Ask HN: Why do you work in a startup?

I don't know why anyone would work in a startup, unless you are the founder/have a large share in the company.

I've worked in many startups over the years and usually one or all of the following is true:

1. You end up working well over 40 hours, while getting paid a salary 2. Even if you get shares in the company, it's usually diluted to nothing in subsequent rounds and/or by the time you cash out. 3. If the company is acquired (another goal of most startups), you have a high chance of getting laid off.

I will only work in startups as a contractor/consultant now. I normally get paid well while the VC are burning through capital.

I like my life better when I am working for a startup. Of course a big corporation would pay better, but despite several attempts, I have never found that the extra money lets me buy enough happiness to make up for the fundamental misery of a tedious job doing meaningless work for no reason larger than the paycheck.

Startups offer a chance to play a meaningful part in the creation of something new and useful. Change tends to happen quickly, and if you are a creative person who values autonomy, there's usually a lot of room to decide for yourself what needs to be done and go figure out how to do it. This feels good; I am happy to have this kind of career.

Every startup is different. They differ in expected working hours, stability, compensation, equity, impact, mission, etc. Imo, most of these dimensions overlap with bigger corps. except impact: it is much easier to have a lot of impact at a startup.

Some of the other commenters have mentioned startups with low stability, low equity, low compensation, and high expected working hours. I wouldn't want to work there.

But I am at a startup with 40 hrs expected / week, good compensation, high impact, and medium stability -- that is a good tradeoff for me.

I stopped working in large corporations because everything felt so bureaucratic and superficial. Most management decisions on people looked based on hearsay or 'political' considerations.

In startups your work and the value you add to the company is more visible, so decisions are more objective.

i work on http://web1.0hosting.net/ this is free static hosting, like neocities, only better, we are developing, not limiting. as for why I do this: I am very interested in it, I do it not for money, but to help people, the project exists entirely and completely not for advertising, and never will. this is the goal of the project.

Freedom to browse HackerNews whenever I want

Why are the only options startup vs big corporation?

I hate large companies. I don’t have the bullshit tolerance to do it.

I’m at a point in my life where I still need to work. But I don’t need to chase after maximum compensation.

I will only go into startups or any company at this point in a strategic position. I don’t do on call, I need to be close to the decision makers in the org chart - CxO, Director, etc and not a powerless middle manager.

I also need them to understand that I don’t work crazy hours. But we can always negotiate priorities and balance time, cost, and requirements.

All of the big tech and adjacent companies now seem to have return to office mandates. I only work remote, hybrid is not an option. I will hop on a plane for a business trip in a heartbeat if required

founder here.

i hate the 9 to 5.

i like doing things on my own.

i haye unnecessary meetings.

i hate office politics.

i hate slow pace of engineering.

i hate unintuitive designs.

i like to make money while i sleep.