

I am graduating soon. Should I work at a small startup or a large company? - ddrmaxgt37

I am graduating from college soon. My eventual goal is to start my own company. I think I should work at a small (&#60;50 employee) company. My parents think I should work at Google or Facebook. Any thoughts or links to previous discussions about this?<p>Specifically, I would like to know what all you think is the best preparation for starting something on my own.
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storborg
HN does a great job of extolling the virtues of working at a startup, so I
won't bother going into that. However, I graduated 3.5 years ago, and I
sometimes regret not starting my 'career' at a large corporation for a few
reasons:

1\. I think I could be a more well-rounded entrepreneur if I had some
understanding of the protocols and practices of a large corporation. For
example, it's tough to get experience working with 100+ other full-time
developers on the same build target outside of a large corporation.

2\. Similarly, at a large corporation you have a lot more people to learn
from, instead of having to learn things for yourself/from the internet.

3\. At a startup, it's tough to not get emotionally invested in your company.
This is good, but it also limits your mobility--you can't really just say,
"I'm going to quit so I can spend six months in Madagascar photographing
lemurs", because you will probably be screwing your coworkers.

4\. It's really tough to go from a startup to a large corporation without an
acquisition, because of #3, and because you'll likely lose some personal
freedom. The degree to which this happens depends on the company, but at the
very least, you will probably have to interact with a lot more people, and
thus you'll probably have to make your working hours more compatible with
others (e.g. 9 to 5).

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staunch
As a whole big companies are machines for turning energetic, scrappy,
visionary people into sluggish, overspending, risk-averse, reliable cogs.

Don't even work at a startup unless you need to. You're more likely to succeed
by repeatedly starting your own companies than any other path.

~~~
bigohms
Excellent!

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snikolov
Some people have already mentioned the benefits of a startup, but if you want
to start your own company there are a couple of reasons why experience in a
larger company might also help you do that (aside from just starting a
company). YMMV of course.

1) That big company might be your startup's competition. Knowing how they work
might give you insight into how to beat them and others like them.

2) That big company might buy your startup or be a customer (if you're doing
something B2B) Getting insight into how decisions get made in larger
organizations will help you sell to the right people.

You might think the supposed "insights" from these are obvious, but they might
not be to someone who hasn't been in a big company for a long enough period of
time. I'm still in school and I'll admit that I'm pretty clueless about these
myself.

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sabj
HN has a certain bias towards entrepreneurship and start-ups, so let me try to
offer at least a few morsels of support for working at Google or Facebook,
though I definitely advocate for start-up or small companies too.

At Google or Facbeook, you would be well-compensated and comfortable while
learning new skills in a still quite fast-paced environment. You will be
surrounded by many very smart people, and that's probably the most important
part.

Your ability to learn new things is definitely greater if you can wear many
hats and accept a lot of responsibility at a small company, but at the same
time, you may find that you are ultimately better equipped by working at a
larger firm full of bright people and building not just your skills, but your
network.

Who would you want to start a company with? While it is often difficult to
entice away workers from such enviable jobs, you will find a large pool from
which to recruit! This is something that you would find rather more difficult
at the smaller company, though if it were in the SF Bay area, you could still
do a lot of socializing. That's not quite a substitute for getting to work
closely with people, obviously.

That's one line of argument there, but really, I suggest going where you
think... A) you like the people best and B) you will learn the most. The rest
is ancillary and will come out in the wash (a bigger bonus, etc, is much less
important than being able to grow a little bit more someplace than somewhere
else).

I struggled with many of the same questions myself recently, ultimately
choosing something quite off the beaten path from what I originally imagined -
we'll see how it works out next summer when I start work!

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retube
It really depends on the company(ies). There's a lot to be said for working at
a big established outfit: clear paths to career progression, decent and
reliable pay, the kudos of working for a firm people have likely heard of,
mostly free weekends and evenings. The downsides are office politics, bad
managers (inevitable), the constant feeling that things could be done
better/more efficiently, being a small largely unknown cog in a big machine.
And yes after a few years people do tend to get disillusioned and hacked off -
often prompting a move to the country or a start-up or something different.

Saying that I wouldn't knock the experience. Seeing how big businesses operate
is probably an important education for every wannabe entrepreneur. And if you
learn to play the corporate game you can do very well - and put away a few
dollars for when you make the jump to something a bit more risky.

Startups will generally involve less pay, longer hours and a more unstable /
insecure career outlook. So if you decide to go this route, choose your firm
with great care. But saying that, in a smaller firm you'll be closer to teh
day-to-day administration of the business which also would be great experience
re starting your own outfit.

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kodeshpa
I am in favor of you starting your own company. But prior, there are certain
points you need to consider, try get a co-founder who is at least as motivated
as you or more is better. Get ready for long hours with very less or no money
for initial days , month , years, Be receptive to failures and flexible to
learn new things everyday. Most importantly have endless passion and belief
towards you goal. At the max you will fail but at the end of day you will
learn a lot , will make good contacts, will develop never give up attitude and
satisfaction that you at least tried. If nothing works, you will definitely in
a good position to get into these technology houses again. But Remember once
entrepreneur is always an entrepreneur. :)

It's Ok even if you start at these places but you need to be focused towards
your passion and keep working continuously side by side on it and manage your
time well. Most importantly, don't show your entrepreneurial
personality/liking in interviews else although you are technically skilled and
crack certain rounds , its highly likely they will not hire you considering
your commitment and dedication towards your work.

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tsotha
My first job was at a 40 person shop that designed and manufactured
specialized data processors. I look back and thank my lucky stars for that
job, because you can learn far more in a company like that. Think of it this
way - a company with 10,000 employees has ten thousand cogs in its machine.
Each cog is very, very specialized.

Small companies can't afford to specialize. We had three or four full time
programmers, and seven or eight EEs. I designed and tested circuits, laid out
PC boards, designed enclosures ( _that_ turned out to be the hardest task -
whaddayamean customers won't appreciate taking out 40 screws to change the
power supply? It's _solid_.), wrote microcode, talked to customers, wrote
software for an automated tester I designed and built myself. All in the space
of four years. It's not impossible to do that in a big company, but it's very,
very unusual.

The downside to a company like that is you don't make nearly as much money.
But for me the money came later, in spades, because I learned how to _do_
things. If you go to Facebook or Google what will you learn?

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joshd
I think both have their good points. Smaller companies allow more freedom and
a wider range of experience. If you pick the _wrong_ small company you'll pick
up bad habits (what's version control? backups? testing?). I didn't have a
software engineering degree, so wasn't aware of some of the things I was doing
wrong (or missing) until I spent some time in bigger companies.

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cwbrandsma
nix that part of the debate. Find a company with the smartest group of
developers you can find, hopefully working on a project you are interested in
(secondary concern). LEARN. Three years later, repeat. Repeat that until you
have 10 years under your belt. After that you will know what to do.

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arithmetic
You already have a bunch of valuable comments to wade through. One tip though
- do not think of large companies as one monolithic organization. If you look
around, you will spot those smaller 'startup'y teams inside big orgs where
you'll learn a ton and have a lot of fun in the process.

Also, write down what you want to achieve in your first job. Financial
stability? Engineering skills? Proficiency in a particular platform,
framework? Ability to work in a team? Narrowing down what you really hope to
get out of this job will really help you focus on finding the right workplace.

And finally, never say never. Both of them (large companies and startups) have
their ups and downs. You'll learn _something_ from both.

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jim_h
Working in a small company, you'll have an opportunity to do more if you take
the initiative. Some days you might be doing things outside of your job maybe
you have to deal with a client, or have to be part of a sales presentation, or
take part in high level meetings.

Of course you also have to be extra careful not to get comfortable since all
companies (especially smaller/older companies) can get comfortable with their
employees. There may be dinosaurs who just aren't very good at what they're
supposed to be doing. Make sure to not limit your knowledge because of them or
be hindered by them.

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ajude
Small company. Personally, I'm working in a 10 man boutique buy-side firm
having just graduated in September. I'm getting real responsibility i.e.
responsibility for clients, working across several roles not just one like
you'd get if you join a larger firms graduate scheme. By getting involved in
all these aspects you get more operational experience as well in terms of the
'nuts and bolts' plus smaller firms tend to be headed up by very experienced
individuals so you'll pick up their habits directly instead of only maybe
meeting them once or twice if you were at a comparably larger firm.

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iworkforthem
I think your parents is right on this, either Google/Facebook are great places
to start off your career, not to mention it's a good place to learn how they
iterate, how they go about their product development, especially in such a
large (and yet fairly agile) company. Think of it as a learning pad.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from working on your idea right now. Once
your idea turns profitable, you can explore the other possibilities; hiring,
working on it full time, etc.

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brianobush
I have worked at both small and large. Eventually, I co-founded a company that
was mildly successful. Small companies are better place to learn lots of
skills, take risks, and be noticed. Large companies are rather hard to do
anything with scope outside your group, and sometimes tasks like getting
hardware seem impossible in a timely manner.

My opinion, go small, then when you are a bit older try a larger company. Try
both and see for yourself. GL.

~~~
jaydub
_...and sometimes tasks like getting hardware seem impossible in a timely
manner._

This is a good point. There's a lot of red tape at big companies and sometimes
doing the simplest things (e.g. setting up an Apache server) can be made into
maddeningly bureaucratic operations (fill out the support ticket -> X -> Y...)

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mcs
I exited school to work at a small, (about a year or so in) established
startup that has funding from accel and norwest. I'm employee 15. It's
honestly one of the funnest things I've ever done, since the work is
interesting and my work actually has an impact on the product.

I'm also the youngest person there, so I am learning very quickly from people
with 10+ more years in Silicon Valley than I have.

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ColourCoder
Probably the best decision I ever made in my life was to study Math because I
wanted to study Math, when everyone advised me to take a more "vocational"
course. Talk to everyone, find out what the jobs are, take the one that sounds
most interesting and forget The Plan. While you're at it, buy a copy of Johnny
Bunko. I wish I'd read it earlier.

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aonic
You'll learn a lot more at a small company as you get / have to wear many hats
in your role. The many roles you play will prepare to better for your own
business

In a large company everyone is very specialized so you won't really get to
step outside your role too much

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ammmir
i'd say if you're just starting out and have a chance to work for a big
company that's been around longer than google, go for it. there's a lot to
learn from large orgs that you aren't necessarily exposed to in small team
environments.

after college, i joined a fortune 100, where i worked for three years. during
that time, i had extra time to devote to consulting gigs and working on my
startup. had i joined a startup, there definitely wouldn't have been much free
time to do my own thing.

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eli
So you want to work at a small company and you want to know whether working at
a small company is a good way to do it? Yes, I'd say so.

