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A comment on Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the company grows?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by angersock on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @06:48PM (#8883381)
The board is just a bunch of old white dudes with money. The fuck do they know?

EDIT:

balls187 suggests they know how to make money--which is perhaps true, but not necessarily in your field of endeavor or business, unless you've picked them.

kelnos is closer to it, which is that the board tells you what to do because they're the board and that's the power you've granted them.

Again, in neither case, do we actually need to assume they are making the best or even informed decisions. There are some great stories of boards I've known locally suggesting really dumb things that hurt and even killed companies.

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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by kelnos on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @06:56PM (#8883413)
Assuming you're correct (very debatable), it doesn't matter: they're the ones funding the company, so they get to make the decisions. This doesn't always work out well, but it's not unreasonable.
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by wpietri on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @09:49AM (#8886535)
One could make the same argument for hereditary monarchy. Which I would take as a sign that maybe it is unreasonable.
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by infinite8s on Friday January 16, 2015 @02:20PM (#8901021)
Except that taking funding is a voluntary action. Living under a hereditary monarchy is not.
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by balls187 on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @07:04PM (#8883435)
Presumably how to make money.
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by UK-AL on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @05:37AM (#8885457)
Investors are like companies, 60%-80%(Dubious estimation) are not that great, but every so often there is a good one.
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by gravedave on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @01:28PM (#8888053)
Are you implying that young, poor black people know better?
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Re:Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the co... by throwawaymaroon on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @07:20PM (#8883488)
What are you thinking? You can't just point out that decision-making in Silicon Valley lies with a clueless investor class.

You've got to keep the charade going: keep them writing checks and thinking their input is valuable.

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