I could be a cog in a giant corporate machine, or I can have a measurable impact where I work.

I can stay in my lane and do my specific job tasks, or I can run around putting out fires and helping wherever help is needed.

I mindlessly build the specific design product handed me, or I can guide my own work in accordance to the needs of our customers and the business.

I can follow policy and fill out forms when making any decision, or I can just do what's right because who has time to write policies and look over approval forms?

tbf, tech is relatively good at a lot of these. As I understand it, Facebook gives a fair bit of latitude to engineers, and Google used to be famous for their 20% time. But the longer a company exists, and the bigger it gets, the more bureaucracy and controlling it'll get. Every big disaster means a new policy on how to prevent future disasters.

I think pg wrote an essay stating that the most valuable skill in an early startup employee is "helpfulness" (maybe not though -- cursory search didn't find it). You do what needs to be done.

This is roughly your "wear many hats" point, but more than just different technologies, and not just being new. If you just want to have a well-defined, steady, sane-every-day job, a startup is terrible. If you every want to say "that's my job", a start-up is terrible. If you're the sort of person people will come to for help with whatever comes up (and enjoy being that), start-ups can be great.

I think that point can support working for either a big company or a small company depending on what type of impact you are looking for.

I've worked for startups in the past and have had a huge impact on the startup but almost no impact on the outside world because the startups just weren't tackling very visible problems.

Now I work for Google and I have basically zero impact on Google i.e. basically nothing that I can do will ever move the dial in terms of Google's revenue, etc. But I've worked on several projects that have had a big impact outside of Google. For example, I was on a small team (3 people) that developed the Python 2.7 runtime for App Engine (this was a while ago) and I was on another small team that implemented the server-side infrastructure for the Google Home. I also developed the screensaver for Chromecast - which is a tiny tiny project - but still millions of people love it.

Now that I'm at a startup, I'm making a huge impact on the startup, but it's having very little impact on the outside world and the industry. I guess the hope is that one day the startup will have impact on the world, but very few ever do.

Which do you prefer?

I'd prefer having an impact on the company versus an impact on a large number of users, because I would experience the impact on the company every day, but at the big company, the feeling of satisfaction from running into random people who have used what I made would still be somewhat infrequent.

Online forums, discussion groups etc. can makes them very frequent, global, profound and in many cases very visible to your friends & families - who otherwise would not know what you are working at the small startup.

For a lot of people, "I want to have an impact where I work" is more about their own ego and sense of importance than about impact on other people's lives. This is not a value judgment, by the way - wanting to feel like more than just another faceless disposable drone is a valid desire.

On the other hand, if I submit a patch to Chrome that makes it 0.00001% faster, it's a much bigger impact -- millions of hours saved -- but it's an impact you can only see in aggregate statistics. No individual will even notice the effect, so it's much harder to see or feel. It's more abstract. You have to be pretty analytical to get the same level of satisfaction, even if you've done more to benefit people overall.

Can't find a source for that, but have many times corroborated that through a Google search. Peter Norvig is one of them.

Source: happened to me with a YC startup.

Agreed, although things can get much less fun once you end up burned out.

I think this Tweet does a decent job at describing the tradeoffs/challenges:

    > Typical designer mid-career crisis.
    > 
    > * You want to stay hands on
    > * You want a relaxed, low stress environment doing “meaningful work”
    > * You want to maximise your earning potential
    > 
    > The majority of roles you see force you to pick just two.

---

Minor digression: now, not all startups are completely hectic, option-fueled sweatshops. I'm talking about the default picture that comes to my mind when I hear this word. The most successful small startups I know are quite the opposite in fact. Well, I guess having an actual market, solving a real problem is important. (OK, "scale-ups" are the f*cking worst still as you end up with chaos and inability to get work done).

I recommend everyone spend some part of their career in a 1 to 20-person shop, a 20 to 200-person shop and a 2,000+ person shop. (I don’t have experience in 200 to 2,000.) They are vastly different work environments.

I thought I was a 1 to 20 guy; I’m not. I want enough structure to let me specialise without letting bureaucracy get in the way. Twenty to ~two hundred.

Start-ups are fun, but they’re also stressful. If you get unlucky, they can also leave you materially less wealthy than you could have been with more stability.

Mindlessly building what is handed to you is a culture problem and not a company size problem. Some startups have less freedom than some corporations but both usually grant more freedom to more senior people.

You can still 'wear many hats' at some mega corps too, if the company only has 'engineer' as a title then you are expected to basically do 'everything' . The team you are on will decide what the balance is though.

I think all of what you said could apply to both sizes of the companies.

Go to work for an established, profitable, small company. Make a good salary and have a fulfilling career.

That's kind of odd from my perspective, because that's exactly my niche, and yet, my very first job was at a startup (of about 3 people besides me), where I was a rapidly jettisoned cog, and every since I've gone to progressively bigger and more bureaucratic organizations while seeking, I guess, less definition of my role.

My N is low, they were both non-Bay (NYC) startups, maybe some startups are fun, maybe I'm really bad at picking startups, but I think a startup's culture is often as much or more of a crapshoot than the startup's business.

Was at Google before, and it was fun for only a bit as well, but definitely not as actively non-fun as my last 3 years has been.

I know plenty of startups that have a sane working culture as a key point of differentiation in the job market.

I don't care about getting promoted in my current role (at a small start-up where the eng org is flat), but I'm miserable because there's obviously a clique of people who are "trusted" and take over the technical direction of anything interesting. What's left is basically just implementing their ideas and then having them rewrite it on you or nitpick it in PRs until they practically wrote it.

I’ve worked in places with nasty politics. It’s brutal and awful.

In a smaller place with a flatter org, you’re usually going to have less nastiness, for the simple reason that there aren’t any bullshit roles with organizational power. Bullshit attracts assholes.

When small companies suck, it’s usually because the owner is a jerk.

So I'd call that a startup? It's not like we're not trying to achieve rapid growth, we just haven't found the secret magic yet to turn into a unicorn. Doesn't mean we're not trying.

One popular definition of "startup" (Steve Blank's) basically precludes profitability.

A typical HN startup is wannable Unicorn get rich quick scheme. Maybe we need a new term for that.

In one case I'd get meetings like "hey, I know you have a kid and all, but we're hitting a deadline soon. Just to let you know next week you're probably gonna have to put in extra hours. But I didn't want to sneak it on you. Let me know if there are any days you can't work extra so I can make sure the other days are covered by someone else." and other times not count my hrs if I work 7.5 hrs or 8.5 hrs in a day.

Startups can be kind. It just has to come from up top.

And I'm not even talking about my current startup which is significantly better.

So yeah. Don't think that startups are all shit. I interview the founders. Are these the people I want to work for, I want to make rich, I believe in.

I switched to working remotely for a San Francisco-based startup because they offered me a 30% raise over what my current employer was willing to pay.

Two years later, when working for the startup became less palatable, I went back to my old company. My manager there struggled with the HR dept as hard as they could and got them to just match my startup salary in order for me to come back.

Which I guess is just to say the parent comment is not universally correct.

Startups pay more in salary than non-tech non-finance companies do in total comp. Startups that are far enough along (pre-IPO Uber, Lyft, etc.) pay more than FAANG (the RSUs aren't liquid but you need to only wait a year or two).

Heard this from multiple people but here's an article: https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-uber-employees-failed-t...

[Edit] But... I think you might have missed the point. The reason to join a pre-IPO company is to make far more money post-IPO when the stock rises. Joining Facebook in 2008 or Google in 2000 would be equivalents here, and those people became very, very wealthy on the day of the IPO due to this pop vs when they joined. Uber employees who joined 4 years before IPO had their stock drop instead.

- they pay more than enough for my near-term financial goals

- the equity is ok

- they let me work on sidehustles

- I get to work on stuff that is truly make or break for the company, not some bullshit pet project a PM needs to get promoted

That wasn’t my intended point. I want to be a profit center, not someone you keep busy because you can.

At Google, for example, I’d wanna work on search, ads, or data mining. But I wouldn’t wanna work on chat.

At Uber, I’d wanna work on the driver orchestration machinery, not on some opensource side project they have.

I find at startups it’s easier to get to work on the company’s main core thing. And that’s where I like to be.

If the whole company ultimately proves meaningless, that’s just life.

One day I'll reconsider this choice, probably when I'll have a bit more of financial stability (read: bought a house and paid it in full) and can afford some more risk.

Most people seems to overlook the fact that most startups die within a year, and some more startups drag a long death march before dieing.

You might have fun or do crazy interesting things, but if the company goes bust it might not be pretty.

For the moment, I'll stay conservative about this kind of things.

I’ve worked for 5 startups now and my equity payout has been 0, 0, 0, 0, and now I stand I make low 7 figures from the equity on this last company (publicly traded now).

During those startups the following happened: - I saw my nieces and nephews so little they forgot my name. They were young, sure, but it still stung when they look at you like a stranger

- Messed up a 8+ year relationship with my significant other and we haven’t talked in years

- Let my student debt pile up to take on more equity than salary (dumbass idea for the record)

- Lost friends along the way because I could never do anything

- Missed many family/friends birthdays as I was working

- Worked 80 hour weeks for a long time

What did I feel after I saw my equity/stock rise to above 7 figures? Stupidity. I gave up a lot on my journey and money can’t get it back, in fact, the money I stand to earn doesn’t enable me to do much more than what my salary already does. I can travel, eat well, have luxury goods if I want (I’m not that type of person but anyways), and so forth.

My point being that this was a.) self-inflicted and b.) not worth the combined opportunity cost of all of those years.

So for every “friend” who made lots of money at Uber or other places, there’s a story like me or a story where someone’s never made anything from equity because profitable exits are fucking hard

The article is basically a rehash of my experience in a start up as the first engineer for a technical founder. I spent the next 6 years growing the company, my skills, and my experiences. I was constantly provided more salary and stock options until I had so many options I could not reasonably exercise them without taking on massive risk. I had to consistently request the status of the option pool to even know what percentage I was granted. When I left the company I effectively had 3 months (Nov 2019 - Feb 2020) to make a decision. I'm personally glad I was conservative and did not exercise them given the outcome of COVID in the US.

I don't regret taking that job at all as it helped me become a very skilled technology professional despite not having a prestigious educational background. It opened new doors which would have otherwise been closed until I had an equal opportunity to prove myself at scale. I do regret the extra hours worked which led to burn out and health issues as well as not being more bullish on salary until later in my career.

Isn't that a "never need to work again" situation though?

eg, you've effectively freed up your future to put time into whatever you want?

I don't think that I would call that "never need to work again" money. It's between 10 and 30 years of my salary.

A good lump sum to stash in the retirement fund. Maybe retire at 55 instead of 65, but definitely not "never need to work again" money.

If you have 2 million, you can conservatively (meaning a low 3% - 4% withdrawal rate) take out 60k to 80k a year in perpetuity. Can you live on 60k - 80k a year? Consider you'll be paying a lot less in taxes since it's all capital gains. If your normal salary was 100k ish, you probably can.

(Obviously as your raise the definition of "low 7 figures" this can change dramatically)

After taxes and everything, it’s not “enough” to never need to work again but yes, I would say I’m very fortunate to not have money as the concern as long as I’m not irresponsible with it.

The point was more that it easily could’ve been another $0 and in theory, the company could fail taking that $1-3M down considerably.

The salary most HNers make is way above the median and is enough to live a very comfortable life. I honestly can’t tell you if the money was worth the personal pain of the last 10 or so years, truly I don’t think it is.

If I ever finish work, it's going to be a complete reboot of me anyway.

So I would add as a valid reason:

- Startup will pay you as much as anyone else, and won't be boring.

Caveat: may only apply to early hires!

I really wish I could, life would be easier, less work, less stress, pay better... None of them will take me so I keep help building and (sometimes) exiting startups.

It's really exhausting. 20 years of this... I wish more companies would value those who "challenge the book" instead of "follow the book" or that I could find a way to obediently follow it instead of challenge it.

I've honestly thought about figuring out how I could put things on ice for a few years and get a PhD, because then I'd have the proper paperwork to allow for my disposition and could finally stop this exhausting startup life.

If you are bull headed and drive really hard in a new area, you better be right because you are taking responsibility and accountability for that area (whether you think you are or not). High risk, high reward - sound familiar? This is true at Google, at startups, in academia. So it's really more of a personality thing - if you're ok being obedient, you also don't need to bear the stress of accountability. But if not, well, no degree will alleviate that stress.

I agree with most of what you're say, but I think this can be wrong. Management seems to push stress and blame down to the individuals, even if they are obedient. I see a lot of stress in my job and I'm only an intermediate developer.

This is a valid position and one I can identify with personally, but as I've gotten more emotionally mature over time find it's a little more subtle. You need to include your risk propensity and methodology into the calculation. Even within established companies roles, teams and individual situations are going to be vastly different. Are you willing to take bet-your-career risks? Have you earned some shared vulnerability with the people you want to change? Do you truly care about them and your company? I've learned these are all necessary if not sufficient regardless of the corporate landscape.

I believe there is a third way where you work within the system to affect meaningful change (or bring it down from the inside, depending on how radical your viewpoint). I've come to the realization that small minorities want either dramatic change or none at all; the vast majority are just apathetic, which is your biggest enemy. Start-ups likely skew towards the big change camp. You can make a difference in the former environment but it is exhausting and risks turning you apathetic as well.

"Thinking outside the box" is cute virtue signalling but honestly that's what gets you kicked to the curb.

It will always be that way for any established entity because that act is fundamentally one of disestablishment

it sounds like you've identified a personal problem with a clear goal, the next logical step would be to shop around therapists who think they might help you achieve that specific goal. and i think it's very important to shop them. Maybe even read a few books on how to find the right therapist for you. It's important to not get stuck on one who you don't like or who isn't interested in help you the way you want to be helped. I've found with therapy that sunk cost fallacy is real when you've found one that really doesn't fit with your goals.

It's running off a raspberry pi at my apartment and is really more about giving me access to my network of computing resources here.

I've been meaning to make a generative poetry engine and just put it there without disclosing it. It could probably be pretty believably human if it's restricted enough.

People quit bosses, not jobs and I've always kept my people. So I think I've been pretty good

I did not mean to upset you.

In the startup world they usually call this employee waves. Hoffmann, Christensen & Collins all broke up different people as part of different waves (using different models) and that some people "belong" in certain waves. Others, such as say, Davidow and Von Hippel went into detail on how to insulate new technology from late wavers at established firms in order to successfully incubate it (Christensen talks about this as well). See Kidder's book on the Eagle project and Fergusons book on the IBM PC for some examples. Also search "sony missed ipod" for some really interesting counter-examples.

Also how BBN beat Raytheon for ARPAs IMPs is a fascinating example.

Anyway, I'm a first waver who wants to improve on being a much later waver.

Thanks for unglooming my day!

Mostly because you get to see how different companies approach problems. When you move from company to company you take the best ideas forward.

edit: And I've seen interviewers pause at such titles and comment "are you sure you want to work here, we can't offer you as nice of a title." So it may count against you even.

This is a sector where people with no relevant formal education and three years on-the-job experience sometimes get called senior.

At the end of the day, job titles are mostly for getting past recruiters. Interviewers (if they're any good) will judge you on your actual experience and capabilities.

I'd say the extent of actual impact to business relative to the entirety of the business operations probably remains roughly the same between two people with the same title at a large company and a small company. However, the potential loss (or perhaps gain) suffered from poor (or great) decision-making is likely much smaller on an absolute scale at a start-up, although roughly the same on a relative scale.

But this is not enough for founders to have a peace of mind regarding your commitment.

- If you have already built a reputation, then that's enough for you to argue for a market rate salary.

- Else you would need to trade for some equity.

What are you getting out of this compared to a corp job:

- The work is likely more interesting.

- Away from corporate landscape (if that's not your thing)

- Gaining experience in new domain, doing thing in new ways.