In mu experience, people don't want equity as much as they want a living wage. They want a proper salary, every month, not some mythical payday in the future.
If you can find a place that does both, thats fantastic.
Incidentally if you have meaningful equity that comes with a bunch of stress as well. Our responsibility is to make payroll every month. In good years we get some profit (so do employees) in bad months we get paid last, sometimes short, sometimes late.
I've voted you up, not because I agree with your point, but because you help readers to understand that different people have different goals. And the trading of stability for equity is not necessarily exploitation.
The economy is cyclical. Tech runs on speculation and (used to) on lax tax rules. Likewise, hiring is based on asinine processes, asinine vogues of fashion, and asinine practices. At any moment in time you could be made persona non-grata in tech.
If you joined tech for the passion of if, and you’re not independently wealthy, I think that is a foolish thing — no different than doing a physics PhD while inhabiting the middle or lower classes.
The most logical and rational path is to make as much money as quickly as possible, and enter the capital class. After that, do whatever you want. Anything else is just sticking your head in the ground.
I don’t understand what you are saying. I have this condition called “living”. If i am exposed to the elements for prolonged time I get cold, then sick, then I stop living. Likewise i need to eat regularly otherwise i will also stop living. In the current system we live in one meets these things by paying for them. They don’t accept IOUs, or not for long anyway.
These are non-negotiable minimums I need to fulfill. Even if someone offered me a deal where they pay me a huge sum after years of hard work, and this would be a certainty but nothing before, i could not accept it because i would have no means to sustain myself for the duration.
This is what bruce511 describes when they write “They want a proper salary, every month, not some mythical payday in the future.”
If a place offers me both a huge payday in the future and enough money in the meantime to stay alive I may accept that depending on the amounts in question and the probabilities as i see them.
This is what bruce511 talks about with “ If you can find a place that does both, thats fantastic.”
> most logical and rational path is to make as much money as quickly as possible, and enter the capital class.
Sounds good! I will surely do that once i can. Until then I will need that paycheck thank you very much. And call me a fool.
Although, I'd say this view, much as I share it, makes it harder to find companies to work for. Especially in a tougher job market like right now.
I'll do conversational technical interviews all day. Leet code and 6 interviews unrelated to the job, hell no.
It's cynical, but once you've been through the meat grinder with layoffs, obsessive VC overgrowth and unfulfilled promises, I don't see another way so get to where I want to be financially without either letting go and becoming a hermit or as you say "enter the capital class".
Naturally if you revolve only in that space it may seem like it. And I can certainly see that culture leading to your viewpoint.
Fortunately, my experience has not been like yours.
But lots and lots of tech workers go to work, get paid and repeat till they retire. So I don't think your thesis is universally true.
such PhDs are funded last I checked.
People also don't want to be screwed over by their friends. A little equity costs the startup's founders very little, while making sure their friends see some benefit from a successful exit is worth a lot to those friends.
If I hire a friend, then the transaction is simple - do the work, get a salary. Whether the business does well, or badly, is irrelevant. How much I do, or don't, take home is irrelevant. There's no "fairness" in play here, it's a simple business transaction.
If you can't live with that then don't take the job. Join as a founder, or go start your own company.
Feeling "screwed" happens when you feel entitled to the upside, but don't take the downside along the way. When the business folds, and the owner loses his house, are you chipping in? Are you signing paper to cover liabilities?
I'll be honest, most friends cannot separate friendship from business. So yes, it usually ends badly. Usually because the employee I expecting things not in their contract.
Hard disagree here. A startup only works if you get really motivated people to sacrifice a good portion of their lifetime to work for you. Most startups can't provide competitive wages with "big corp". If the startup folds these people lose their jobs, too. If it succeeds they should see a good part of the upside, too.
Working for a startup is a risky investment of your time. And should be rewarded accordingly. A startup that doesn't give you a living wage and at least a bit of equity is trying to screw you over.
Whenever this topic comes up I always feel like I'm in some weird Silicon Valley Twilight Zone where "friendship" is some sort of code for "people I have access to exploit when necessary"...
I'd add the caveat that equity is worth more than it isn't so limited in usage for those it is distributed too.
1 year cliff, 4 year vest, but company likely to just retrench you? Worthless. Developers don't stay that long on average, and the sale terms are basically handcuffs waiting for an exit event. Constant promises of revshare when profitability is reached? Worthless.
Cash is king because equity is not only a lottery, but a lottery that you can't even control when you play or get rewarded for it.
"Anyone giving you a wage while seeking a profit instead of partner equity is taking advantage of you tautologically"
assume all startups have huge exit and don't account that equity can actually go down to $0 - that $100 I get today wired to my account does not go to $0 suddenly.
Then you might be stuck with equity because there might be no one who will buy it off - or company board won't approve of sale, so you might be sitting on loads of "theorethical cash" that you won't be able to materialize.
Still $100 wired to my account - if I can spend it - is not getting voted by company co-owners and if things go south, believe me, you will have a hard time to bail and getting any money back from the equity.
Just like lottery ticket, people don't see the downsides only that there is $8 000 000 to win and they hear in the news every 2 weeks someone wins. Where no one is making news stories about people who spend $100 every week for years and never won.
