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Comment by VexXtreme | Hacker News Reader

As I'm entering the fourth decade of my life, I have actively started avoiding any company that 1) self identifies as a startup, 2) employs less than 50 people, 3) is VC funded in any capacity. It's not because I have anything against them in particular, it's just that my risk profile has been changing together with my age, and I'm not really willing to put in the same crazy hours as 5-10 years ago in return for the right to participate in a de facto lottery.

Many experienced engineers I know feel the same.

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A company working in an unknown space, that doesn't even know how to be the kind of company it wants to be; a startup can be very exciting for an experienced engineer because (if you're like me) you do like to solve problems, and I (at least) view software as only part of the problem space (make the business money).

To that, I'm willing to bring wits, flexibility, and broad experience. I bring value and justify my existence, and I do expect to be appreciated (compensated) for that; I expect to have a much higher salary than at a non-startup, not a lower salary and a lottery ticket.

The sheer number of "startups" that want me to work for peanuts just tends to make me avoid the term startup. Instead I look for their investors looking for someone to help them manage their risk, and treat it as a consultancy.

On the other hand, I think the pleasure is to have 1) startups as a customers, because 2) It has few employees and you can quickly negotiate with them, and 3) They are funded and can quickly spend money to speed up or improve their product. Just from a risk perspective, in economic crises (e.g. 2007/2008) we had a flat line near 0 of revenue coming from startups.

I've recently entered the fifth decade of my life, and I actively avoid any company that does not identify as a startup, or which employs more than maybe a hundred people, because I've already wasted too much of my life struggling to do work I don't care about or even believe in, just because some unknown committee of managers in some other part of the megacorporation employing me decided it needed to happen.

I look for small teams, instead, who are hot to try something new, where I can personally accomplish something significant and where I'll have enough breathing room to exercise my own initiative and apply my by-now-considerable experience to the choice of tasks we undertake and the design of the solutions we implement. I won't suffer through any more small-cog-in-a-big-machine experiences, no matter how much money they're offering. Life is too short for that.

Still, I agree with you about the lottery: equity has lost all incentive power, and salary is the only form of compensation I care about. I just see money as a tool for living an enjoyable life, not as an end in itself, and it would take more money than anyone will ever be willing to pay me to make up for the suckage another boring corporate grind would inflict on my quality of life.

I'm in a similar situation as the op. I personally enjoy that phase of a company's lifecycle. So long as there is runway (1-2 yrs). I love that edge of the seat do whatever it takes to try and make it work feeling.

I think in my case I've just become more aware of the fact that an exit is the exception rather than the norm. I've also had to educate myself a hell of a lot more regarding the intricacies of equity, i.e. investors preference, etc.

Would you still avoid startups if the hours were not crazy and the salary was the same (or better) as at a non-startup?

Possibly, due to a lack of long term stability and job security. When every round of financing results in a different VC installing its own people in the company and shaking things up, I don't feel comfortable betting the life and wellbeing of my family on the fact that some 24 year old "product manager" is going to act rational.

In other words, they'd really need to pay me a lot more than an established company in order to offset my risk.

Only if they have a long enough runway and I think the idea is sound.

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