I took a look at the initial 4 year option grants for the first 10 engineers (this doesn't count refreshers or other follow on grants). The average value at $50/share (yesterday's opening price) is just over $10M. The group varied in experience from just out of school to a few years working when they joined. I feel we were a good deal more generous than the median company: https://amplitude.com/blog/employee-equity-is-broken-heres-o...
Someone on the FAANG side can figure out what the apples to apples comparison is. There's no question that in 90% of cases FAANG compensation is way better. If you are optimizing for how to make the most money over a few years you should absolutely choose FAANG. The real benefit of startups comes from other forms. If you asked that group of 10 I think they'd respond that being an early engineer at a start that IPOs gives you way more career capital and long term earning potential than FAANG.
Joining a fresh startup as employee #10 (or less) is somewhat of a gamble (even at YC). The following data would put things in perspective:
1. How do the average first 10 employees of a YC startup do?
2. How did the following cohorts in your company do?
I am not trying to be negative here, but trying to put things in perspective. Congrats again!
No question that the economics of FAANG is way better than an average YC company. That's an easy one. I don't have the data, but the economic outcome is easily 2-5x, maybe more.
Following cohorts of engineers are a fraction of what I outlined so the economics are different. It's too hard for me to do the work to get an exact calculation, but probably the next cohort of 10 engineers is something like 1/2 that, and then subsequent ones are down to 1/3 or 1/4. They're joining years later and so taking on much less risk at that point.
By the way, thank you for running this AMA and answering all the questions with so much clarity and transparency. What an example!
It also depends on what your professional goals are (growth, leadership, impact, fun, next opportunities) assuming they are not only monetary.
>If you want to get rich, your best bet on a risk-adjusted basis is to join a profitable and growing public company. Google for short. Make $200-500k all-in a year, work hard and move up a level every 3-5 years, sell options as they vest (in case you joined Enron), and retire at 60, rich. This plan works every time.
High end of Staff appears bumping into the million dollar range once bonuses come around at some of these places.
FAANG pays well, but if you check what I’m saying against Levels.fyi, that’s a pretty exceptional situation for someone with that little experience.
Are you saying the median total comp for a 7-year total experience Facebook engineer is $1m? If so, what’s your source? (Or what are you claiming? The top decile? The top quartile? Etc.)
3-5 if you don't get promoted after a year and a half or something they mark your packet expectation is you go from 3-5 very quick on average and even faster at the tail.
I did 3-7 in 6 years at Google and it was the fastest in the larger org with >500 people. You can do 4.5 at fb easy.
And yes at fb 7 years would rack lots of engineers 1+ m, even assuming modest gains.
If you don't believe it, it's your choice but not all companies treat employees as average. Google optimizes for average, fb rewards high performers...
I am quite skeptical that the median time for a new-grad hire to get to L7 at FB is 7 years or fewer, but I guess this is something that we could answer with some weekend scraping of LinkedIn. ;)
Not everyone cares about the money though. After a certain point you get tired of politics and process and just want to build things. A successful startup culture seems like a win win.
PS: Definitely a huge congrats on this journey and outcome.
HN is always saying that working for a FAANG is better money than working for a startup even if it IPOs, so my question to you is: How did your employees make out during the IPO? Is the prevailing HN wisdom correct? Did your average developer employee that stuck it through with you on your journey end up with more or less than what they would have made working at FAANG?