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Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

It's my opinion. Working at a startup, you're underpaid and overworked for very little financial benefit.

Obviously, that's true of some startups, but very wrong in others.

Working at Weebly, you have similar hours to BigCo (although you'll be 10x more productive), paid market rate (or slightly above), and receive your fair share of the outcome.

You also get to work with a fun group of people who are obsessed with being productive, and not much else. Maybe we're the exception, but we don't care if you're a 9-5 type of person, if you're very productive during those hours.

Working at a startup doesn't have to be shit, just because some startups are.

Ill second that - skip the startups and work for yourself instead if at all possible

I have friends who love startups but would never start one. It's not for everyone.

Agreed - if someone enjoys their startup life, more power to them in that there is nothing that pays better than enjoying your situation. For someone who is looking at it as a financial play but sitting in a startup that is grinding them down to nothing, they are most likely making an extremely bad investment.

Maybe in the dot com era. Venture backed startups nowadays pay better than a lot of typical programming jobs.

That's fine, I'm just surprised you'd make such a sweeping generalization. Not all BigCos are the same--why would all startups be the same?

I'm not a startup cheerleader -- "come change the world!" is the most overused pitch line ever -- but there are tons of examples (37signals, some YC teams, some of the larger NY startups) countering this generalization.

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