

The Siren Song of Startups - sharksandwich
http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/29807-the-siren-song-of-startups/fulltext

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swombat
Seems like a very gloomy view of start-ups. I'm not quite sure in what kind of
universe the founders are last in line to take in profits from a start-up. If
that is the case anywhere, I'd strongly encourage those founders to get out of
there and come to backwards old England and start a start-up without
professional investors. However, I don't think that's the case. The evidence
doesn't support that idea.

Certainly, joining a start-up as an employee "to get rich" would be the wrong
idea. But I imagine many of us here are founders, and though we're not doing
our start-ups for the sole purpose of getting rich, the fact that it's a
possibility is certainly important. Would you bother working on your start-up
if you knew for sure that it would never make you more money than you could
make burger-flipping? (directly or indirectly)

~~~
jamie
Actually, I think this is a pretty realistic - and appealing - view of
startups, but it's also very much a description of what the experience of a
VERY small startup is.

I think it's important to note that there are different stages of a startup's
lifecycle. It's been my experience that venture funded startups aren't nearly
as risky as people make them out to be.

My guess is that the typical venture funded startup has a lifespan of at least
4 years. That's probably close to how long the typical college grad will
want/should stay at their first job.

Bottom line: join a startup, don't start one.

