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Re:Ask HN: How to evaluate job offers? by tptacek on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @10:20PM (#6852488)
How old is your kid? Probably relevant.

Building up enough savings to cover (surprisingly expensive) dental/medical/orthodontia and, more importantly, to serviceably help my kids get to college was supremely stressful for me in my last(=current) startup job.

The likelihood that employment at any startup will pay out is low. You can cycle through lots of startup jobs to improve the odds, but if you do the math across all startups and the amount of time you have, the odds aren't great.

Meanwhile, if you take the corporate job, you can still fulfill your bigger ambitions; you just have to be determined enough to chase them in your spare time, clever enough to scope your projects down to something achievable (at least, until you get dollar-valued traction) in that spare time, and disciplined enough to keep that tempo up.

Over the long term, the way to make the startup path really pay is to be a cofounder. Taking a series of jobs at startups isn't necessarily the best way to cofound a company. Having some degree of financial stability might be more important.

Also, don't forget to evaluate the benefits packages at both jobs. Your spouse doesn't work; the quality of your insurance is going to matter.

Re:Ask HN: How to evaluate job offers? by job-dilemma on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @10:22PM (#6852494)
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Re:Ask HN: How to evaluate job offers? by tptacek on Thursday December 05, 2013 @12:21PM (#6855630)
Well, you've got ~12 years to build up some kind of war chest. If you're willing to work for 15% less money at a startup, consider what that 15% saved every year for 12 years might do for the college problem? On the low end of software positions, I come up with numbers that more or less pay for college.