Ask HN: I am a startup CTO, do I need Internet at home?

Yes, you should have the internet at home if you are the CTO and the only team member with expertise in scaling or systems.

But you shouldn't be the 5% equity CTO who is responsible for the scaling with two non-technical co-founders in the first place. Especially if you are a guy who likes to be away from the internet.

Make the company pay for it.

Personally, I agree with your viewpoint and am not having internet at home when I move into my next apartment. But I am also not the CTO of a startup.

Also, I feel the need to say "A startup with two business guys and a CTO who hates the internet: 'Only in New York...'"

While I suspect your comment to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I feel the need to be clear about this: I do not 'hate' the internet. In fact, I love it. In small doses. While it allows me to run operations efficiently while in the office, I find it to be a horrendous time waster during my personal time.

I'm mildly shocked that someone gets the title of CTO these days and doesn't have home internet access.

As someone else mentioned, you'd be getting it for work, so it's tax deductible.

Obviously we don't know your situation, but if I had system problems that were continually causing 2-3% downtime, I'd be working all hours of the day (and night) to fix it so that I don't have to stretch out the fix to an even longer period of time. I realize that's probably not all you're doing at work, but this sounds a bit like putting off stuff that's not fun. Plow in, head down, get it done so that issue (or those issues) don't cause you any more late nights.

That said, you also sound a bit unsure of the future - not much money left, trying to become profitable, etc. Are you looking for another position? If so, I would expect most other orgs would expect 'internet at home' from a CTO - especially one with an equity stake (however small).

> I'm mildly shocked that someone gets the title of CTO these days and doesn't have home internet access.

To me it's like asking if you should go ahead and get running water and electricity:-)

for the record, i have those =)

RE: the CTO title. It's easy to be the 'chief' code monkey, when you're the only code monkey. =)

I agree with your sentiments about working hard to fix the problems. I have been heads down on this project for 2 years. The psychological strain from the 12 hour days, 6 days a week is really wearing on me. I'd like to have a personal life, too please.

No, I'm not looking for other work. I've told my partners that I'm in it until there is no more 'it'. If I were looking for other work, it wouldn't necessarily have to have some high-and-mighty title like 'CTO', though.

I hear ya - and some of that wasn't quite clear from the original post (already doing 70-80 hours, 2 years, etc). And I feel for ya too - I hope it turns around for you.

That said, having net access at home might end up being better, if you can manage it. Depending on the work, it may allow you to be more flexible how and when you address problems, and still have some personal/family time as well.

Thanks. Looks like I am going to go with tethering on my shiny new iPhone 4.

Okay, I realise we are reeling with the whole "What? This person doesn't want Internet at home??", but let's forget about the internet thing.

The issue is, as I understand it, that you don't want to be on call 24/7. So the decision tree seems fairly simple:

A. Do you need someone on call 24/7 (i.e. is the difference between 97% and 100% uptime significant in your business)

B. Can somebody else be your out-of-ours support person?

If the answer is Yes and No, you are stuck. Get the Internet already.

If you have trouble evaluating A, go to your users. Ask "would you like feature X or better uptime?" (Never ask an open question like "would you like more uptime", as that doesn't allow you to establish its value - what idiot would say no?)

If your users require better uptime AND you cannot find someone to provide it AND switching off at home is important to your sanity, you need another job.

> A. Do you need someone on call 24/7 (i.e. is the difference between 97% and 100% uptime significant in your business) Yes > B. Can somebody else be your out-of-ours support person? No.

The issue is not that I mind being on call when things are broken. The issue is that they want me to pay my own way in order to be on call. It's insulting.

The issue is that they want me to pay my own way in order to be on call.

Ah. Well in a salaried world I would say fair enough (my organisation pays for phone and internet connections for on-call staff).

In a startup world... I don't know. But either way, I don't think there's any point in feeling insulted. It's just a matter of fact issue of "I choose not to spend money for an Internet connection. If the company pays for it, I will do my best to attend after-hour calls". No point bringing emotions into it.

But you know, if you have a stake in this company succeeding and if the company has no money... if it was me, there are definitely circumstances in which I would pay for it.

Feeling insulted has its place :) It can make it more easy for you to demand respect when its lacking, or take action somehow.

By being ridiculous about something like this, it seems like they don't value their technical co-founder, is that the real issue?

To be honest, I can see why you'd feel insulted.

You're the CTO of a company with half a million users during a make it or break it profitability period of the next few months and you're wondering if you need to be able to login to work from home? Unless you're able to get reliable access using a neighbor's connection, or are able to be in the office within 5 minutes, then yes. You need a home connection.

By the way, TimeWarner in NYC doesn't lock you in with a contract, so you can go month to month.

Thanks. I think almost everyone I've spoken to agrees (as do I) that I need internet. Any input on who should foot the bill?

If by having internet access at home means helping your financial future then Yes.

If you're concerned by a 1 year contract to TW then you've got commitment problems :) However what about going with a cell plan and tethering? of Verizon mifi?

If you use the internet at home primarily for work purposes you can deduct it from taxes. Not a huge saving but it helps. In addition if you do work form home you can deduct part of your rent or mortgage based on the space occupied.

Hope that helps

It does help. Thank you.

To get to the thrust of my question: I feel taken advantage of that my co-founders are expecting me to get internet at home for work-purposes, while expecting that I'll be paying for it personally. I understand I am the CTO, and that creates some level of expectation that I have internet at home. But, at the end of the day, we're a funded company, and I feel they should pay for it if they feel that strongly about it. After all, when they want to go out to dinner to schmooze investors (as you would expect from a CEO), the company pays.

I suspect there is some underlying issue that you are not divulging. Do you get along with the founders ? Are you comfortable asking them to pay for the internet ? Do you feel you are being treated unfairly ? Talk these things out with them. Posting on HN is sort of a passive-aggressive way of dealing with the issue. Whether you should get internet at home is not the crux of your problem.

Thanks for the input.

Yes, I get along with the other founders. Yes, I've asked them to pay for it. And yes, they've declined. We're sort of at a deadlock.

I posted on HN so I could get input from other hackers. I don't feel that I should air my dirty laundry in public (hence the anonymity)

"I feel taken advantage of". Perhaps you feel taken advantage of in more ways than just this one?

ps: OF COURSE they should pay for it. Why are you (all) fighting over 20$/month? Frankly, that's ridiculous.

Because your uptime is spotty, you absolutely should have some means of restarting the site back up if the servers fall over. If I were your investor, I'd want to know that somebody was responsible for making sure the site's up.

At the same time, I'm sympathetic to your cashflow situation. Even with the tax deduction at the end of the year, that doesn't affect your monthly bills right now.

What I would do would be to set some objective metric for uptime that you and your cofounders agree upon. Until you get to that point, you cover the internet. Once you hit that point, the company covers the cost. I recognize that this is inverse of the actual work/money relationship (arguably, the company would be paying for the time when you need to have access to the site to get it going again), but I think the incentive is pretty clear that you want to get your uptime rock solid ASAP, and I think it aligns your objectives with the company's objectives.

Yes.

You should probably own your own personal computer as well.

That'll require electricity, so you might want to get that installed ASAP.

Is this serious?

Excuse me, the attitude is not needed.

If you have a helpful suggestion for my situation, I'd be happy to hear it. Do you feel that I should be supplying my own computer? Should the company pay for my internet?

I feel the need to follow up on this comment.

IMO, the OP of the comment was rude by implying that having internet as a utility is on the same level as having electricity or that I'd need to buy my own computer to be on call. (Especially since he didn't explain his reasoning) If this were reddit, I wouldn't have bothered, but I feel the need to call out especially negative, rude, or non-constructive comments on HN.

My apologies that I sniped at him/her.

Wow. If I was a shareholder in your company, I'd be terrified.

why is that?

Should I get internet at home? Should I be expected to pay for it?

You should get the same thing the co-founders get. If they pay for theirs at home, so should you. If you were not a significant equity holder then I'd argue that the company should pay if you were doing company work.

It isn't more/less important for the CTO to be online than the CEO for a web-based business IMO; both roles need to have available internet connection 24/7.

I think you should want to be accessible at home. You're part of a startup -- it's a lifestyle. And it's hard. How much would it cost your company if something died at 5:01PM, and you couldn't fix it for 16 hours? Would you feel perfectly fine in telling them, "sorry, I wasn't on duty so I fixed it when I got in"?

And 100% the company should pay for it. 110%, actually.

Yes, absolutely. I'm honestly surprised it's even up for consideration given your situation.

The Internet is the 4th (or 5th, depending on how you look at it) Utility (Water, Gas, Electric, Internet, Phone). I think it's a safe and fair assumption that an employee (especially a tech employee in a small startup) be able have some kind of access to the Internet.

Thanks for your input. I see that side of things too, though I am not entirely convinced of the implication that because I am an employee of a tech company, I need internet (at my own expense).

I'm curious if you could articulate that implication here?

This is just from my perspective... For background, I usually own one or more departments in a typical startup, ranging from Pre-Sales Engineering to Customer Support, to IT. In every case when I hire someone I have a set of what I consider to be reasonable expectations:

They will have a method to get to work reliably.

They will have a method to bathe regularly

They will have a method to be contacted after-hours in case of emergency (land-line and/or cell phone)

They will have a method to be contacted and respond electronically after-hours.

During the Interview stage, and in any offer letters, I make it clear that if you want to take a job at a startup you are going to be doing the work of 1.5 - 2.5 "standard" employees. We might not have a budget or requirement for 24.7 staffing, but things WILL happen after hours from time to time, and unless there are extreme circumstances you WILL be expected to act in a reasonable amount of time to respond to or resolve the issue.

So, I generally expect my employees to have basic connectivity and reachability after hours. Sometimes, depending on the scenario, the company will subsidize some or all their cell-phone or cable-modem bill, especially if either are used "significantly" for their work. At the same time, I wouldn't pay for someones car, or clothing, or heat bill. Cable modem/Internet at home is usually NOT subsidized unless the employee is a pure telecommuter.

Maybe my expectations are illogical, but of course I don't think so ;)

It's implied because unless you live in poverty or are 85 years or older, it's kind of weird to not have the internet at home, whether or not you're the CTO of a tech company.

Okay, well then I guess I'm 'weird'. I studied computer science in school, so I can deal with that =)

Yes, without a doubt. Shit will happen and you need to be able to get on it immediately. Odds are getting to the office would take too long. I definitely understand the need for downtime. It's crucial. I'd try to find some way to close off the computer, so you only access it when YOU need it.

Sounds like your issue may be more about your ownership percentage than your internet access. Have a chat with the founders. Sounds like they need you more than you need them at this point.

But yeah, you should have internet at home, and you shouldn't expect your company to pay for it.

I think you hit the nail on the head; anonymous CTO seems to have some commitment issues, and doesn't seem to realize that a site that's having unscheduled downtime of 3 or more hours a week is going to feel flaky (that's 98% uptime folks), and that it's his responsibility to take care of it. Battling over internet at his home is a proxy for his other frustrations with the startup. But yeah, expecting the CTO to have internet access at home, and to be able to keep the effing site UP for customers isn't out of line for a startup.

My take, this venture is over; it's done, once team members are taking petty office grievances public like this, there is no team anymore.

I think you're right that there are some deeper issues here, and no one is doubting that the issues with the uptime need to get fixed ASAP, but I disagree with your notion that because I am taking my grievances public, the venture is over. There is a reason I am anonymous: I want to get feedback from other hackers, not throw my co-founders under a bus.

You've provided enough details that one of your cofounders or investors could certainly recognize themselves in your posting. How do you think they would react to this?

How would you react if your CEO posted something along the lines of

"""How do I deal with a technical cofounder who refuses to do his job? We're in a critical period, our site goes down more often than twitter and my partner and I are out there everyday making sales but the guy we brought on board to build the site doesn't seem to understand how critical it is; he doesn't even want to shell out for internet so he can fix the site when it goes down out of hours."""

I'm guessing you would not be pleased to be pilloried like that , even anonymously. It would have been one thing if you'd turned to a mentor for advice, but by putting it up on HN you have created a situation that will turn what is already a tense situation with your cofounders into open war should it be discovered.

And really, my sympathy is limited. If your site is crashing or failing regularly, then you should be fixing that instead of hanging out on HN looking for validation of your hurt feelings.

The sooner you talk to these guys about whatever the deeper issue is, the better off you'll all be. Left unaddressed, this kind of rift can grow to the point where it's unfixable. It's one of the toughest parts of building startup.

How quickly can an issue be resolved if you are at home and something breaks? Is there a neighbor with free wifi? Do you have monitoring software that notifies you somehow? Is anyone else "on call"?

If all is going well at work and you aren't the one "on call" for outages, then maybe not. However, 97-98% uptime with 500,000 users sounds like a critical time in your company's growth. Are you taking any heat for the uptime issue?

Who pays for it is a tough question. If it's for the good of the company, then I think they should. But, as CTO, I would look out for the company's best interest even if they are feeling cheap. In that case, what's the lowest cost/term way that you can cover the bases?

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband

It's mobile broadband without the commitment since it's Virgin Mobile (it runs on Sprint's network).

Plans are $20, $40, and $60 for 30 days access. You can always buy the usb stick, and then purchase connectivity only when you need it, with no monthly commitment.

If you want a mobile hotspot - may I also suggest this for plugging in the Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go USB stick.

http://www.amazon.com/Cradlepoint-PHS300-Personal-Hotspot-Bl...

Thanks. Do you have any experience with any of those products? Good / Bad ?

Not personally. I have a couple of friends who have used that combination specifically. Not as a primary, but for vacation or if they happen to be in a coffee shop with an unreliable connection. If I were in the situation where I needed something in a pinch, that's what I would start with. Granted, you still have to drop $200 up front just for the equipment.

I think your bigger problem is that you seem to be in the "me versus them" mindset when you define the fact that Internet access will come at your own expense. In a startup of five, with only three permanents, I'm sure you've been asked to make all sorts of sacrifices.

If $40/month, or about $1 a day is really causing strife between you and YOUR company ... not your employer, but YOUR company, then maybe it's the job and not the access expectations that are the bigger problem.

Right. I feel the need to add that it's not all "us vs. them" in the day-to-day, but the subject of this post is a negotiation between me and them, hence the 'us vs. them' demeanor in some of my comments.

I think you're right to question whether the $40/month is the real issue. I am questioning myself whether I want to be on a team whose non-technical leaders (I feel) do not respect their technical team members.

Sounds like the company is dying which explains why they don't want to pay for your Internet access. Regardless, you'll need Internet access to find your next gig.

Yes, you do need Internet at home. It'll come handy, especially since you're at a key time in the progress of the company. However, 5% doesn't seem exactly as a fair deal to me. I know it's OT, but maybe you should consider negotiating your terms and equity in the company, even more so since you're the one taking care of the systems and scalability.

Also, everyone needs a little decomposing time, so cheers on that initial part of your post.

Thanks. I don't know how much luck I'll have negotiating terms this far into the venture, but I suppose it's worth mentioning.

Spoke to my partners and we have a discussion scheduled for first thing Monday. Thanks for the input.

You're most welcome. Good luck!

If you live in NYC I'm sure you can find somewhere nearby with free wifi in an emergency. If you don't want a one year contract why don't you get the company to sign up for a verizon wireless card and use that. If they go under it's not you holding the bag.

Yeah. I'm basically getting by by 'borrow'ing wifi from a cafe that's downstairs. Their signal is unreliable at best, though.

I'd love it if the company got a wifi card for whoever is on call. Both parties are refusing to foot the bill though.

Why are they refusing to foot the bill if they have $1M? It's only like $60/m.

We're almost out of money. 3 or 4 months runway left.

If your startup can't afford a working expense like 60$/m for internet access for the cto, just shut it down already. I mean, seriously. What are we even talking about here?

You can get a virgin mobile prepay mifi for $150 + $10/m basic plan at best buy in union square.

Thanks. $10 for 100MB, $60 for 5GB is not a bad deal!

What kind of living space do you have? Sharing a connection with neighbors in apartments is pretty common over wireless, just watch your consumption and split the bill. I suppose you could do that even in houses.

An apartment. Don't know the neighbors.

That may be a good compromise though. Thanks for the suggestion.

tried some of my neighbors. no luck :(. might be a function of the neighborhood i'm in (which doesn't have many wi-fi signals, maybe because it's so far from downtown)

I use a 3G connection through Millenicom. It hasn't been awesome but it has supported what was a nomadic lifestyle for a time.

It's not always on. You have to turn it on. This has been a big timesaver for me. YMMV.

How can you burn through $1M in 18 months with 3 F/T and 2P/T? The two non-tech co-founders taking $300K each?

If the total cost of having an employee is $100K/yr, it's $600K for the equivalent of 4 employees for 18 months. Add in any server costs, legal fees, various petty expenditures. He says they've got 3-4 months left. Sounds about right.

yeah, you're right. it all adds up (server costs, legal fees, marekting, etc..)

for most, that depends on your market / business plan. salary can be the biggest in some cases, but inventory is a big thing for us.

You should be able to get a month-to-month contract by paying an extra $10-$15/mo.

We have iPhones (which the company pays for), and with iOS4, tethering is only $20 more / month.

Though the idea of giving AT&T any more money makes me grumpy, that may be an explorable option.

BTW when I first moved to NYC, I used to do this with the tethering hack and it works pretty well.

just got a shiny new iPhone 4. does anyone have any experience with the tethering feature on the new iPhone?

Seems simple to me. If they're asking you to get it, they should pay for it.

Do you think the fact that I'm CTO implies that I should just ~already have it~?

Nope. If they hired you as CTO before you had it then I don't see why it should be a factor in your technicalness or ability to do your work.