I think this can be summed up as: The startup I work at was successful, therefore starts ups are great.
Where is the speech from the burnt out entrepreneur who lost all their savings... They might have a little bit different perspective.
Where is the speech from the burnt out entrepreneur who lost all their savings... They might have a little bit different perspective.
"I was a bro-grammer, I went in because, like, tech was cool man!
But I realised that, dude, just being an ass-hat doesn't get you shit. Actually enjoying your work is, like, a big deal! And start ups are cool! And my earlier self was right to want to work at a startup man!
Also, hater's gonna hate ;-)"
;-P OK... no where near that bad, but yes.
I think the number of people who do a CS degree because they want to get into "tech" is cyclical. I entered after the first dot-com crash. There was no longer talk of big money, but burn out and despair. There were very very few people on CS who were doing the course because they "liked tech". There were a few, but they are not in tech any more. I wonder if there is a cycle for how trendy start ups are. I expect it's in a similar cycle to dot-com boom/bust.
The chances that the startup you go to work for is the next GitHub is incredibly small.
In the end it's up to you to judge the company for both human and career aspects, and to choose wisely who you work for. In ten years of working in the bay area, I have not regretted working for startups once. In short - mileage will vary.
Over beers I got a few impressions, not sure if they're reliable as an outsider, but it seems like, yeah, best case is in the slides. Even if you're not an insta-millionaire, you make a dent in a really great product.
But I saw more of the worst case: a lot of 80+ hour weeks for a kinda nutty guy who keeps trying to replace your salary with stock options that hold dubious value. His sense of vision is so strong that he doesn't listen when you offer advice (like chuck the half of the code, you fired the guy who wrote it for a reason.)
I know, it's easy to say, "if you aren't 100% sure of the product's value, or it doesn't have great people, then quit..." But fresh out of school, no idea what businesses are ultimately going to succeed or fail, not a lot of experience to know what working dynamics are normal and which are incredibly sketchy... it's hard to know when to leave, or where you'd go if you did. Especially if you're looking to build a resume with experience that doesn't include 'bails at the first sign of trouble.'
Maybe those are the lessons to teach new CS grads: how to evaluate your first job (since you have nothing to compare it against). Maybe quit ten jobs after a month, then keep the next job that's better than all the previous jobs? :)
The first one was ok while i was there.
None of the Start-Ups made impact, left me unfulfilled and with little money and not a great body of work to show for it. there were the occassional fun times no doubt.
But i still think Zach's presentation has plenty of merit. But i think when you're NOT a developer or an out and out tech guy - it's much harder to find work at a start-up. At least that's been my experience.