
True Ventures’ Entrepreneur Force Pays It Forward To Budding Tech Leaders - jasonlbaptiste
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/16/true-ventures/
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paulbaumgart
$3000 stipend for an entire summer? That's well below minimum wage in San
Francisco, and less than a fifth of what the large tech companies pay for
(technical) internships. If they're trying to "compete with large companies
like Google, Microsoft or even Facebook for talent," this hardly seems like
the way to do it.

Do I just misunderstand the article? Do the companies themselves make up the
rest? Or is this "competing for talent" claim mostly posturing?

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adaugelli
Hi Paul,

The goal is to try to make this cost-neutral for the students participating in
TEC.

When we talked to students who were considering taking an internship at a
startup versus a big company, the big issue in many cases was that most
startups weren't offering cash compensation. The problem being that even if
students really want to try working at a startup, it is really expensive to
live in the Bay Area - even for 8 weeks.

So the goal was not to compete with big companies directly on cash
compensation (which most startups would never do even for a full-time hire),
but rather enable anyone who wants to have experience working with a small
team - the opportunity to be able to afford to do so.

~~~
paulbaumgart
Maybe the market is different for non-technical internships. I have no
particular insight into that. But for a top CS or engineering student, I
seriously doubt this would be an enticing offer.

Addendum: I'm really not trying to needlessly antagonize you, but I think your
point about cash compensation isn't very sound, because it neglects the equity
a full-time employee would receive to offset the below-market salary.

~~~
adaugelli
Partially agree.

It's a different sales pitch than big companies though - our pitch is we'll
cover your living expense and give you the chance to work with a small team
and see if a startup is the right fit for you.

Instead of equity - many of the TEC participants get to own an entire product
or initiative. Ali Shah out of NYU came on board and over the summer designed
and built the entire VodPod iPad App. Andrew Boni at BC was a core part of the
team that helped design and push code to the GigaOM site redesign.

At an internship for a major tech company, you're pushing some live code, but
its for a small part of a major property. Much like joining a startup early,
you get to own major parts of product and get to understand how your work fits
into the broader company building process.

P.S. Doesn't feel antagonistic at all - I'm just trying to shine a light on
how we think about the situation internally. We know we don't pay participants
as much as Google, Apple, etc - but we think it actually helps attract the
right type applicants to the program.

~~~
paulbaumgart
For the record:

We settled this over tacos and beer. True Ventures is not trying to compete
with the likes of Facebook for top technical talent. That seems to be a
misleading spin added by the authors of the article at TechCrunch.

True Ventures is instead trying to find people for whom the value of a summer
spent working and learning at a start-up and building relationships within the
firm is greater than the $12k+ pay delta. I agree that this can hold true for
certain individuals, especially people looking to found their own companies in
the very near future. I imagine there are many struggling start-up founders
who would be willing (not that anyone would offer this deal) to pay $12k for
the sort of access a TEC participant has.

Unlike what the TechCrunch article implies, this does not do much to solve the
recruitment problems faced by many start-ups, nor is it intended to do so.

Thanks for the tacos, Adam!

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jasonlbaptiste
This is actually something we've been thinking about in terms of hiring and
culture. Less on an intern basis (though would have same access, just would be
shorter period of time) and more on the basis with full time team members. The
people we'd want to bring on board should most likely be entrepreneurs, but
for some reason aren't ready/want to join a company first.

How can we educate these team members and give them access to all the
cool/smart people we meet? Essentially how can being a part of our team, also
help get you ready to start your own company in a couple of years?

The greatest companies ala paypal, fb, goog, fairchild,etc. end up spawning a
subsequent generation of entrepreneurs. We want that to be built into OnSwipe
from day 1 and not a haphazard bi-product.

Really open to some suggestions on the above concept as it's still rough and
we're working on it.

If this interests you, email me: j@onswipe.com . We're hiring (front end+back
end) and I know we're doing something like this, just figuring out right
approach. You can help us shape it.

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maxstoller
Disclosure: I was a HackNY fellow last summer.

I'm all for more programs like this, but I don't think VCs should be running
them. HackNY.org is a similar program in NYC. The key difference is that it's
a non-profit run by educators and hackers with no commercial interests. HackNY
is truly paying it forward.

~~~
adaugelli
Hey Max,

I now work at True and was a part of the first TEC class in 2009.

Was curious if you could go into more detail about why VCs shouldn't run these
types of programs.

Our main goal is to help college students connect with startups so they can
discover alternatives to the traditional big company career paths they hear
about all the time at school. In the end, more people graduating and looking
to join startups is good thing for the ecosystem, no matter who is running the
program.

I'd propose the opposite, that all venture funds should be running these types
of programs. Both to help their portfolio companies recruit and to help
educate students about opportunities at high-tech startups.

P.S. If you're looking for the West Coast equivalent to HackNY - you should
check out Startup Roots.

<http://startuproots.org/>

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jdp23
Just think about the potential impact if YC and the huge network of companies
(and supporters here on HN) did something similar ...

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talbina
Is it me or is the title incredibly difficult to parse?

