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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Personally working in smaller companies, startups (the scene probably ends somehow in 1-3 years) and academic organizations (professors have a career path, staff not) I find that no advancement is a norm.

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Startups though, ugh. Maybe tomorrow you will end up a millionaire with stock, or you're eating catfood and hoping the grocery bill difference will be enough to pay the mortgage next month while you desperately look for a job in the worst economy since 2008. If there's an in-between, I've never seen it personally.

You'll work 60hrs a week "hardcore" for a Musk type for stock with a blackout period and multiple risks of massive dilution in any or all funding rounds.

Most startups will fail or "exit" with a sale that profits only a few key investors and insiders.

But eating catfood is always an good idea no matter your net worth.

As a cat owner I'd suggest that dog food is likely closer to a complete diet for humans. Cats are obligate carnivores, dogs are omnivores like us.

Also, most cat food smells pretty bad

OTOH, if you're barely able to afford food, if they're the same cost, high protein might be a good thing.

Rice and beans are cheap and combining them, your body can use the protein.

Its less humorous to advocate a healthy low cost vegan diet than to suggest people eat cat food.

But I totally agree!

Completeness is more important than optimal balance. For example, a high protein diet is no good if you get scurvy because cats produce their own vitamin C and you don't (although dogs also don't need vitamin C, which suggests that a pet-food-only diet needs to include at least some guinea pig food)

All startups that I worked paid very decently, just not FAANG level.

This no-in-between you describe is for founder only, I believe.

The ones I worked at paid me decently in terms of cash except for the one I tried to start myself. In those cases I was wanted for special skills and experience and not being a generic applications developer.

It's not unusual for people, in the case of an acqui-hire, to get a payout of $250k or so.

There are zombie startups. The business has stalled out, but breaks even. The staff and investors are checked out. Ambitious product people show up with big ideas that never work and then leave. They keep going until someone finds a buyer or the business fails.

Yep.

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