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Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

My 2c: I would feel a lot more free to explore more interesting roles (ie startups, and anything other than “big corporate” roles) if the Housing Sword of Damocles weren’t hanging over my head

Rent and housing prices only go up. To work at a startup I would expect a 30-50% liquid compensation hit. There goes my dream of raising my children in a decent house.

Edit: that said, I don’t think this sufficiently explains why around the pandemic specifically, my job satisfaction took a hit (like with many others)

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Housing and Universal Healthcare would make a lot more people free to explore other opportunities.

We really really need to divorce healthcare benefits from employment. If we can do that, we'll be so much closer to being able to actually get universal healthcare.

Don't forget health insurance! Larger companies have larger risk pools and can afford better health insurance with lower premiums and co-pays for employees than small startups can. Especially as workers get older (and that experience becomes more valuable for startups), the value of healthcare can become a surprisingly large percentage of compensation.

Source: I have family close to retirement age that had significant health issues in the past year, and they estimated that their insurance paid probably $200,000 in the last year alone. Works for a BigCo, not in Silicon Valley.

I work at a startup and my health benefits are better than when I worked at a multinational semiconductor company.

Sorry if a bit of a hot take, but I don't think startups or any startup-like activity and raising children go together. Heck, raising children is like a bit of a startup in and of itself. But things like grad school or a small intense startup are things that require dedication and are best done before or after the family stage.

Noted, although in my case I don’t have kids but I’m preparing to have them in the next few years. Part of that preparation is being willing to work my ass off to build a strong financial foundation - but I ended up heading to Amazon (reputation for high workloads and high pay) rather than a startup (reputation for high workloads and low pay, especially in my east coast city).

In the past I’ve worked for two “growth stage” startups but neither could pay anywhere near what I earn now.

> To work at a startup I would expect a 30-50% liquid compensation hit. There goes my dream of raising my children in a decent house.

The gamble being that if it works out your kids in a few years will live in a giant house, and will one day inherit a massive amount of wealth. However, that gamble seems to have decreasing odds as time goes on (though if the past is any indication, the cycle will occur again).

startups are increasingly becoming sources of “small corporate” roles.

Startups tend to be the worst of both worlds. All the process of big companies and al the risk and turmoil of small ones. Not worth it except to be a founder or executive. Anything else, you should instead get a big company job, get a promotion or two, and use the name and momentum to get something with real upside.

There are startups and there are "startups". Lots of medium-sized (>150 people) companies call themselves startups but are filled with big company people and their big company practices, held up in many cases by a steady stream of VC. Real startups don't use bigco process.

What do you consider small? I feel like it’s just the luck of the draw if a company has decent management at all levels or not. Small startups ( I would say under 50 people ) rarely have a lot of process and hierarchy

Hackernews: Working remotely is so much better! Why would they ever want us to work from to office!

Also Hackernews: Ever since Corona started, I hate my job. I wonder what changed?

FWIW the population of Hacker News is greater than 1 so your two comments are likely not the same person :)

in 2021 when I last changed jobs I specifically only looked for employers offering a workplace in my city(ie hybrid roles, which is what I had pre pandemic). This has not helped my work satisfaction, but the issue could be the myopic execution of RTO in this specific corporation

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