anmol

this article is missing the picture. Yes the candidate engineer / salesperson / marketer is motivated by money.

But of all the things they could work on, why this team, problem or company? Many jobs will pay similar money.

Some version of this question is extremely helpful in (a) understanding if the candidate is going to be disappointed/not get what they want a few months into the job (b) identifying what motivates them, to help them find fulfllment and growth in their career (part of your job as a manager).

Good comments overall. One insight here is to put yourself in their shoes to understand how to negotiate the best outcome. Most people don't rationalize themselves as mean or psychotic - there is probably some rationalizing behind the decision. E.g. diamondage is not a great engineer and we need to clean up the cap table before we increase the valuation because we can hire someone amazing.

To be clear, I'm not saying that's right or true. But assuming that's their position, does it change anything about your negotiation strategy?

This is awesome.

Estonia could have a shot at becoming the "Delaware" for non-US entrepreneurs, esp EU, i.e. have all the high-growth companies incorporate because of clear, friendly startup support infrastructure and laws.

Plug: I'm one of the founders of Ginger.io, the healthcare company Larry, Sergey & Vinod mention. We're doing some really interesting things in healthcare and sensor data-- deploying across a varity of healthcare systems and driving interventions, and the best part is having a real impact on people's lives.

If you'd like to learn more, shoot us an email at hello@ginger.io or see our Join-Us page.

For anyone from Lyft-- you need a loyalty program for all of us that spend hundreds of $s a month :)

With any advanced technology product, production volume plays a big role in making the underlying tech commodity and gradually dropping price per unit.

F22's would be a lot cheaper to make (than today) if everyone had one in their backyard, like a Honda Civic.

For someone not willing to sell all their hardware, the alternative would be to flash all drives with fresh OSX / Windows, and then recover from the cloud at your destination.

Wow, great marketing for goldman sachs. Another reason for software engineers to stay away from these large ibanks.

Maybe now we can all just give them tablets with root access, intentionally designed to be "hacked".

Even better, give them Raspberry Pis' and let them code what they need to get to Facebook and every other site. 5-10x cheaper than an iPad, substantially more instructive.

Related to #3, while your users aren't reading TC, your potential competitors most likely are... So pick your forum based on the audience.

On the flip side, TC gets syndicated widely, and is very helpful for technical hiring.

A few pointers on this:

* For most 100 person+ tech companies in SF/Boston/NY, there most likely will be salary bands for different roles and levels. You can get this information on glassdoor and other sites.

* The waters get tricky with seed/early-stage startups, without dedicated HR resources, since most founders are not great at HR consistency. For such interviews, its OK and helpful to ask for a broad range for the role during the screening interviews. Its usually hard for the company to give you specific #s because they haven't completed technical interviews, and have no idea how good you really are.

* For BOTH big and small companies, its OK to ask for their comp philosophy early in the process. Eg. some companies pay higher-than-market cash but low options. Some incentivise the other way. If its more that 10-15 people, they should have an answer for this. If its a very early stage company, they may not have figured this out yet.

* Across all offers, you should be comparing total comp, not just base salary. Total comp = base salary + bonuses + stock options + healthcare + other benefits. For a early-stage startup, you may be able to ask them to move some of these around, based on your personal needs. After about 10-15 people, it becomes really hard for the company to do this, because everyone has to fit into comp bands.

* Advice to me from the head of recruiting/HR at a 3000+ person leading bay-area company: Every candidate they hired came up with an argument/data on why they should be paid more. Its part of the negotiation process, and the equivalent is me going to investors with a pre-money valuation that I think we're worth for our next financing.

* No company wants to interview a candidate for 2 days and discover they can't close the candidate because he/she is amazing but has completely different salary expectations. Hiring is huge team effort, and that's a bad outcome for the company too.

I've been eagerly waiting to use this, but apparently it only works with CA employees.. :(

I'm NOT an advocate of even (50/50 or 33/33/33) equity splits precisely because of point #2 (Commitment) in the original article.

Almost every startup I've ever seen or been involved with, there have been different levels of commitment early on, which is OK. If/when things go wrong (which they inevitably do), having a clear leader/decision instead of deadlock, can be the difference between death vs. survival of the company, which is much bigger than the individual founders. These are inherently emotional moments. Even for the departing founder, the survival of the company is almost always a better outcome both in financial and personal impact terms.

That being said, unequal equity positions have historically been misused by business/MBAs against tech founders, esp true 5-10 years ago. This is probably why YC has a strong bias towards equal equity positions.

Edit: For comments talking about the "CEO vs. employee" mindset, if you make your co-founders feel like employees in 2-3 person company, you're a shitty CEO, period. In fact, a good CEO should make early employees feel like true team members (not just the co-founders).

I wish there was a way this information could be used to update thefunded.com (assuming they're consistent)

You are right about responsible spending numbers. Tech workers making $80k-ish in SF can't really afford to live in the Mission, SoMa, South Beach etc. WITHOUT roommates. There just aren't any 1-beds for less than $2500 - $3000 in the Mission right now.

oh my. this has the potential to be soo great.

I don't care how ridiculous it looks. If it solves the red-eye and airport sleeping problem for the rest of us, its worth it.

Showing them "everyone else's salary in our company" is a pretty strong approach. How well has this worked out? Curious.

(Note: founders should still keep total comp #s fair for everyone, but there's a difference between that and revealing everyone's salary)

This post completely ignores VC-startup fit, fund size, investment strategy and other factors.

There are many different kinds of (institutional) VCs. A firm with a $100MM active fund invest very differently than A16Z with a > $1 B available for investment. The ideal ownership stake within the portfolio company, comfort level with higher valuations, investment allocated across multiple rounds for a portfolio company all are a function of fund-size and investment strategy.

As the active fund size increases (e.g. $500MM or $1B), the fund is biased towards making big investments and hugs wins are needed for LP returns. When fundraising for your startup, its critical to understand if these dynamics are going to be a cause of conflict between your investors and you. Just because a VC firm invested in Facebook, doesn't mean their dynamics make sense for your startup.

curious to learn why you say this?

Is any of this different because the person in context is a business role?

In my personal experience, smaller, tech-heavy focus startups are quick to make an offer for technical candidates.

However business roles take much longer, partly because its not clear if the company needs a full-time person running marketing, sales or business development, and because the new hire can add to "product-market" fit noise.

For everyone claiming Oscar has a technology advantage, an expert committee led by Hugh Herr (world leader in bio-mechatronics)[1,2] across scientists from 6 universities, proved in 2008 that Oscar did NOT have any advantage. This has been mostly a political battle.

[1] http://www.media.mit.edu/news/releases/2008/05/study-revives...

[2] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/410167/amputee-gets-a-s...

Governance in India consists of terrible mismanagement and obscene corruption. The country's growth has been driven by the private sector and privatization.

Its so entrenched in the billion person economy, there simply seems to be no way for the educated classes to have an impact and change this. Any ideas on how this can be changed?

Really bad governance. All the development and growth you hear about is driven by capitalism, private sector growth, and privatization of energy, telecommunication and other traditional government strongholds.

The country is held back by public sector mismanagement and obscene corruption.

my point was I know tons of I+C engineers waiting for 5+ years for their GC via EB2 or EB3, so that they can eventually do a startup.

Great points, except that the E2 visas ONLY apply to treaty countries, which excludes India and China.

Ironically, I + C are the biggest source of skilled tech labor, as evidenced by the 5+ year EB2/EB3 waiting period.

Does anyone else have experience with using full-service outsourced HR? Even with an accountant and a good law firm, its amazing how complex HR can be, given all the nuances of payroll, benefits, contractors, etc.

Soak up every bit of venture hacks. Then read brad book called venture deals.

Aargh-- first of all, why don't you have vesting in place? what were you thinking being irresponsible?

Solution given the circumstances-- if you have any doubts, he has to go. It would be best to have a frank conversation, explain your reasoning, and wrap things up cleanly with paperwork from your lawyers. Convince him that its better to part in a good way and find something that excites him. Give him a fair separation agreement, e.g. pro-rated stock for the 3 months etc. Get everything in writing, help him find a good next gig, and you'll salvage the relationship AND your company.

I would recommend giving some stock even if you had vesting and he hadn't hit his cliff for a few reasons:

(a) startups are a small world, no point in making enemies

(b) a little stock aligns long-term incentives. If he goes, and the company is successful because of that, he actually makes $$. When you're getting acquired he'll be there to help, because he will see a financial outcome. Giving no stock breeds hate and resentment.

(c) Startups are hard, grueling experiences, not everyone makes it. Its OK.

Pay $1000/month for a combination of:

-- reasonable short-term accommodation, e.g., high-end youth hostel type

-- Shared office space e.g., Dogpatch Labs or General Assembly style

-- good internet and coffee

-- permission to work (visas, etc)