Hacker News Reader

Comment by nestlequ1k | Hacker News Reader

There's a certain type of personality (very prevalent in the valley) who won't work for a big company like facebook, twitter, or google for any amount of money. I would imagine these types of people make up the majority of the YC class.

Maybe they'll get bought via a talent acquisition but as soon as their golden handcuffs are off, they are out doing their own thing again. The reason they allow themselves to get bought via talent acquisition is to be able to easily raise money in the future.

I think Sean Parker is reacting to these types of people. I think the misconception is that the increased funding sources is what is driving these people. I would suggest that they were always there, but 5 years ago they were just living poor and working their ass off to build a startup (usually unsuccessfully).

I do believe I'm part of this group. There's no amount of money that would compel me to take a corporate job. Sometimes money isn't what matters.

View on HN

You claim that this class of people won't work for a "big company" for "any amount of money," yet in the next breath you admit that they will work for those companies in the context of a "talent acquisition."

What is a "talent acquisition" if not an alternate mode of compensation to persuade individuals to "take a corporate job" who previously considered themselves above such positions? Yeah, it sounds more impressive to tell people "we got bought by X" instead of "I took a job with X," but either way they've "gone corporate." You're still dealing with the same endless HR meetings, PHBs, "culture," etc, as all the other "drones."

Yes, a good number of such "acquisition hires" leave after earn-out is complete, typically two to four years. This is actually a fairly lengthy of time for any high-value employee to hold any position in the valley these days, startup or not.

He gives a fairly reasonable explanation in the next sentence:

The reason they allow themselves to get bought via talent acquisition is to be able to easily raise money in the future.

That is still ignoring the fact that these individuals were in fact willing to take a corporate job, when their price was met. Maybe that price included the ego boost that comes with being part of an acquisition ("they really wanted me!"), or the "pedigree" that one plans to parlay into future opportunities.

Regarding the latter point, it seems that "key players" at "prominent companies" don't have too much trouble getting funding for startups when they move on, regardless of whether they were "talent acquisitions" or not.

Speaking from experience, when my previous employer got acquired by a megacorp, nobody was saying "I really don't want to work for megacorp, but maybe I will have an easier time getting funding later." No. It all came down to dollars and cents in the here and now, and the only people who turned down the earn-out offers (less than 10%) were those who had better options available.

Exiting a company as soon as you can after a talent acquisition to go on and become an entrepreneur again is very very very common. Most recently I can think of Arrington, Levchin, Nguyen.

I would even guess that the majority of founders who are acquired by Google, Yahoo etc. leave in the first 12 months.

It is either to get the first run on the board, or to give a startup that would otherwise fail a graceful exit - but these people are entrepreneurs and do not fit into large companies.

Sean Parker should be asking what is Facebook doing to attract these types of people, not bitch about these people not wanting to join and blaming free-market funding, of all things.

> I would even guess that the majority of founders who are acquired by Google, Yahoo etc. leave in the first 12 months.

That is absolutely not the case.

You often don't even hear about most Google acquisitions, or you don't know what they were even working on until they get released as Google Egg Timer or something. And even after vesting a lot of acquired employees still stick around. Some of them have families by then.

Yahoo tries hard to make them quit in disgust, but even they hang on to founders longer than that.

I'm part of this group too. It's less about money and more about freedom to me. The freedom to work on what I choose and the near complete control I get over my own destiny.

No matter how good it is at a company like Facebook or Google, there will always be a point where they make you realize they have control over you. Whether it's working on a project you hate, ridiculous corporate policies, or having to kiss the ass of your manager. I've done it all for the past 15 years at a few different companies and I finally just got sick of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com