

Work at a Startup - pg
http://www.workatastartup.org/

======
sayrer
This comment will sound a little confrontational, but here it goes.

Why would anyone competent enough to work at one of these companies choose
that path instead of being a founder?

~~~
pg
That's actually a good question. There are several answers. One is that being
a founder is not merely a matter of competence. It's also financially risky,
and very stressful. So someone who was just as competent as the founders but
wanted less risk or stress might prefer to be an early employee.

You can titrate the amount of startupness you get in your job by the size of
the company you join. If you're the first person hired by a startup with one
or two founders, you'll probably be a _de facto_ cofounder. Whereas if you get
hired by a startup with 30 people you'll have a lot less risk and stress, but
it will probably still be more interesting than going to work for a big
company.

Another reason is that luck (usually in the form of timing) is a big component
of startup outcomes, so in some cases it can be a better bet, measured both
financially and by how much effect you can have on the world, to join a
startup that is obviously taking off than to start your own. All the first
several hundred employees at Google, to take an extreme example, probably made
more money and had more effect on the world than they would have on average by
starting their own companies.

Plus you need more than ability to start a startup. You also need an idea and
probably a cofounder. Joining an existing startup can be the easiest way to
get both.

~~~
zackattack
Okay, what's the appeal of "changing the world" for its own sake? I often hear
things like "entrepreneurs endure the stress because they want to change the
world."

~~~
jodrellblank
People who want to change the world think their change will be an improvement,
they aren't doing it "for it's own sake".

~~~
zackattack
Yeah they're improving it to be more in line with some set of values (which
will vary depending on their ethics). When they don't say which values are
important and just say "changing the world" I am not inspired.

------
jf
Will all the people needed to make a hiring decision be present at this event?

I postulate that running a hiring event would attract some very talented
people if the one of the stated goals of the event was for people to leave
with signed offer letters.

I helped run the "Reverse Job Fair" at the Hacker Dojo several months ago -
some job seekers flew in from the East Coast and LA just to attend. From what
I've heard about 5 people were hired on the spot.

This is one area where startups can really differentiate themselves: The last
startup I worked for made me a job offer in about 48 hours - I was unemployed
for a total of 100 hours. It took about 3 months for me to go through the
hiring process with Microsoft.

~~~
justin
I can only speak for our company, but I run technical hiring at JTV and will
be there presenting. On the other hand, to say that we will hire you "on the
spot" is probably disingenuous: I think both candidates and our company are
better served when we make people go through the full interview process of
doing a technical problem, coming into the office for technical interviews and
to see what the culture is like, and then giving both the candidate and our
company a day or two to think about it. That being said, of course it is our
full intention to move as quickly as possible.

------
gsiener
I'm really interested in attending something like this but am on the East
Coast. Will there be any audio/video available from this event?

~~~
jl
Yes, we'll broadcast the event on Justin.tv.

~~~
dunstad
Do we know when? It says invitations will be issued June 1, but not (that I
saw) when the event actually occurs.

~~~
tdmackey
From underneath the big bold "Work at a Startup" text: June 17 2010, 6:00-7:30
pm | Y Combinator, 320 Pioneer Way, Mountain View

------
abstractbill
Looks like a great event!

If anyone ever wants to talk about what it's like to work at a startup from
the perspective of someone who has worked at Justin.TV for the past three
years, I'd be happy to answer some questions - feel free to email me at
doctorbill [at] gmail [dot] com

------
rjett
This event looks like it's geared towards programmers, but aren't at least a
few of these companies looking for non-programming positions? Wouldn't the
information shared at this event be just as relevant to business-minded folks
interested in working at a startup?

I personally have been trying to teach myself programming for the past year
and getting to work for a startup in some sort of business development role
alongside of top-notch programmers seems very appealing to me because I could
provide value while supplementing my learning experience. I understand the
need to narrow the scope of this event so that it's easier to manage
applicants, but is there any opportunity for non-programmers?

~~~
pg
It will depend on whose resumes the presenting companies like. I know they're
most interested in programmers, so I described the event as being for
programmers. But there's no coding test to apply or anything like that.
Ultimately you get invited if the presenting companies like your resume,
whatever it says.

------
hartror
I have never worked for anything but early stage startups and wonder what it
is like on the other side where pay is (almost) always certain, you can't drop
into the CEOs office at a moments notice and everyone just works 9-5. It is
like a foreign country to me, but one that is on my list of places to visit
eventually.

~~~
abstractbill
I have some experience with almost every part of this spectrum. I worked for a
few years for a startup in London that grew from 3 people when I started, to 7
people, and then we got acquired and shipped over to Silicon Valley.

Enter the Golden Handcuff phase - definitely my favorite in many ways! We were
treated like royalty for a while - given lots of nice benefits and some very
interesting and challenging problems to work on, with resources to match (we
purchased more than 1000 powerful servers and put them in a huge cage in a
colo!). We had nice offices with windows. I had a nice apartment in Palo Alto
and a rental car paid for by the company for about a year.

After about a year things started to tail off. Our project became less
strategically important to the company that had acquired us. We were gradually
starved of resources and attention. The perks went away one by one.

The transformation was slow, but sure. Eventually even the offices with
windows went away, and we were moved to crappy cubes where you couldn't see
windows even if you stood on your desk.

In the end, the daily routine for _everyone_ on the team was something like a
10am-4pm work day, filled with browsing reddit and playing ping-pong or air
hockey. Nobody noticed, or if they did, they no longer cared.

Finally my Green Card arrived (after three years). As soon as it did, I quit
and joined my next startup (Justin.TV).

------
Timothee
Sounds interesting.

One comment: in the application form, it's not really clear how we would be
contacted by whoever we decide to (any YC company, any HN user, anyone).
Basically, where are the email and resume going and how would "anyone" have
access to them?

Thanks!

~~~
pg
I built the resume feature as something more general. Those options were in
case I eventually do something where anyone can keep a resume on HN, and
people can do searches on them, as has sometimes been proposed. For now I'm
only using it for workatastartup, so I just took the other options out, in
case they alarm people.

------
aristus
A question I'm surprised isn't on here: what's the motivation to do this? Is
it becoming harder for YC companies to hire, or a way to share resources, etc?

~~~
pg
Hiring tends to be issue number 1 for all startups that get over the initial
threshold of raising significant funding. Now that so many of the startups
we've funded are over that threshold, we were hearing more and more about it.
So we started to think whether there was anything we could do to help them,
and it seemed like the best thing we could do would be to make the idea of
working for a startup more real to more programmers.

I think most programmers apply to work at big companies largely by default.
They know what to expect when they do that. They know that startups exist, of
course, but if they haven't met many in person, the idea of going to work for
one doesn't seem like a real possibility. So we thought that if we could make
the idea seem real, by (a) explaining all about it and (b) introducing people
to a lot of actual startups, at least they wouldn't simply go to big companies
by default. They'd actually weigh the two alternatives, and that would
probably cause more to work for startups.

~~~
justin
Using YC's influence and reputation to bring talented candidates in the door
at the investee companies is always something I'd hoped for, so I'm super
happy to see this. Quality deal flow has always been our bottleneck for hiring
(like all technical companies, I suppose we like to think we're super picky
:D).

------
faramarz
I admire so many of those companies listed that I'd highly consider applying.

Problem is, I'm in Toronto and only through a NAFTA VISA I can work there. I
highly doubt many of the jobs are open to this Visa. That's frustrating.

~~~
bengl
I'm in the same boat in Ottawa. Many Canadians have gone on to work for
startups in the US. What I've always seen, from friends and family who've been
down this road, is that US companies (big or small) wanting to hire Canadians
have always been very helpful in the visa process. Of course, your mileage may
vary.

I think your best bet is to throw your resume in, clearly indicating your
current location.

------
zaatar
FYI: Zumodrive's link at the bottom of the page is broken (zumodrive.om)

~~~
pg
Fixed; thanks.

------
MLnick
Any chance of something like this in London?!

~~~
nagrom
I'd also be interested in an event like this if it was held in the UK. If it's
on Justin.tv, will the stream be made available as a video later?

------
joseakle
You could post this on the jobs page.

~~~
pg
Good idea; yes, I should add a link there.

------
rodh257
this might be a little off topic, but what sort of programming languages, and
other skill requirements are most popular at these sort of events?

As a programmer who wants to work for (and perhaps start) a startup in the
future, I'm interested in what technologies, skills etc are most common. I do
ASP.NET at the moment, but this is more enterprise than startup I believe.

If this is totally the wrong spot let me know, but I'd imagine if I rocked up
to this event, and everyone was doing Rails I'd be useless to most?

------
joesunga
This is definitely interesting. I'm currently working at a startup, but it's
always good to see how others work too. Is this specific to developers, or can
business side folks attend too?

~~~
pg
This particular event is mainly for programmers. We're hosting this at YC
itself, and we can't fit as many people as you could in an auditorium. But
ultimately it depends on the presenting companies:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346178>

~~~
bb_mn
This is an interesting filtering process. Presumably, there will be some who
attend this event already identified (based on their resumes) as desirable
candidates for one or more companies.

Will this be asynchronous knowledge or will the attendees and companies have
contact and/or show interest in advance?

~~~
pg
The companies reading the resumes will be able to contact the people
submitting them if the people submitting them say they can. There's a field
for specifying that on the resume.

------
radicalmatt
Could we get one of these in Chicago and New York?

~~~
gsiener
++ for New York

------
Wump
Any chance a non-YC company can attend?

------
rokhayakebe
I like how they have a Techstars company in the mix. Very nice.

~~~
pg
They're all YC companies.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Misread Fabricly for Graphicly.

