
How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub - mojombo
http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-300k.html
======
raganwald
To put things in perspective, Microsoft also paid Jerry Seinfeld something
like a million dollars a minute for his on-screen time, or $183,000 a second.
$300,000 over three years (almost 95 million seconds) works out to be
1.73162648 nano-jerries. Nice to know what you're worth.

~~~
ken
Good point, but isn't a million dollars a minute more like $16,000 a second,
not $183,000 a second? So he's really worth more like 19 nanojerries. Not
nearly as bad as you make it sound. :-)

~~~
tspiteri
Also, he's counting the on-screen time, not the real time Seinfeld had to give
for travel/acting/whatever.

~~~
raganwald
Picasso would say that I'm not counting the decades Jerry spent building
himself up to the point where he could earn this payday, nor am I counting the
years Tom spent doing the same.

------
alaskamiller
"We publicly launched the site on April 10th. TechCrunch was not invited."

~~~
fallentimes
That one made me laugh, but I liked this one better:

> _When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say “wow, that
> was an adventure,” not “wow, I sure felt safe.”_

~~~
alyx
Interesting how apparently adventurous parts of life and safe parts of life
are mutually exclusive.

~~~
akd
Adventure requires exploring the unknown. Thus, you never know whether you
will be taking the "safer" path, but that's the fun.

~~~
andreyf
Meh, you're stretching the metaphor. Adventuring "into the unknown" doesn't
have to be financially risky - you could explore it at a university or big R&D
lab, without much risk of market failure.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Not if you're an entrepreneur.

------
nanijoe
Considering that you sold Gravatar previously, this was probably less of a
difficult decision for you than it would have been for many. For others who
are 29, married and thinking of starting a family(not saying that you are), a
guaranteed > $600,000 (salary + $300k) over 3 years might not be such a bad
thing

~~~
sofal
Hey, us family men like adventure too! We just can't live in a cardboard box
in San Francisco, or pretty much anywhere in California for that matter (my
wife was a clarinet major, not a lawyer).

It doesn't take six figures to raise a family, California aside.

------
durdn
I liked this story very much. I think the key decision point in the post is
exemplary. I took a similar decision 4-5 months ago. I can recognize my
thoughts and feelings perfectly.

The moment I took the decision to leave the company, my well paying job as
Team Lead for total insecurity, adventure but freedom and fun was a jolt of
energy.

An energy that permeates my life to this day. There is no comparison between
doing something because you're told to and doing what you love. The act of
creation and the sense of freedom are in themselves an incredible reward.

------
blader
Way to go Tom. You and Chris are two of hackers I respect the most on this
planet, so I'm sure you guys are going to be ludicrously successful, if you
aren't already.

Don't forget your ex-coworker when you guys make it big.

------
jbenz
You're the best! Around! Nothing's ever gonna keep you down!

Great story. I appreciated the Karate Kid and Indiana Jones references.

------
hbien
Inspiring stuff, thanks a lot.

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azharcs
Totally inspiring stuff. "When in doubt, don't follow the crowd". Works for
me.

~~~
sofal
Except when the crowd is running and screaming.

~~~
eru
Especially when the crowd is running and screaming.

The T-Rex will probably follow the biggest chunk of meat.

------
nazgulnarsil
I see a lot of this on here and it is understandable given the "startup
attitude" that is necessary. But It does kinda bother me that people brag
about turning down money.

I get the whole idea behind it. By turning down money you are reaffirming that
life isn't about money and sometimes we have to take a little risk to do
something that will make us happier yadda yadda yadda.

Just please keep in mind the amount of resources that an amount of money like
300k represents. Many people don't have the opportunity to make an equivalent
amount in an entire lifetime of work. If the urge ever arises to be smug about
how you turned down $x amount, please keep this in mind. We are a group whose
skill set happens to be very valuable because we were born into circumstances
that have allowed us to maximize our advantages (time, place, parents). It's
humbling when you realize how much luck was involved.

------
dawie
The next question: Will they turn down $3 million from an acquirer?

~~~
mrtron
I think thats extremely easy to answer.

If you are willing to turn down a 6 figure salary + 300k, you will not settle
for halfish of 3 million with way higher risk. Especially if that buyout
forced you to work at a large company too, which he doesn't seem interested
in.

~~~
sokoloff
I'm not sure that's so clear. Suppose we say $200K is the "6 figure salary."
That's getting paid for 6 years of work right now, and even if you have to put
in 12 months at the acquirer to fully vest the $1.5mm, that's getting paid
$1.7mm for a year of work (reckoning from this point forward).

I'm not saying that's a slam-dunk deal, but it's a far cry better than 1/5th
that amount...

------
wayne
Am I the only person who finds this insane...? Walking away from over a half
mil over 3 years! GitHub is cool, but is working at Microsoft for a few years
_that_ bad?

~~~
ChaitanyaSai
Microsoft helped price his skills, and their value will surely not diminish in
three years. So, it is more like putting off the opportunity of making
$300,000 now by three years. Having accepted the offer now could have made him
more risk averse three years down the line (in the face of a more tangible
opportunity cost in terms of lost paychecks). In fact, it is a very rational
choice if your window for evaluating expected outcomes is five years or more.

------
charlesju
Tom,

I only know you through your service that has made my transition into the
Rails world infinitely easier. I commend you for your efforts and producing a
web application that actually has a business model and yet helps the community
at the same time. I'm probably going to sign up with your service as soon as
my projects jumps into Heroku (they don't use SVN, they use Git).

Tom, you might be one of my new role models, but dude, get a real blog going,
I want to subscribe to you!

------
raju
Great post. Congrats on a great idea, great execution, a great team. And Good
Luck.

------
louislouis
The lack of a page footer was very confusing, but great read nonetheless.

------
kleneway
Tom, if you read this, think about turning on comments. Would have liked to
have given you a nice "Great post, congrats!" on the post directly. :)

~~~
mojombo
Isn't that what comments here at HN are for? =) In all seriousness, from past
adventures in blogging, I'm sick of managing a commenting system of my own. I
love HN and the people here, so this is the only place I plan to notify when I
post. I'm working on a different blogging methodology this time around that
I'll talk about it in my next post.

~~~
hbien
Have you thought about using <http://disqus.com> ?

~~~
mojombo
I considered Disqus, and will continue to evaluate it, but for now I'm going
old-skool and leaving comments off my blog. I'd like to experiment with using
HN for comments. Hmm, I wonder if I could hook up a piece of JS that
automatically pulls the HN url when I post it here...

~~~
maximilian
On that thread, it'd be a pretty nifty thing to have HN comments & posting
directly integrated at the bottom of the blog post.

~~~
ph0rque
Something I wished for when disqus first came out...

------
Sujan
definitely a nice post to start a new blog.

------
lyime
A true entrepreneur.

------
Allocator2008
Well written article to be sure. However let me say what a lot of folks here I
bet are thinking but don't want to actually post: they would give their left-
you-know-what for a 300K over three years offer from Microsoft!! I darn sure
would, and I am not afraid to admit that! :-)

~~~
plinkplonk
"they would give their left-you-know-what for a 300K over three years offer
from Microsoft"

I am missing something here. 300K over 3 years is 100k /year. Assuming you are
drawing a decent salary in the United States this effectively doubles your
salary. Would you sell your left-you-know-what for a job that doubles your
salary?

Some context: I make over 100K US $ (and that is in India. Expenses are much
lower here, than say in Silicon Valley. I have many friends who make similar
amounts of money).

I wouldn't automatically accept a job at Microsoft just because they double
that amount, _especially_ if the alternative is working on an idea/code base I
love full time. I could live on about a 1000 $ after taxes (I am single and
have no debt) if I were working on something world changing with brilliant
people I respect and can learn from.

I am sure I am missing something. maybe the payout is 300 K US $ / year?
(though it doesn't read that way) That is more tempting to be sure. Even for
that amount I still wouldn't give my left-you-know-what :-)

------
moonpolysoft
Great read, but I have to say that I'm disappointed that Tom felt the need to
publish actual numbers. There are other folks still working at Powerset/MS who
would rather that the details of our offers stay confidential. Very classy,
choosing self promotion over the financial privacy of former coworkers.

~~~
ghshephard
Why on earth would you think that someone discussing their Retention Bonus
would have any relevance on what yours was? Just like there are employees of a
company who receive $200K/year and those who receive $50K/year, there are
those who receive $300K Retention bonuses and others who receive $20K
retention bonuses. Or receive no retention bonus and are put on "Transition
Plan" - or hell, are just laid off outright with 2 weeks severance + vacation.
(I've always thought that that 160 Hours of vacation everyone in the valley
stocks up on is a way of adding 4 weeks of severance as they eventually get
laid off)

~~~
moonpolysoft
Well, if you made 50k a year and there was someone in a comparable position
bragging about their 200k/yr how would it make you feel? How would your boss
take it? How would you deal with the situation if you were the boss?

Companies make offers in confidence for a reason. I'm sure that Tom's business
partners wouldn't appreciate him posting about their revenue anywhere public.
The same principle applies here.

~~~
kirubakaran
Truth will set you free, dude. _Lack_ of information is how companies can pay
one $50k and another $200k for the same work.

~~~
KirinDave
Really? You're going to try, "The truth will set you free?" That's your
response?

moon's complaint is that now, there are some awkward positions to deal with at
Powerset/MS. Because we were all a very tight knit startup before being
acquired, many of us are friends with our supervisors and bosses. Now, we're
suddenly faced with the question, "Why did my friend and boss value me at
value X and Tom at value Y?" These are guys and gals we've basically lived
with for 2-3 years, working feverishly for the shared goal of a game-changing
increment to what constitutes search. Everyone played a part, but sometimes it
can be painful learning that people may not have regarded your part as much as
you did.

What's more, every Powersetter knows some people in the company got The Shaft
in terms of retention, for a variety of political and legal reasons. Some of
these people chose to stay, some chose to leave. For those who chose to stay,
this rubs salt in a wound that's still sore: their baby grew up and didn't
treat them as well as the other parents.

Being acquired is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it's great
because you get a payout. On the other hand, the company becomes something
else entirely and it's almost never what you had before the acquisition.

I understand why Tom talked about it (and it is an interesting story), but I
understand why moon is upset about it as well. Tom was very fortunate that he
had something else to walk away to (and this definitely drove up his retention
price). For many Powersetters, it was "Microsoft" or "...?" (this is doubly
true for the scientists who were literally redefining the field as they went
along). I only wish everyone had as difficult-yet-easy choice as Tom did.

~~~
plinkplonk
'We're suddenly faced with the question, "Why did my friend and boss value me
at value X and Tom at value Y?" '

So why _did_ they value you at X and Tom at Y ? If the reasons aren't obvious
perhaps your friends were not evaluating people on a rational basis? And if
they are (obvious reasons) no real harm done right?

What is the advantage of _not_ facing this question? I would rather know (and
learn from it) than not know at all.

"Tom was very fortunate that he had something else to walk away to (and this
definitely drove up his retention price)"

I think this is a very interesting take away point - always have something to
walk away to.

~~~
KirinDave
> What is the advantage of not facing this question? I would rather know (and
> learn from it) than not know at all.

So we know the disadvantages: social strife, perhaps feelings of personal
inadequacy, friction with your supervisors.

So why then, do I also have to justify the opposing side? Things are difficult
enough right now with the integration pains of moving into Microsoft. Let me
be the first to tell you it is _not easy_ to go from the frenetic and
dedicated full, sustained sprint of a startup like Powerset to the slower,
bureaucratic pace of Microsoft.

We all know some people were more valuable than others. But to get the full
and absolute dollar-amount measure of it hurts some people's feelings. You can
say _you'd_ rather know, but that's you making a decision for yourself. The
unfortunate part of Tom's story is that he decided for everyone at the
company, and that has some people miffed. You can say it's emotional and
irrational, and that's probably true. That doesn't make it less real.

> I think this is a very interesting take away point - always have something
> to walk away to.

This is absolutely true, and I also drove up my retention price by making it
clear I had opportunities to walk away to. The instant I heard about the MS
offer process I immediately applied for several jobs. When it came time to
listen to Microsoft's offer, I already had two other offers on the table (one
from a stealth startup and one from EngineYard), and I made sure my
supervisors knew (in general terms) what I was looking at.

------
bbgun
Get over yourself.

~~~
time_management
I don't git your antagonism toward him.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Seen on /.:

"This is a thread for talking about git, not for being one!"

