Poll: do you work for a startup? what has your experience been like?
It's surprising how much negativity there is about working at startups on HN. Two posts currently on the front page are dominated by comments that working at a startup is silly and early employees are exploited.
It would be interesting to see how many people on HN currently work at startups, and what their feelings are about it.
If you worked at a startup in the past, what has been your experience? were you burned by it? did it work out well with or without an exit?
(
5 comments
| 3 points
| on HN
)
Startup 1: Decent pay. Extremely long hours and high stress. Fascinating technology. IPO.
Startup 2: Average pay. Very long hours and high stress. Very interesting technology. Very profitable acquisition (right at the end of the dotcom bubble). Acquiring company killed the product line. Go figure.
Startup 3: OK pay. Easy life but dull technology. Dull, dull, dull. Surprisingly, paid off a little years later in an acquisition. Did I say how dull it was?
Startup 4: Good pay. Great technology -- got to build a distributed key/value store before it was cool. Most stressful work experience of my life. Very long hours during this period, but it let up once the product was working. Very good payoff in an acquisition. Acquiring company kept the product going, but it was Dilbert-land, so here I am at startup 5.
Good pay and long hours.