

"You should be willing to make this startup the main focus of your life" - dpritchett

I can't help but notice that one of the links on the YC jobs page (viewable above at news.yc/jobs) says that prospective engineers should "be willing to make this startup the main focus of your life".  Is this reasonable?<p>I know HN has been through several equity for non-founders discussions this quarter; there's certainly room for continued debate on whether or not early hires deserve a lot of equity.<p>That leads me to my concern with the requirement in this post's title:  Is it reasonable to expect anyone to build their life around an employer?  Unless the employee is a major shareholder (i.e. cofounder) this seems like it's asking too much.  In this case the prospective engineer would be the first non-founder employee.  Perhaps they'd be eligible for double-digit equity?  If so, that pretty much makes them a cofounder and invalidates most of the above questions.
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mattm
If you don't want to devote your entire waking hours to a job then don't apply
to one that requires you to do so.

There are numerous productivity studies that show working past a set number of
hours decreases productivity in the long-run leading to more bugs, poorer
morale and more "fire-fighting" instead of fixing problems for the long term.

If a company goes against this and just wants to work longer and harder
instead of smarter, let them do it.

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ScottWhigham
There are many young people who are excited by this - equity is not as
exciting to them as being on a team who works like mad towards a better way. I
doubt you'd find too many 30-somethings interested in this but there are
plenty who see opportunities like this as a way to gain street cred, bypass
college, gain experience, etc.

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ganley
In my experience this is a pretty typical expectation at a startup. Good for
these people for being so honest about it.

