Bankers and lawyers jump ship for tech startups | Hacker News Reader

Bankers and lawyers jump ship for tech startups

betabeat.com

47 pointsnitashatiku31 comments

Made me think of this video: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6535519/hardly-working-sta...

Add "the type-A squares start to get in on it" as bubble-checklist item number umpteen-dozen.

>Add "the type-A squares start to get in on it" as bubble-checklist item number umpteen-dozen.

First thing that came to my mind too. When drone lambda gets on it, it's time to get out of it :) Financially speaking. As working places, tech companies are still the best places for engineers, of course.

The part that best put it for me was: "she realized sometime in the middle of April that she needed to do an Internet start-up for something."

I simultaneously recoiled and felt attracted, as I very well feel the same way, and now I wonder if the fact that I'm engineer legitimizes my urge at all, compared to hers.

Of course it does. If a lawyer has an urge to sue someone, that's way more legitimate than an engineer's urge to do the same thing. (Just read the comments on that AaronSW thread to see how well the average engineer can interact with the US legal system.)

I don't have a technical background, so I was really, really cautious about embracing startup ideas, mostly because of how easy it would be for the business guy (i.e. me) to be a total poser.

I wouldn't lump Cheryl Yeoh (the person you're quoting) in with 'drone lambda' or 'type-A square'. She's very driven, and has made a hell of a lot more progress with CityPockets than I would've expected.

On the other hand, a lot of talented engineers are making the jump from Wall Street quants to early startup employees, and that's a good thing.

Like that Jeff Bezos (formerly an analyst at DE Shaw prior to Amazon) or Jimbo Wales (formerly a futures trader prior to Wikipedia).

When the VC start to take them seriously and give them money is when we really have a problem. If they are just trying, and not succeding, to get in on it is fine, I think.

"On a recent muggy evening, about 70 mostly 20-something, mostly male guests gathered in clusters on a rooftop in Chelsea for the summer’s first “Find a Cofounder” party, squinting at one another’s name tags as the sun set. Red name tags were for programmers; blue meant you were more of a business guy. The blue name tags ran out by the time Betabeat got a drink."

Sounds like a gathering of Winklevii types.

You know, I actually went to a Hackers & Founders meetup back in 2009 as a wanna-be founder just trying to meet some folks and see what the NYC scene was all about.

It was a LOT of fun talking to folks about ideas and technology and all that, but I noticed the ratio of Hackers to Founders to be about 1/10, and my market presented itself thusly.

It took a little while to become a Really Useful Programmer, but I've been busy as hell all year. Thank you YC!

Thanks for coming! It's been great meeting all of you over the last two years at H&F.

I was there that nite. And yeah you are right. It is exactly like a gathering of Winklevii types. I have never been to a tech event where suits outnumbered the rest 9 to 1. Incredible to say the least!

I've been to a couple of those here in Austin.

As soon as I hear the phrase "I just need a developer to build X.." I discount those guys. They don't get it.

Last fall, I lost my patience with a few and finally said something like: "so you want a developer to work for your exclusively for three months in exchange for a sliver of equity? In the meantime, you keep your job. You don't risk anything. And when he's done that's when you'll start 'selling'? Seriously?"

I'll give them credit on pushing risk to others..

It's a bit like being a celebrity and dealing with papparazzi. After the last bubble (and being a freshly-minted graduate) I couldn't get a job in computers and slid through the tech support back entrance. Now with lines under my eyes and a slight case of CPS I can't even bring up my profession without someone handing me a business card.

Conversation goes like this:

?: So what do you do?

me: I'm a programmer.

?: Really?! Hey, I got this great idea for site, doing warble, warble, warble, warble......

This does not reflect the experiences of any developer I know. Is this a local phenomenon? Do you live in silicon valley?

I would venture to say that this is indeed very common. It's the same for web-design, graphic design and pretty much every creative industry out there. And now that "apps" are the mainstream buzzword, programmers are seeing it too.

This is super common in sf bay. SV is a marketing / media term.. Most of the locals say "the bay", FYI

It's probably regional. Any place that has a high flux of MBAs; in my case NYC, Miami, London, Paris. Usually its a copy of an already successful model or a mashup of 2 already successful models.

Recently, someone asked me about my thoughts on a location based photosharing service (twitter meets flickr). I was honestly interested in it then a few weeks later Instagram came out. Most of the time I either get the ideas that are completely infeasible or too pedestrian.

It's the same scenario in Boulder, CO. There is at least a 5-1 ratio of business-types to programmers.

Glad to see there are some real businesses in this article as opposed to "the next social network".

Businesses don't need to have big ideas that have never been tried before. They need to be good businesses that make money for their owners and provide value for their customers.

If you are after the cool factor: get a good income going from a business first. That frees you up like nothing you've ever experienced.

This. We're running a startup environment inside an income-producing business, and I really do think it's the best of both worlds.

If you are in this position, you will not be at the mercy of the investment climate for survival when the bubble bursts. Having been in the latter position in 2000, I can attest that it is by no means enjoyable.

Is it bad that as a developer stories like this sometimes scare me?

So this is a broader trend. A friend who works for GS called up the other day and tells me he is thinking about investing or setting up his own startup. I was surprised because he left tech and became a banker. Oh well.

Can't find a quote right now, but this reminds me of what folks were saying about the real estate bubble: when your lawyer/doctor/grandma starts telling you about the next big thing, you know the bubble is close to popping.

That said, I'm not sure if the bubble is about to pop, or if we're just witnessing the beginning of a shift back to smaller companies and entrepreneurship.

“I definitely don’t want it in the newspaper,” he said. “I’m worried that even little sign posts toward what I want to build are dangerous.”

While I understand just keeping quiet about something you think is a good idea, this combination of hype* and paranoia seems really strange to me.

* Probably only in his own mind.

I don't see anything wrong with plucky, versatile can-do Americans trying their hand in the entrepreneurial world while client-thirsty law firms shrivel and growth-dependent banks chase rainbows in Singapore and Malaysia. I'm sure there are plenty of "Type-A Squares" who I'd rather be working alongside instead of Bilbo the QA Guy with a $300 cache of Thinkgeek crap and a "sudo make me a sandwich" t-shirt.

I also know a number of now-competent technical professionals who got their start on the ground floor of the Bay Area's bubble simply because they could recognize an ethernet cable and mouth the term with a minimal amount of saliva escaping from the convergence of their lips.

Now, if we can figure out what to do with all our skilled auto-industry workers, we'll be set.

Greed is a bad motivator to startup. A high profit margin is usually the last thing a customer wants.

You're confusing high-profit margin with high-profit.

A company can be high-profit without a high-margin (i.e Supermarkets) or it can be high-margin without high-profits (many fashion labels).

Greed is a motivator for high-profits, not necessarily high-margins.

No, sorry to say, but I am not.

Every corporation should be in the business to maximize profits. A high profit margin should normally relate to a higher price which will lead to a less optimal acquisition and retention of customers. A larger customer base provides stability for sustainable growth.

You're right here. Every person that sees the money flowing and focuses on that will lose out on actually making something people want.

It's easy to look at a startup space and see which companies get it, and which are there because the probability of success (due to focus on that particular market from acquirers and VCs, market size, etc.)

This article is kind of scary because people are taking the approach that entrepreneurship is something that everyone can do. I think everyone can try (and would advocate for it) but this type of attitude normally precedes many failures.

Ugh.

Just what tech startups need- more clueless MBA types telling the engineers what to do.

I'll cite this: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2081930,00....

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