I'm done being an underpaid and mistreated wage slave. I am going out on my own.
startupdreams.substack.com
startupdreams.substack.com
edit: Updated the article to make that clear. I have no intention of hiring wage slaves, taking advantage of workers, or creating a toxic work environment. We've already had a lot of discussions about creating the best work environment for engineers ever.
So his wage is directly tied to how well you can manage contracts and how fast he can churn out the work?
Theoretically, on a slow week he can take home zero dollars.
My job is paid like that (sort of) and if I don’t work for whatever reason it costs me $0.38 and that’s just because I have health insurance through the VA.
Fuck, dude, I’d love to be a “wage slave” and get paid to do nothing for three weeks.
—edit—
Not $0.38 for health insurance but not having that cost because socialism. Be a couple hundred to pay even if I didn’t earn a dime otherwise.
salary = slavery
A person working for a wage, even a poor one, has way more options than that. If you quit your job at McDonalds, nobody is going to come and murder your family. There’s no penalty for telling your manager to get fucked and starting a new job at Taco Bell the next week. And for those who are truly in hardship, there are social programs like Medicaid, SNAP, etc to look after many of their most basic needs.
If you have/apply for a CTO Title and an organization will not give you equity at a great valuation, for the purposes of growth. They don’t value your input, respect your leadership, and won’t give you the tools needed to succeed.
A CTOs job is not to produce code. It is to lead, it is to be accountable to the board and the CEO. It is to be the person who sets the tone and pace for technical decisions and is the ultimate decision maker for technical things.
Part of a CTOs job is to be able to shrink delivery times, increase security posture, increase efficiency within development, and overall improve the entire department through measurable goals and metrics. A CTO should be able to explain the exact dollar amount their department has increased and saved the organization. They should be able to showcase improved velocity and delivery metrics to the board that have outward visible justification.
In many cases a CTO might also be over support. In which case customer retention and happiness is also a factor and must be measured and considered.
This is all in addition to the people management aspect of holding a budget, being responsible for report’s growth and improvements, and ensuring the department is healthy from a personnel standpoint.
Any company that thinks a CTO can do all of that effectively and push effective source code is both delusional and going to fail.
And I will say as a former wage slave that is a pretty sweet gig if the wage is right and the co-workers are good.
- Equity from 12 jobs in 15 years(?!)
- Heavy weighting toward early stage companies
How often is this person jumping ship?? Seemingly right when they’d be positioned for merit increases, too.
I think there’s a real lesson in here somewhere about company selection, and honestly: overall attitude. 200k+ salary is _wage slavery_? Come on.
I am not an executive. I am cashing out over 500k in equity, and a yearly salary of 250k+ per year as an independent contributor. Last year my income cleared 400k.
Your focus on salary; and not on VALUE, negotiations, equity, vesting, growth, and goals are what’s holding you back. Once you hit that, then you need to change how you use money. Such as negotiating that equity be deposited in a self-directed IRA to sell it, and invest it with little tax penalty.
At 200k in most areas of the United States you could have paid off a house in a year. If you’ve made 200k a year for 10 years; banking 50k of that in an index fund would have paid big dividends. Let alone using 50k on a construction loan to build a multi family house. Then rent that out providing affordable housing to folks. Or even, just pledging your equity as collateral to get the loan.
You’re not a wage slave. But you’re acting like you are one. Stop, you have access to more resources than the probably 5% of America. Use those tools, change your mindset, get a proper accountant, and do some personal planning and growth.
Maybe that's what's missing from the context.
Even if I was in SF. That doesn’t mean you have to live on the peninsula. And yes; I fully understand the opportunity cost of not being in the heart of SF.
My point here isn’t to be a dick of judgemental. Even if my tone may be that way. It’s to explain that I think you’re missing the bigger picture here and you’re missing some information.
Your equity should be worth way more. Even if the cash value is low, equity can be leveraged in funny ways to provide value that’s not monetary. I don’t think I’ve met a CTO/CFO that has a compensation plan that is north of 250k in salary. Yet, I was behind a CFO a few years back who literally bought a house in France with equity.
When you hit the levels and roles you’ve held. When you hit 200k+ income. The entire game changes. There’s a point from around 0-80k/year where the rules are one way. From 80-200k where the rules are another way. 200k+ the game is entirely different. I’ve been through each stage and had to learn it.
At 200k+ as an executive. You have way more tools at your disposal than you would at IC sub 200k levels. I sat at a bar two weeks ago with a CTO who made south of 200k/year. Who just bought his third house that was north of a million dollars, this became his spring house in Hilton Head SC.
The value of money is not always in dollar amounts. From this post and some of your comments here that seems like what you’re focused on. It may not be, but I really encourage you to explore this topic more.
You may be the best fucking CTO in SF. But if you can’t articulate, negotiate, and get what your real value is, in a structured deal. You’re just going to be leaving money at the table. As CTO you wield immense power, with the org, and the board. Your position guarantees you a seat at the table with an audience. Use it to your advantage to get the value you deserve, and use it to make sure they know that the toxic culture they perpetuate will cause a loss in value of the company.
You know what happened? The product failed. They lost all their customers. And they had to scrap it, hire a team of 15, start from scratch, and do a down round where they lost $600 million in valuation.
All because they wouldn't give me a raise and more equity.
I'VE TRIED!!!!!!!!! I've tried so many times! I've begged and pleaded! I've shown my worth! And every company I leave quickly goes out of business because they don't realize how critical I am.
And no one will give me the cash or equity I deserve.
So you were saying?
Operating at that level is less about your technical skills and more about your soft skills.
Take this thread for example. You’re getting defensive. I can understand why here. But if you get defensive like this in front of senior leadership. You’re going to lose credibility and trust from them. When you bring them a technical solution that works. They will ignore it because of that. They will also in their minds see less value in your skills.
You can be the best software architect in the world. But if you don’t have the soft skills. You won’t be respected as anything other than a replaceable IC.
I get fantastic, absolutely stellar performance reviews at every company. At the bank, they were required to put one negative thing on the performance review. You know what the CTO wrote? "Miscapitalized ID in 'cardID' variable name". That was the worst thing they could come up with about my performance.
And they still denied me any pay or equity raise.
And it cost them $600 million.
You pushing executive and CTO roles. You no longer have an internet persona and a work persona. They are one. As a CTO you become a brand. That brand is more important than anything. As a CTO, you are almost your own company. A legitimate BOD will not approve bringing you on with posts and history like this. During the due diligence process they will exclude you. The fact you don’t understand this, is a problem
The fact you are “professional” doesn’t matter. You are being defensive, and that’s not about outward appearances as you surmise. That’s about problem solving and how you think internally. you felt the need to comment the same thing twice, copy and paste, illustrates you’re very defensive. That is a problem.
That was NOT a good performance review. A good performance review is required to have a negative item because if you don’t know the depths of negativity of something. You don’t really know it. You can’t weigh its pros and cons to an unbias and logical end. The fact that they couldn’t come up with more negative things is a failure on their leadership. They’re either not looking deep enough, don’t care to do so, or didn’t want to provide feedback to avoid confrontation. The fact that YOU can’t identify this, the fact that YOU think it’s ok. Is a failure on your leadership and is a problem.
The fact that you can’t articulate how or why equity is important. Or how to use it. Is a problem.
The fact you’re hung up on them, the fact they didn’t do what you wanted, and that it “cost them 600 million”. This post and it’s comments.. Shows extreme hubris and conceited behavior. That is a problem.
The answers you seek my friend are not external. They are internal. Only by being true with yourself, self aware, and knowing your self will you be able to move forward with your career both monetarily and positionally.
I promise you, one, they are not anywhere close to making 200k. And I'm sure plenty of them have kids, family they need to provide for.
I comprehend the issue in terms of degrees of freedom. How free, how autonomous are you compared to the cashier at the supermarket? Choose your dimensions. Choice of work, choice of shelter, choice of food. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Try your best to objectively evaluate your freedom in the dimensions that matter to you.
Then compare to your chosen reference worker/s. Cashier, delivery guy, warehouse worker, office worker, etc.
To claim that you are a wage slave is to claim that you have even less freedom than the rest of us. So analyze it carefully.
And if you do reach the conclusion that the guy working the checkouts has more freedom than you, the logical conclusion is for you to quit your 4 hours a week, 200k job and become a checkout worker, no?
Well, I'm sure you'll have no interviewing problems there.
And of course I asked for more equity. They denied that too.
I interviewed with a company last month who when I stepped away from the offer table. They almost doubled their equity offer. Even at a low valuation it would have been north of 500k.
The power of equity is not in its cash value my friend. Equity is a huge stick, and how you use it matters.
For example; you can do a forward contract on your equity to delay taxes, and get a cash out without selling the equity. How you structure that deal helps and can be advantageous.
You can use equity as collateral for loans. IE using equity to buy a house in SF for 10-20% down with a huge balloon payment at the end. Backed by equity. In which you then sell the house before the balloon payment hits, you keep the equity, and you also earn equity from the sale of the house.
You can do construction loans backed by equity on new homes. Then sell them for profit. You can do the same with multi-family homes, providing affordable living conditions for folks while taking a chunk off the top.
I really suggest you sit down with an accountant specializing in these things. From your blog you’ve dealt with funds and fundraising. You may understand it from inside a business. You need to understand it from the side of a sales rep or rich individual.
Companies rarely understood the value I brought to them.
You clearly do not understand.
If no one in the room understands the value you bring to the table. The problem does not lie with them. It lies with your ability to communicate and sell that value.
I get fantastic, absolutely stellar performance reviews at every company. At the bank, they were required to put one negative thing on the performance review. You know what the CTO wrote? "Miscapitalized ID in 'cardID' variable name". That was the worst thing they could come up with about my performance.
And they still denied me any pay or equity raise.
And it cost them $600 million.
Can you elaborate on this? Were you hired for 40 hours a week or 3-4?