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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Note that the suggested approaches do not include "offer them equity" or "pay lots of money".

Most startups fail.

Even equity isn't especially compelling. Unless I'm a founding team member, I will always take higher pay in lieu of equity. After being with a company for a year or two and having a solid idea of where it's going, I'd probably consider it, but until that point equity is worthless to me.

Also, even with the best equity agreement, you can still get royally screwed when it comes down to the wire.

Alas, employee equity holders are last on the list of winners.

Exactly, what's the liquidity preference for the salary you're leaving on the table?

Oh that's right about -10X

Personally, as a prodigy boy-genius languishing in a shit industry, I can't wait to fill my belly with mentorship and live under a roof of self-actualization.

hahahaha, very good. It's amazing that this article doesn't mention money at all. As if people who want to make startups are so idealistic that money isn't a factor in choosing employment paths.

The article doesn't mention it because it would be useless advice. Most startups don't have the money to match Facebook, Google, etc. and the ones that do don't need the advice.

First, I think this whole article was filled with useless advice. The only useful thing would be to talk about giving people better compensation. Maybe it wasn't obvious that I was thinking about equity+salary when I said "money". Startups have equity. Equity is a financial instrument. Equity would definitely be considered in any compensation package.

My experience is that startups are extremely stingy with equity. I honestly was shocked back when I first learned how little equity was given to engineers in general. So I disagree with your statement that it would be useless advice, if you also extend it to giving more meaningful equity to employees. Also, I've had salary offers from startups that matched offers from the big software giants. Startups have money they just have to decide how to allocate it. If they need engineers and they are having trouble hiring, they probably will have to offer a higher salary or lower their talent expectations. Or just keep the same plan and hope to get lucky.

It's arguably the most important advice.

Nobody said that you need to match Facebook and Google. First, it's not like the BigCorps will hire every single person that your startup is interested in (e.g. Facebook rejected Brian Acton who went on to cofound Whatsapp). Also, there are plenty of people who would rather work for (say).9x at your startup than work for x at BigCorp.

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