

Free Place to stay in Silicon valley if you code - syed123
http://blog.letslunch.com/2011/03/08/free-place-to-stay-in-silicon-valley-if-you-code/

======
qq66
This is not a free place to stay. You are asking a software engineer (the
hottest date in Silicon Valley right now) to work just for the cost of rent.
Even if you live in One Rincon that means you're effectively paying $24,000
post-tax.

~~~
alain94040
Well of course you get equity in our startup. As you know, that's a pretty
standard deal for startups in Silicon Valley. Plus rent covered. If it's not
for you, fine, but someone else may find that a deal worth considering.

~~~
rsbrown
It's not at all clear from this post that the coder will get any equity for
their 3-month stint.

Having said all that, this is a pretty cool deal for a young person right out
of school with no job prospects.

EDIT: Removed my skepticism about receiving equity. I didn't realize you were
one of the founders. A little equity for 3 months' work? Sounds like a pretty
sweet deal.

~~~
Vivtek
Well, it does say "you get equity, too".

~~~
rsbrown
Not originally, it didn't. It appears to have been added as a subsequent edit.

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jackowayed
Not sure why everyone is so negative. Yes, it's a "bad deal" in that you're
getting paid way below what you're worth.

But normally, if you want to move to the Valley, you either have to try to
find a job before you get out here, or you have to get enough money to live
for a couple months, then find somewhere to stay, and then find a job.

Not everyone has enough savings to support that. Not everyone likes that level
of uncertainty. Instead, you can work below your market rate for 3 months (ie.
not really long enough to be significant), get a cool experience, get a bit of
equity, not have to find a place before getting out here, and then have plenty
of time to line up a job and a permanent place to live.

I can definitely see how a rational person would accept that deal.

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mayank
You might want to add "for us" to the title.

~~~
GrooveStomp
Agreed, the title is definitely misleading.

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Jach
There's a bum somewhere with the "Will code HTML for food" sign who's just
your match. <http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/265918244_f16ba8182a.jpg>

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ChuckMcM
Wow, its interesting to see the mix of 'its cool / its stupid' remarks. I
couldn't find any mention of the terms of the equity but lets say its not an
incentive stock option as most people seem to be assuming, rather lets assume
its actually stock, as in actual equity you can hold (and sell on secondmarket
:-)

So you give someone say 90K shares in restricted stock on the condition that
they complete their 3 months (maybe you unlock it 30 days at a time). Now at
the end of their 3 months they have 90,000 shares which were probably valued
at say .05. So a $4,500 taxable event (and free rent and board? for three
months, so perhaps another $4,500 in non-tangible benefits.

If the equity now lets say the equity has participation rights in the series
A. (As in you allow this coder to contribute their 90K shares if/when you go
for a series A) and your series A rolls out with a 0.20/share valuation. Now
your programmer can either take $18K for their three months or perhaps wait
until series B.

I could imagine a lot of ways to structure this which would win both from the
perspective of the entrepreneur and the programmer.

The key though is what are the terms on the equity.

~~~
bluesnowmonkey
Lots of variables being guessed at there. But for the sake of argument, say
you're receiving equity valued by the market at $4500 for 3 months work. That
makes you fairly desperate. If they were really the "hottest startup" in town
a month ago, why are they skimping on talent?

Equity makes sense as a form of compensation for someone who believes in the
company more than the market, or to tie someone's interests to those of the
company. But this position is explicitly being sold as a potential stepping
stone to something else. That incentive structure is all wrong. You pay cash
for stepping stone jobs.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Hmm, I think you missed my point. If the company is pre-Series A then the
market value of the company is unknown. If, as a developer, you can arbitrage
risk/time for money exactly like a VC does, but rather than cash equity you
invest sweat equity.

So in the pre-Series A scenario, one would value the company the same way a
investor would. Do you think this team can execute? What is the available
market for their product? How much could they reasonably expect to capture?
What is the upside if they capture more? What might be their valuation in a
post-execution scenario (which is to say they've delivered their product into
production). And, like a VC your risk is that they will not be able to execute
and they will go under.

On a related note, I met a number of consultants in the dot com era who were
operating like this. They were offering to take a portion of their fees in
stock. This way, if they consulted at 10 different companies they have 10
chips in the game in case one of them 'wins.' The size of the stake they ended
up with in various companies wasn't VC class (not millions of shares, more
like thousands of shares) but it added upside down the road for them.

The larger point I was trying to make was that there are many variables that
are unknown about this particular arrangement, one can posit values for the
unknowns that would make it a 'good' deal and one can posit values that would
make it a 'dumb' deal. Its an interesting Rorschach test to see how different
people immediately jump to one side or the other. I think that can help people
understand their own internal biases which they may, or may not, be aware of.

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cabose07
It is expensive to live in the valley but not THAT expensive

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csomar
That's the worst thing you can do. You'll not get a developer, but rather a
sucker. Why would someone move to Silicon Valley? Either to work or to make a
startup. In your case, it's to work and he is getting paid... not enough to
feed him and pay some of his bills, but just a rent.

So what's really the point of it? Just go there to code for you and then get
back home? I'll probably only spend money and then?

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Geekette
What should also be clarified are the _conditions_ surrounding the equity. For
instance, assuming there's a vesting agreement in place, it's probably set
over 4yrs, with a 1yr cliff. So, if this candidate leaves in less than 1yr's
time, then he/she automatically looses any equity earned thus far.

Its also interesting that they couldn't get anyone locally since the cofounder
also runs a cofounder meetup group (<http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-
Meetup/>).

All in all, it might appeal to someone just looking for an adventure in the
valley without any need of compensation whatsoever (equity is worthless if the
startup runs aground) and no expectations.

------
rdl
I think there is the kernel of a great idea here.

"Come work for startup pre-funding, we'll give you housing/food/etc. for now,
and equity, and once we have funding, we'll help you find a place of your own,
pay market salary, etc." is a good deal for a lot of people, if they believe
in the startup itself.

A lot of people get overwhelmed by the number of (individually relatively
minor) changes in a big move like "move to silicon valley and join a startup"
-- if you can simplify

I'd expect founders to be willing to personally help out new hires or co-
founders at the very early stage (especially if you are hiring people who have
to relocate, or who are freshly out of something like college, grad school, or
Google), but later, I'd actually go so far as to have an "ops" person who has
the responsibility of handling all these tasks for people. Palantir, a pretty
big/successful company, does this very well. You can see elements of it with
free lunch, dry cleaning, etc. at Google and Facebook. The military does this
exceptionally well -- basically, sign up, and your life is managed for you
(for better or for worse -- the ideal for a regular tech company would be to
provide acceptable defaults but let people override as they wish). Aaron
Patzer did this for Jason (the designer at Mint) -- gave him a room in his
house, a car, and introduced him to his future wife (!!!).

In addition to making it easier to join, this kind of "total institution"
builds loyalty. There is a lot of value in getting your best people to stay 6
years instead of 3.

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alain94040
To be clear, we can't process visa applications, so you'd be moving from
somewhere else in the US, not from abroad. (as a long-time visa holder in the
US, I feel your pain, but there is nothing I can do right now)

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isfinite
guess they didnt get any takers from their initial posting so they upped the
ante by offering up the founders spare bedroom. if we hold out just a little
longer guys the applicant may get a free lunch once a month out of this.

initial post: [http://blog.letslunch.com/2011/02/09/hot-startup-looking-
for...](http://blog.letslunch.com/2011/02/09/hot-startup-looking-for-php-
developer/)

------
joebananas
So in a nutshell, a want ad for serfs?

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blhack
This is fantastically awesome, guys. Good on you.

Someday, my dream is to have the means to do something like this, but bigger.
A "hacker hostel" where people can come and spend time working on their
projects without having to worry about paying rent.

Has anybody ever tried anything like that? I know there was "hacker halfway
house" a while ago, but from what I understand, that wasn't actually a place
you could live.

I also remember some people here allowing hackers to camp in their backyard in
tents, and colaborate in the house...

I don't suppose you guys would let me and my insane dog come and stay there,
would you? (Dog: <http://thingist.com/t/item/1675/>)

[I'm kidding]

~~~
Vivtek
I _still_ think that would be the best possible use for all the cool steampunk
mansions here in Richmond, Indiana.
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878271> from 2009)

------
kovar
There's also a real downside to living with your boss. When do you get down
time? Do you really want him to know how you spend your working _and_ non-
working hours? If there is tension at work how do you prevent it from carrying
over to home, and vice versa.

------
ozten
Couldn't hold out for April 1st?

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bugsy
A word to the wary, this would definitely be considered taxable income by the
IRS.

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rms
Looks like a cool product. Just signed up. Process me?

Good luck with the trial cofounder; this should work well.

~~~
zephjc
"Hopefully you like php"

~~~
rms
I guess most coders around these parts would rather not develop in PHP which
can make attracting talent harder, but from a pure product standpoint PHP is
just as good as Python or Ruby as long as it's developed using modern best
practices. Let's not language war right now.

~~~
jhpriestley
Modern best practices include "not using PHP"

~~~
jeromec
Could you explain why? I'm also curious why Facebook, arguably the definition
of a modern startup success, chose to remain powered by PHP after they
obtained more than enough capital to switch to say Ruby on Rails.

~~~
code_duck
I recall reading that they wished they could move to Python, but they decided
that rewriting their entire base of front-end code would be a bad decision. It
was too large of a task (I believe a Facebook engineer covered this when they
released HipHop). So, they are basically stuck with PHP and have made the best
of it.

~~~
jeromec
Yes, many companies will review all their options once they have plenty of
capital, and make decisions based on what's best for their situation. For
example, Twitter was reported to be switching from Ruby on Rails to PHP or
Java amidst all their uptime troubles.

[http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-
abandoni...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoning-
ruby-on-rails/)

My point is that choice of language is not what will likely stand in your way
of becoming a monumental startup success. Yet people will insist on promoting
language wars as if it will.

~~~
code_duck
Paul G. has given Lisp a lot of credit for enabling ViaWeb to push out new
features in minimal time, compared to competitors who were using languages
such as Java. While your choice of language might not be a make-or-break
decision, it's good to have all the advantages you can get.

(I think Twitter ended up using Scala, didn't they?)

~~~
jeromec
We could always do an "Ask PG" to clarify, but my understanding of what
happened with ViaWeb is you had a group of smart young people innovating on a
problem against bulky institutional competitors. When asked who had an
offering even close to what they did they said no one. (You might even say
they were the first YC modeled company!) Viewed this way I'd say the success
was about the people, not the language; they simply used their tool of choice.

I don't know what's the "official" (or real) story on current Twitter
architecture.

~~~
code_duck
Right, their success was not purely about the language, I'm just saying it
helped (rather, he said it helped). This is drawn from my recollection of
reading an article pg wrote. I could find the article if anyone is interested
(it is an article about how great lisp is, not specifically the history of
ViaWeb, I think).

I agree that some people take the choice of language and architecture a little
to seriously. Of course you can start a blockbuster business on PHP and MySQL
- people prove that frequently!

~~~
jeromec
Yes, I agree any creator needs an able tool, but that's a clear strength of
PHP when it comes to Web deployment. That's a fact. I believe people should
use whatever they feel they can get the job done with, even if it's BASIC
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257866>), because focusing on a
language more than what it is you're actually trying to accomplish IMO is
missing the point.

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jhpriestley
Is this even legal? Doesn't it fall into the same category as "unpaid
internships"?

~~~
ascendant
As many have said before, you are also receiving equity in the company.

~~~
jhpriestley
Can equity be used to satisfy minimum-wage laws? The lawyers here
[http://www.linkedin.com/answers/law-legal/employment-
labor-l...](http://www.linkedin.com/answers/law-legal/employment-labor-
law/LAW_ELW/156475-20790) seem to think that the answer is "no."

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JCB_K
"We may not be the next twitter or linkedin, but we think we can get pretty
close."

That's not a great mindset. It might be honest, but not great to write on your
company blog.

------
melissamiranda
It's a terrible deal if you do the numbers but extremely convenient. Place to
live + job + friends bundled into one. And you'll be (in)famous for being the
person who accepted.

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6841iam
worst deal ever.

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yojamesbo
sounds like the pitch to a bad horror movie to me...

~~~
zinssmeister
... feat. Mark Wahlberg

