Ask HN: What do I need to think about before going to work for a startup?

1) This is not a stable job. Most startups fail. By joining a startup, you are buying into a high-risk/high-reward scenario.

2) If your offer to go work for them is not high-reward, odds are it is a bad offer. Be sure your compensation in the case of success has the potential to change your life. If it doesn't, go find a more stable job.

3) Most startups are led by people with limited experience, advised by investors with their own agendas. Their leaders tend to be young, ambitious, and smart. But not experienced. Sometimes this is terrific, and they do things in new ways and kick ass. Other times they are utter fools who drive the company into the ground.

4) VCs fund startups to make money. They do not care about you. They barely care about the company. They care about whether or not they are getting money. This forces startups to make high risk choices pushing for fast growth, not safe choices pushing for a stable company.

Overall, just be sure you know what you are getting into. Startups can be amazing experiences, with tons of learning, and good compensation. They also can be toxic pushes to burnout and bankruptcy. They are gambles. If you know this and go in with open eyes, then enjoy the ride.

I'd find a few people that have been at startups of a similar size and stage and talk to them about this.

First, there is no single "startup" definition. Are you the third employee, did they just raise series A, are they nearing IPO or acquisition?

From my own experience - hire during scaling post series A, expect more disorganization than you're used to at an established company, more decisions and direction based on how well you can argue them instead of actual evidence from the market, more changes in direction, overall more chaos. It can be a lot of fun, but if you are not in the company's inner circle, you have to go with the flow a lot more and accept things will change all the time for reasons you have no control over, and product features or deals you worked on can often get scrapped after you put a lot of effort into them.

That was a bit of a rant, I liked working at a startup, but it was much more chaotic with literally nobody knowing what they were doing than I expected. On the other hand, if you're there in a high growth phase, there is lots of optimism, lots of fun, lots of learning and social connection

Some good advice here. I'll just add that getting into a startup early doors can have its advantages e.g. shares. Downside is greater risk. I'm more impressed now by the small business that grew their revenue than startup gets a million dollars in funding. A million doesn't cover a lot of wages for very long.

Try to find out if the founders and your manager are psychopaths and or assholes.