That parent comment also is the only person who has mentioned "working for a low wage". It was not part of my original comment, and not the scenario I intended to describe.

It is a valid point, though. Working for a low wage at any company is a fundamentally different story than an above average wage at a bootstrapped success that can afford to pay good salaries.

I read that comment as adding a new dimension to the discussion: the wage dimension. I think it is an important part of the discussion. In my experience it is well known that startups pay poorly and make up for it with a lottery ticket, and many companies piggy-back on that widespread knowledge to pay similarly poorly ("competitive pay" where the competition are startups) despite not actually having that lottery ticket to include in the deal.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for these companies. They are in a bind. There is no way they can pay salaries competitive with big corporations, and they've made a (wise, IMO) decision to avoid funding and grow organically, which precludes them from compensating through a seat at the exit table. Personally I think the solution for companies like this is employee ownership and dividends. This seems to align incentives properly. I don't see this being done much (at all?) though, which makes me wonder whether there are ugly pitfalls I'm unfamiliar with.

To me it seems that the problem is the definition of "startup". Not every new/small business is a startup. A profitable, no/slow-growth small business can be a great place to work at. The article is about a particular kind of startups - ones that aren't delivering on their promise of fast growth.

I generally call small businesses like that a lifestyle business rather than a startup.

They don't return huge amounts of money, but they are not going to disappear overnight as they have the market cornered on one or two very small niches (eg: the entire worldwide demand for the product they offer is $0.5-5mil). In my experience, a lifestyle businesses has found a problem that a dozen or two midsized companies have and precisely solves it or produces a low volume customizable product.

Basically the goal of the company is to keep the owners comfortable rather than play the unicorn lottery.

> Basically the goal of the company is to keep the owners comfortable rather than play the unicorn lottery.

Why are those the only two options? What happened to "grow organically into a megacorp over 20-30 years"?

That would be a regular business. A lifestyle business the goal is to give the owner a job they like without the distractions a larger company would have because the owner/founder likes doing the work.

It is possible to start lifestyle then transition to regular or be a blend (eg: currently lifestyle, but keeping a eye out to grow). Sparkfun is a example of this where the founder hired someone to be CEO so they can actually have time to do the stuff they love.

[0]: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2162

Even beyond that, there's a huge space between "Keep their owners comfortable" and "Unicorns".

It seems there's also an implication that if you're not maximizing your expected income you're doing something wrong. People can make a reasonable choice to work for a smaller business (or, indeed, any type of organization) that doesn't pay the highest salaries for other reasons.

Low wage means less than you can earn for doing exactly the same thing elsewhere. Of course people often compromise on wage to do something they are particularly interested in. In the case of unpaid internships or volunteer work people forego any monetary compensation. All other things being equal, though, you should seek to maximize your income.

Well, sure. If every attribute other than salary is absolutely identical, of course there's no reason to accept a lower wage. But everything else is pretty much never going to be equal when it comes to professional jobs.

Startups, or companies pretending to be startups, usually offer lower wages for doing essentially the same technical work.

Even taking this as granted, everything around the work, the people, the processes, the vision will differ.