project to their work adds this time with no added benefit, then the company is being exploitative.
At the high level...
- if the side project can be done instead of your normal work, all good
- if the side project is done in addition to your normal work, with no additional compensation, then it's exploitative.
It's not, at all. You know very well what you get into, and have every option to get out at any point, with zero downside to your career. You get paid, get to learn a lot, get to experience building a product with basically zero risk for yourself. Why would the company also give you the upside? They put a lot of resources into this program.
Also, it appears that Mark enhanced the program in the meanwhile/ I was one of the early participants. There's more structure now, and there's a "goldbox" that suggests he figured a way to give employees some guaranteed upside.