<story><title>Somewhat Verbatim Conversation with a Startup Recruiter</title><url>http://blog.galler.io/startup-dialog</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jmduke</author><text>This article is a cheap shot, though my friends&amp;#x27; anecdotal experiences suggest that this kind of thing is unfortunately grounded in reality.&lt;p&gt;The three biggest takeaways, I think, when seeking employment at a startup:&lt;p&gt;1.  Money v. Experience is a false dichotomy.&lt;p&gt;2.  It is worth your time and effort to quantify the actual value of things like free lunches and insurance.&lt;p&gt;3.  Follow patio11&amp;#x27;s advice on evaluating equity:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Roll d100.  (Not the right kind of geek?  Sorry.  rand(100) then.)&lt;p&gt;0~70: Your equity grant is worth nothing.&lt;p&gt;71~94: Your equity grant is worth a lump sum of money which makes you about as much money as you gave up working for the startup, instead of working for a megacorp at a higher salary with better benefits.&lt;p&gt;95~99: Your equity grant is a lifechanging amount of money.  You won’t feel rich — you’re not the richest person you know, because many of the people you spent the last several years with are now richer than you by definition — but your family will never again give you grief for not having gone into $FAVORED_FIELD like a proper $YOUR_INGROUP.&lt;p&gt;100: You worked at the next Google, and are rich beyond the dreams of avarice.  Congratulations.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drusenko</author><text>To be fair, there are good and bad apples in any general population. Startups are no different, and the posted conversation is a complete trainwreck.&lt;p&gt;In defense of &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; startups:&lt;p&gt;1- Some of us pay equal to or more than BigCo, so you&amp;#x27;re not always making a salary trade-off.&lt;p&gt;2- Options are a lottery, but with better odds than most people give them credit for: 13% of VC-backed startups exit for over $10M, 5% exit for over $50M, and 2% exit for over $100M, which is what I&amp;#x27;d call a meaningful exit for all parties involved [1]. Everybody&amp;#x27;s experience is different, but many of our early employees can attest that options sure can be worth quite a lot.&lt;p&gt;3- You get to have real impact at a startup. Try doing that at BigCo.&lt;p&gt;4- The culture isn&amp;#x27;t soul-sucking.&lt;p&gt;If you find the right startup, I think you are &amp;quot;optimizing for happiness&amp;quot;. Get paid market, be in an environment where you can have autonomy and impact, get stuff done and shipped, and focus on what you enjoy doing.&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about the millions of ups and downs of starting your own or freelancing. And you have a 1&amp;#x2F;50 lottery ticket of making it big, and a pretty decent chance of picking up some sizable savings.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, I am biased :)&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-truth-behind-9-out-of-10-startups-fail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;What-is-the-truth-behind-9-out-of-10-st...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Somewhat Verbatim Conversation with a Startup Recruiter</title><url>http://blog.galler.io/startup-dialog</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jmduke</author><text>This article is a cheap shot, though my friends&amp;#x27; anecdotal experiences suggest that this kind of thing is unfortunately grounded in reality.&lt;p&gt;The three biggest takeaways, I think, when seeking employment at a startup:&lt;p&gt;1.  Money v. Experience is a false dichotomy.&lt;p&gt;2.  It is worth your time and effort to quantify the actual value of things like free lunches and insurance.&lt;p&gt;3.  Follow patio11&amp;#x27;s advice on evaluating equity:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Roll d100.  (Not the right kind of geek?  Sorry.  rand(100) then.)&lt;p&gt;0~70: Your equity grant is worth nothing.&lt;p&gt;71~94: Your equity grant is worth a lump sum of money which makes you about as much money as you gave up working for the startup, instead of working for a megacorp at a higher salary with better benefits.&lt;p&gt;95~99: Your equity grant is a lifechanging amount of money.  You won’t feel rich — you’re not the richest person you know, because many of the people you spent the last several years with are now richer than you by definition — but your family will never again give you grief for not having gone into $FAVORED_FIELD like a proper $YOUR_INGROUP.&lt;p&gt;100: You worked at the next Google, and are rich beyond the dreams of avarice.  Congratulations.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davidcuddeback</author><text>The funny thing about that table is that rand(100) never returns 100. I wonder if that was on purpose.</text></comment>