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Comment by mrmaddog | Hacker News Reader

What are your thoughts on joining a big company vs joining a startup (as opposed to starting a company yourself)? On average, it seems one would still learn faster and be able to take on many new roles as an employee at a startup, but an employe also is in a chaotic world that he or she doesn't completely control (and often working with incomplete information).

Do you think this trade-off is worth it? And, since I'm guessing you lean towards 'yes' on that question, do you think there are different questions a prospective startup-employee should ask as opposed to the questions a potential investor in the startup would ask?

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That would be a good middle ground. You'd learn a lot more about how startups operate in a startup than in a big company. If you join early enough your experience will be close to that of a founder.

Joining, not launching, a start-up is what the article's author is actually comparing to a corp job: "Should I join Microsoft or a startup?"

Financially and over the long term, a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.

a stable well-paid job early in one's career combined with low expenses (no kids, no mortgage, often no car and cheap health insurance) results in a larger lump of money accruing compound interest over a longer period of time.

And yet you won't get rich. The chances of getting rich as an employee of a startup are admittedly small, but nonzero.

The chances of you getting rich (say, hitting $1M) by accumulating some capital from your corp job and then using it to pick the right stocks on the market are probably greater than working at a start-up with a sub-1% equity and a reduced pay and waiting for the big exit, which in this case would have to be well in the over $100M territory.

Working at a start-up obviously has its non-monetary benefits over other forms of employment, but getting rich, on average, is probably not one of them.

Smart, hardworking people (the same people who might succeed with a startup) can absolutely get rich (in the "don't really need to worry about money" sense, not in the "absurd conspicuous consumption" sense) working for $BIGCORP in their 20s.

How, and over what timeframe?

Define a target (say, 1MM), a realistic interest rate, and head over to any compounding growth goal calculator; it'll tell you how much you need to set aside over 10-15 years to hit that target.

To compare meaningfully to startup careers, you need to factor in the premium you pay to work at a startup (in reduced wages) and the very low odds of any given startup making its employee equity liquid.

Generally, the difference between the BigCo path to 1MM and the startup path is that, barring dramatic changes in the nature of our industry (which changes would also confound the startup comparison), the BigCo path is reasonably contingent only on your execution. You can fire on all cylinders in every startup you work at and never end up in the money.

It all depends on the startup. Don't go work for a startup just because it's a startup. You're better off at BigCo. But if you really believe in the startup, and they'll give you meaningful equity and compensation that is enough for your lifestyle, and you want the responsibility, I'd lean towards the startup. Again, the key here is that you really believe in the startup. There aren't many that you can honestly say that about early enough to make the compensation difference worth it.

Also, depending on your life phase, presence of employer-paid health insurance should be seriously considered.

What's "meaningful equity"? 1% of 0 is the same as 50% of 0.

That's part of my point. My main point is that you should only do a startup if you truly believe in it (and you should realistically assess this before accepting, as hard as it may be). I think the biggest point of these articles is "don't join a startup for joining a startup's sake." That said, I like to think joining Dropbox or Google while a student and they are startups would have made sense (even discounting hindsight being 20/20, sorry for using these two, but they were the best examples I could come up with) if you were an avid user of either or had the opportunity to meet Larry/Sergey. Meaningful equity to me is enough that if it hits, you at least have enough money to spend a few years doing what you want. My main point is, there are some startups worth joining. But don't join a startup because working at a startup is "better."

I personally love working at the startup I work at, although we are later stage and moving out of the startup phase (I get paid market, and have solid insurance).

What number do you count as "rich"? I assume you're talking net worth, and not income.

Take on challenging tasks and do good work. Save at least 25% of pre-tax salary and all bonuses. Don't let it all be invested in your employers stock; ideally diversify via an index fund. Given typical bigcorp compensation at the moment, this puts your timeline to financial comfort, if not independence, under 10 years without any hardship in the meantime.

It is not unheard of for a senior engineer at say Netflix to earn 250k/year.

Assuming they live the same lifestyle as others working for a startup, they can easily bank 50k year after taxes. 15 years of that with even conservative growth and I would say you meet my definition of rich.

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