My first year as employee #1 of a YC company

Re:My first year as employee #1 of a YC company by anandkulkarni on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @05:21PM (#4325808)

Exciting to see your perspective, Vikram, including the evolution of an incredible product like Firebase.

In some ways joining a startup in the middle of YC is the best time - as employee #1, you're almost a founder yourself, with tremendous input over the direction of the company. Is that how it felt to you?

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Re:My first year as employee #1 of a YC company by vikrum on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @08:59PM (#4326642)

Thanks, Anand!

Yeah, absolutely: James and Andrew did everything they could to make the experience as an early employee as inclusive as possible. I was kept in the loop at every step of the way. One of our company values is that we are all entrepreneurs, and it's great to have a culture that all early employees have a founder's mentality.

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Re:My first year as employee #1 of a YC company by jcnotchrist on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @11:30PM (#4327088)

Thanks Anand for moving this away from the .xxx discussion (interesting as it may be). I am fascinated by early employees, since I'm also in the same boat. Although I must admit that my experience hasn't been as positive. While I acknowledge there are many contributing factors to my "less positive" experience, I do consider the lack of proper incentives a key issue.

So were financial incentives structured to increase your commitment? If so, how? I know this question could be a bit sensitive, so I don't expect comments on the details. I am just interested in the general structure or design of incentives, and how that affects the way you work.

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