Re:Big IPO, Tiny Payout for Many Startup Workers (2015)
by logfromblammo on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @02:54PM
(#13321474)
I read that as "most startups should fail before trying to hire skilled employees".
If you don't have the cash on hand to pay competitive wages, you should not be hiring the employees.
I would never again work at a startup for the unilaterally renegotiable lottery tickets they are somehow allowed to call "options", instead of salary. If they really, really needed to compensate me with something other than cash, maybe I'd do it for actual stock and retained copyrights in my code. Maybe I'd do it for bonds with a coupon rate 10% above t-bills. But they would definitely also have to do something to polish my resume in case the company fails early. Overblown job title. Gratuitous supervisory authority over someone not needing supervision. Authority to do a side project using a rising-star tech stack.
If you can't give me cash, you have to give me something of equivalent value. If, in the long run and in aggregate, people who have ever been startup employees are earning less than those who were always employees of established companies, the startups are simply not compensating appropriately. And in that case, "don't work for startups" is the correct advice.
If you don't have the cash on hand to pay competitive wages, you should not be hiring the employees.
I would never again work at a startup for the unilaterally renegotiable lottery tickets they are somehow allowed to call "options", instead of salary. If they really, really needed to compensate me with something other than cash, maybe I'd do it for actual stock and retained copyrights in my code. Maybe I'd do it for bonds with a coupon rate 10% above t-bills. But they would definitely also have to do something to polish my resume in case the company fails early. Overblown job title. Gratuitous supervisory authority over someone not needing supervision. Authority to do a side project using a rising-star tech stack.
If you can't give me cash, you have to give me something of equivalent value. If, in the long run and in aggregate, people who have ever been startup employees are earning less than those who were always employees of established companies, the startups are simply not compensating appropriately. And in that case, "don't work for startups" is the correct advice.