

Ask HN: What is so special in working for Facebook? - gsivil

Why so many good programmers like to work for Facebook?
What is the really rewarding thing for working in Facebook?
======
tgriesser
I'm sure any pre-IPO stock issued to their employees, while not being a really
rewarding thing right now, is going to pay off big in a relatively short
timeframe... see: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/google-making-
extraordinary...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/google-making-
extraordinary-counteroffers-to-stop-flow-of-employees-to-facebook/)

~~~
joezydeco
At this point in the game, can any new employee expect to get options that are
_not_ insanely diluted?

I guess if you're a Lars Rasmussen-class talent you're going to get some
special class of stock to entice you to come over, but what about the rest of
the new hires?

~~~
yaskyj
Dilution doesn't really apply to these employees. They don't care about their
amount of ownership in the company. All that matters is how much stock they
get and what they expect the stock to be worth at IPO. If they've received
10,000 shares and the IPO is at $100, then they're millionaires by the end of
that day (on paper, at least).

~~~
joezydeco
...at the end of the employee lockout period, you mean. =)

By most estimates there are 300 million shares of Facebook generated in
various capital rounds and whatnot. From my experience, if you're coming into
the game this late you'll make some money with an IPO but only the founding
members and VC groups will make fuck-you levels of wealth on the offering.

~~~
yaskyj
"at the end of the employee lockout period"

That's why I said it's on paper.

These employees have the opportunity to possibly make 10 to 20 years of their
current salary in a day. Most people don't need more of an incentive than
that.

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random42
In not any particular order,

1\. Good quality true "Web scale" work.

2\. Top benefits (and I suppose a decent paycheck too).

3\. Smart peers.

4\. Realistic chances of hitting the IPO/Acquisition jackpot through equity.

Whats not so great at working there?

~~~
gsivil
If I may start from your good points: 1.) In a network of 500 million users
already are the scaling problems still open? I would suspect that the biggest
scaling problems appeared much earlier. If somebody knows what are the scaling
problems that such an enormous networks faces would be very interesting.

2.) I would guess that top programmers can have top benefits in several
companies. Even less excellent programmers could get a decent paycheck in many
places

3.) I am not familiar with the demographics of facebook but my gut feeling is
that most of the programmers are in their early twenties or mid-twenties. This
was also my impression during one of the job fairs that I have attended.

~~~
gsivil
cont 3.) I am not so sure what type of mentoring somebody could get there

Definitely extremely smart peers

At the same time it seems that top programmers are moving to Facebook. Do they
see something in the potential of the company that I fail to see. I guess the
possibility of huge financial success besides the "stockmarket" value that is
already established they foresee something else.

------
BarkMore
It's rewarding when your work is used by 500 million people.

~~~
citizenkeys
Yeah... but does any of that work benefit man-kind at all? More than 500
million people also use a toilet every day. So what? 500 million people and
the most interesting thing on it is a "virtual farm". That's just plain
ridiculous.

~~~
dclaysmith
His example is a bit trollish but his point is valid. The amount of people who
use something doesn't make it valuable. The only reason I would take a job at
Facebook would be because it's pre-IPO and because you'd get to tackle some
pretty unique technical issues (scaling/social graph).

~~~
grovulent
The commonsense oracle agrees:

[http://commonsenseoracle.com/2010/10/the-value-of-
facebook-i...](http://commonsenseoracle.com/2010/10/the-value-of-facebook-is-
a-function-solely-of-human-demand-and-nothing-besides/)

------
karmawhore
I like their philosophy that you can make changes and push them often so that
you do see immediate gratification that your work means something. A typical
non-startup developer's work could take years before it ever hit a desktop.

While the stock options that others mention is a motivator, typically
companies use options to buy down your salary. You would make $120k, but,
we're going to give you $90k + $30k in options that could be worth more than
$30k in a few years. Pre dot-bomb, extremely greedy employees would work for a
.com, trade huge amounts of salary for options and live frugally until the
IPO. I can think of one guy that worked for Real Networks for a few years that
took 66% of his pay in options which were underwater when his options matured.

Options are a payment type and are a gamble on the employee's part. The
employer believes that shared ownership will also motivate employees, which
makes those options worth more.

------
mfringel
They're dealing with very interesting scalability/complexity problems, _and_
they're currently pre-IPO.

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cmutiff
It's not for the money - any of the talented folks could go work at a hedge
fund and make 10x. The secret sauce is that it's a fun culture, great product,
and the company has huge potential to innovate into new areas. And you get
fed.

------
richardw
There's a potential with Facebook that isn't there with many other companies.
It has an enormous social graph but hasn't found a way to fully unlock its
value. The challenge is to help find Facebook's business-model and technical
equivalent of Adwords, if such a thing exists.

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willheim
Thrill of a start-up but with the "security" of some serious investment and
traction. It's the wild-west and they encourage experimenting by hiring the
smartest people they can find. 15-20 years ago you might have asked the same
thing about Microsoft.

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drivebyacct2
Run a few basic, even worst case, valuation scenarios and I think you'll
answer that question for yourself.

------
bhiggins
You get to tell your friends you work at Facebook and they get to be like oh
sweet and they say what are you working on and you get to say oh the billing
platform for virtual goods and they get to say like whoa that is so exciting!!

