

Top differences between working for startups and corporations - Mengue
http://blog.startupcvs.com/2015/07/23/top-10-differences-working-startups-corporations/

======
GeneralMayhem
I always trust sites dedicated to getting people jobs at startups to tell the
honest truth about what it's like to work at a startup.

I work for a large corporation, and almost every single negative thing listed
here is false. The main one that's not (and I'm not sure this is even really a
negative) is the high risk/low upside - I'll be quite comfortable here, but
I'll never be pulling down millions in a year as I would if I struck it rich
with a startup I owned. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure only a few dozen
people actually make millions from startups.

Oh, and "essential vs. substitutable" \- everyone is substitutable. It doesn't
matter if you're employee #2 or employee #10002, you're replaceable. Actually,
that one amusingly contradicts the generalist vs specialist one - you would
think specialists that know the domain would be a lot harder to replace than
the "generalist" who's spinning up the world's 8 billionth MEAN stack, but
then that would require the source to have a little self-awareness.

~~~
vkjv
This. Although, in my experience it's more relative to team size than company
size. I work on a fairly small engineering team within a large apparel company
and it seems to match the bullet points for start-ups more closely.

~~~
superplussed
One important point is that because large corporations often try to emulate
the culture of startups (and never the other way around), if you try to make
an article contrasting the two cultures you are inevitably going to miss the
mark on your description of large corporations. Essentially you are trying to
describe a divergence when much of the world is seeking a convergence between
the two.

------
barrkel
I've found startup life to be less initiative-based than my previous corporate
life.

In B2B startup, features are driven by sales and post-sale support, and sales
/ keeping the biggest customers happy (for later upsell) is of paramount
importance. We have far more potential features to build than we have people
to work on them, so prioritization is done from the top down and can change
depending on the sales landscape. Thus I have very little discretion over what
I do on a day to day basis, and there are people asking me to do things every
day. Initiative isn't actually necessary, unless you want to improve things in
ways that management etc. can't see.

Whereas in corporate life, I owned a little corner of the product, and when
given a strategic initiative, I came up with feature suggestions that made our
customers' and my team's life / lives easier. I had more strategic
responsibility, and although the direct risk of my failure was lower, my work
had larger impact because it got delivered to far more people - a mature
organization has far more customers, if it's healthy.

------
lotsofcows
Blimey, that was hard to read. Also a couple of points were only relevant to
the USA.

~~~
GFischer
I actually thought it looked pretty good. If it wasn't done by a designer, I
didn't notice it (probably my barrier is too low :) ).

------
gesman
Agree with "brand recognition" \- its a serious advantage for employees of
large corp. Large corps are vulnerable to losing top talent because they
usually can't match market due to strict internal hierarchy policies. Quicker
way to get promoted at large corp - prove your skills, leave on good terms,
gain visibility and titles elsewhere and then re-join large corp at a much
higher position.

Regulations:

Large corps are much stricter regulated and this adds to your responsibilities
to do boring stuff.

Permissions:

Large corps spending lots of resources for reinventing and improving systems
of access controls and permissions as well as sets of exceptions to such
systems.

Average worker age:

20+ something for startup, 40-50+ something for corps.

Accessibility of top management:

Startup: you knock the door and talk to the guy, Large corp: you send email to
C*O of large corp and get no reply not because he is busy, but because his
secretary pre-filtered emails and discarded yours.

~~~
rvolkan
you didn't work for a competitive software corp. did you? to me, all three are
wrong.

-Regulations? if you are good, you can do anything you want. you are powerful. regulations are there to stop dreamers. dreamers are stopped in startup world a lot harsher. -Permissions? only around %2 of employees work on that. actually less. do you think those kind of systems are worth the effort? (works! done.) -Avg worker age? this is simply not true. the acquihires we had, were older than my -corp- team avg.

~~~
gesman
I worked at both, but there are perhaps exceptions.

~~~
rvolkan
Me too, but corp culture perhaps changes as fast as software development
practices change.

------
Korturo
Corporations: People who find pleasure in their personal lifes

Startups: People who don't

If you don't have friends, just work hard and be good at something at the very
least. Even if its annoying people for a living (I am looking at you, Tech-
Recruiters!)

~~~
maddening
I've worked for 2 corporations - each time I ended up tired, burnt out and
devoid of any social life.

They delivered a lot of perks - money, sport pass, private health care - but
in exchange created a very stressful workplace filled with meetings,
performance reviews and many people who didn't bother to help when I struggled
with some part of project I was not familiar with. I've gained 20kg in a year,
was nearly depressed and hated myself for working there. I hated how with all
buzzwords and bullshit smiled managers made me fill guilty that I don't sit
there more than 8h a day and that I were slower than people who had 12 times
(literally!) more experience than I did.

Now I work remotely for startup on B2B. My wage is bit lower, I have no
medical and sport perk but finally I have enough sleep and enough time to take
care of myself. I often go out and meet my friends as often as I can. I am
finally rested enough to workout and I feel my life improve each day.

Whether corporate life makes one shine or feel miserable is a matter of
particular company, manager, team, stack and several other factors. Some
people are truly happy for being there, some, like me and most of my friends,
promise themselves to never ever work there again.

------
onaclov2000
I think your job is to some extent what you make of it. While it is true that
work is handed down to you, it is possible to create your own work, and in a
lot of cases (in my exp) it shows favorably on you as an employee. Plus its
more fun to get paid to do what you want while having to do what you are told.

------
blunte
I find that in many of the companies I've worked for (non-startups), I end up
getting the startup boxes while being paid and appreciated at the corporation
level. In my case, and likely for many others, staying in corporations is a
waste of talent and drive (and world benefit).

------
antorobin
good read

~~~
Mengue
Thanks a lot!

