<story><title>Understanding Startup Offers</title><url>https://withcompound.com/manual-company-equity/understanding-startup-offers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>clpm4j</author><text>I think the main advantage of working at a startup is when you&amp;#x27;re relatively young and inexperienced - you&amp;#x27;re being compensated in the experience and accelerated job titles that you can then leverage to ramp up your career by joining other companies or starting your own. Getting an exit is a cherry on top.</text></item><item><author>synergy20</author><text>Chatted with some early-stage-then-IPO-ed engineers yesterday, I asked &amp;quot;aren&amp;#x27;t your company IPO-ed and you should have retired?&amp;quot;, the answer is, after multiple dilutions in rounds of fund raises, his options ended up worth just a few thousands, not useful at all.&lt;p&gt;There is no way the startup you have been working for will keep your interest a priority, and you never know if your share will reach zero in the process of multi-stage VC rounds.&lt;p&gt;Unless you&amp;#x27;re the founders who will always be at the negotiation table for new rounds, I saw no point to work for startups, not at all.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>majormajor</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think startup job titles are worth much but they can be massive skill accelerators.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re in the first 5 years of your career you&amp;#x27;ll have more opportunity to learn more technologies at a small startup where everyone has to do everything than at a FAANG (especially compared to Google where you will only learn the Google internal stack).&lt;p&gt;You can leverage that into a much higher paying job in a way that you wouldn&amp;#x27;t be able to leverage experience at a mid-level company.</text></comment>
<story><title>Understanding Startup Offers</title><url>https://withcompound.com/manual-company-equity/understanding-startup-offers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>clpm4j</author><text>I think the main advantage of working at a startup is when you&amp;#x27;re relatively young and inexperienced - you&amp;#x27;re being compensated in the experience and accelerated job titles that you can then leverage to ramp up your career by joining other companies or starting your own. Getting an exit is a cherry on top.</text></item><item><author>synergy20</author><text>Chatted with some early-stage-then-IPO-ed engineers yesterday, I asked &amp;quot;aren&amp;#x27;t your company IPO-ed and you should have retired?&amp;quot;, the answer is, after multiple dilutions in rounds of fund raises, his options ended up worth just a few thousands, not useful at all.&lt;p&gt;There is no way the startup you have been working for will keep your interest a priority, and you never know if your share will reach zero in the process of multi-stage VC rounds.&lt;p&gt;Unless you&amp;#x27;re the founders who will always be at the negotiation table for new rounds, I saw no point to work for startups, not at all.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dhd415</author><text>In my experience, getting a FAANG job accelerates your career as well or better than titling up quickly in a startup. Having a FANG position on your resume is more of a known quantity for future potential employers than being promoted quickly in an unknown startup.</text></comment>