It really isn’t. FB/Goog compensation is still the benchmark as far as industry comp goes, so a private co really needs to be convincingly successful to attract smart, high paid engineers at top tech companies. If they can’t then it’s a completely valid signal that something is up - either comp is well below market, growth story is fishy, management is weak, or something else.

Assumption: smart engineers only care about money.

His assumption is actually that smart engineers would chase good tech, high stock price increase potential. They already have good compensation being Facebook/Google engineers.

Would you work for less if you only had to work Monday through Thursday?

Or if you could take sabbaticals at will?

Work environment makes a huge difference. My current job is pretty harmonious among the coworkers, the bosses and team-leaders are all engineers themselves or at least tech-literate. They are also very preoccupied with the welfare of employees and even kept a completely unproductive (bad fit) employee on for half a year to help him score a new job first.

The customers are almost always happy with what we produce, and while it is certainly not fast growing, the company is steadily progressing in a good direction.

This environment is worth a lot of money to me.

Stay as long as it remains like this, these places are few and far between!

Probably true for most people, people often Lie about motivations on surveys.

Assumption #2: Google/FB development practices will fit in.

It's a useful proxy metric, but not a metric to optimize for. I wouldn't want to work for a startup that focused on hiring ex-FB or ex-Google engineers, but given that a large fraction of talented engineers have worked at FB or Google, you'd expect to find plenty of them at any reputable large startup.

> large fraction of talented engineers have worked at FB or Google

I'd actually dispute that. The tech world is really, really big. There are a great many extremely talented engineers that have never worked at FB or Google, but they're also the kind of engineers that don't write blog posts or attend conferences, so they're less visible.

Your point is quite reasonable in general but the discussion was for Silicon Valley and San Francisco. My GF has worked for Microsoft, Amazon, FB and now Google (and some startups over the years). How? Well they all have big tech offices close to Palo Alto. When she worked for various startups she was an ex-MS, ex-FB etc person.

If she'd stayed in Chicago (Northwestern grad), that's unlikely. Of course those companies have outposts there, but fewer tech roles by an order of magnitude or two.

I would still maintain that the parent is correct and there is a large quantity of talented developers in SV who have never worked at FB/Google/MS/etc.

I know quite a few of them (and would like to believe I'm talented, too).

A large fraction doesn't not mean "most". 1/4 is a large fraction. 1/10 is still a large fraction. Due to the large amount of people companies like fb, goog, apple etc employ, statistically you should expect that a SV startup on the verge of not being a startup anymore employs some ex-ers. Not having any, will raise questions. This doesn't mean the startup is bad, the answer to said questions might...

My perception is that even 1/10 is vastly overstating the number of engineers in SV who work for those companies. 1/20 might even be on the high side.

Not just "work for" but "have ever worked for" which is, at this point, a much larger number.

What percentage of developers that is I haven't the faintest clue. But definitely significantly more than 10% of my friends have worked for at least one of FAAMNG. And I have a lot of non-nerd friends too.

The propinquity is insane. When my GF decided to leave MS she walked from her MS building on her lunch break to her interviews at Google and LinkedIn (LI has subsequently moved). Of course the inverse is true too: there aren't many startups in that area, except in the Landings complex (where Cygnus used to be!).

You’re missing the point, not working at FB/Google/Microsoft/Yahoo!/Amazon/Apple doesn’t mean you aren’t a talented engineer, but the fact remains, having worked at one of those companies for several years or longer is a sure fire way to get recruiters to chase you. So not having any of those folks (which recruiters lust for) and yet being a “tech unicorn” is generally not a good sign.

No, I'm not missing anything. I agree with the point that you just made, but that wasn't the point that I was replying to.

I understood what you were replying too, just feel you focused to much on being literal with the “large majority”, hence my reply. Glad we agree on the other part, so cheers!

>a large fraction of talented engineers have worked at FB or Google

citation needed

It is a great metric if you are trying to measure software innovation happening at a company. San Francisco/SV is still a relatively tight-knit community, and engineers move around a lot. A company has to pay top dollar AND have enough interesting work going on to retain top talent, or they will move on.