Ask HN: Should I become a partner at a new VC seed fund?
Here's my situation: early thirties, CS major, worked full time while getting straight A's in full time undergrad at a B-level school. Since then, 13 years of experience with extremely large scale internet companies, the most recent 5 were at Google. Primarily focused on writing backend code and doing front end design for internal tools that deploy/manage large scale infrastructures (devops type stuff). I'm one of those supposedly hard to find designer/hacker hybrids.
Since living in the corporate world, I've been doing full stack dev consulting over the last year. I also have experience with two startups, one failed and one ongoing. Usually brought on as a CTO / engineering lead type role; being a reasonably skilled UI/UX designer doesn't hurt.
The older I get, the less interested I am in tinkering with technology and the more interested I get in solving human problems. In my view, good design is all about improving peoples' lives and good businesses do so by building things that real people value. Building well made, purposeful things is what stokes my fire, whether it's a web app or a company. Solving big problems certainly helps. Working with great people is even better. I love people.
Over the past few months an opportunity has presented itself for me to become a partner at a new early stage VC fund. They're interested in me for my technical expertise and résumé as well as my management experience, "people skills" and reputation in my community for being a vocal startup advocate (this is outside of SF). This firm has raised somewhere in the low 8-digits for their first fund. More funds may be raised in the future.
The offer is salary/bonus + carry equity + benefits. The salary is significantly lower than what I'd earn as a consultant, but the low number is primarily a result of the low administrative fees for a new fund. As the firm grows, presumably my compensation would grow with it. Obviously the more good deals I help source or vet, the better chances of success.
My dilemma is partly about money, but mostly about the major career shift. Being a VC is not like starting a startup; it's more a finance job than an engineering one. That said, the two new YC hires are evidence of a trend I'm seeing of good engineers becoming VCs, having technical knowledge on staff instead of just MBAs and former execs. I'm just worried that I'm making a switch away from engineering and in doing so will let my skills atrophy to where they're no longer marketable.
HN, what say you? Should I go to the dark side?