> I learned that most startups fail, and that when they fail, the people who end up doing well are the ones who were looking out for their own interests all along.
Can you elaborate on this? How were people "looking out for their own interests", and how did it end up helping them? Could the founders have done things differently to make the outcome more equitable?
Thanks!
Basically the people who leave a failing firm early do better than those who stick around until the money runs out. They find better jobs faster because they're not competing with a bunch of their former coworkers, they don't have a gap in their employment to explain, and they don't have to answer the question of why they stayed when they should have known the company was failing. If you find yourself in this situation and you think that loyalty has any value, think again.
I took it to mean that you have a responsibility to yourself as well as the startup. You give them a lot of time and effort, sure, but you need to keep doing things like reviewing how the job is letting you develop, both technically and as a person, keeping up your tech skills by reading and playing, and building contacts and networks of your own.
The people who have done that (rather than just had their head down and working) have more to fall back on if the startup fails, and probably noticed things weren’t going so well earlier as well.
Consider also the latest "github is your resume" hiring fad. Do you think it is possible to crunch, give everything possible to your startup employer and have a pet project at the same time?
If you do not care about yourself, you will end up tired and overworked. Another potential employer will interpret it as a "lack of passion".
The issue is not limited to startups through. The same happen in established companies.