
Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup - twampss
http://al3x.net/2013/05/23/letter-to-a-young-programmer.html
======
sthatipamala
Startups have become something of a career path or lifestyle. It has developed
into a scene, with its own media coverage and drama. I see a lot of clueless
college students wanting to "do startups" as if it were any old job.

My perspective is this: Found or join a startup if have a specific
product/service you want to build at a large scale. You'll earn your wealth
through the equivalent amount of pain
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>).

But coming to SF and floundering around is no better than aimlessly moving to
LA to become a movie star. There are a lot better ways to spend your youth.

Edit to address my last point: Sure, there are many benefits to coming out
here. But there's no benefit in coming here to just be a "scenester."

~~~
Zimahl
_But coming to SF and floundering around is no better than aimlessly moving to
LA to become a movie star._

Not to be nit-picky but getting start-up experience isn't quite the same as
going to casting calls while working at Olive Garden to make ends meet.

~~~
sliverstorm
What about when you work at a no-name software shop to make ends meet while
you pitch to VCs to get your own startup off the ground?

The analogy may be more apt than it first seems! ;)

~~~
ritchiea
This kind of comment makes me wonder what percentage of HN has zero idea of
what's it's like to be legitimately broke/poor. Even if you're joking, since
you include the winky face, what about actual poor uneducated people who will
never have a chance to work in a no-name software shop?

~~~
sliverstorm
What does that have to do with anything? I'm just bemusedly thinking of the
parallels between the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to be a star in
Hollywood, and the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to make it big with his
own startup in SV.

"No-name software shop" was probably the wrong choice; a closer tech analogue
to waiting tables to fund that acting dream would probably be working
IT/helpdesk.

~~~
pharrington
There is nothing in the corporate tech world that's analogous to trying to
live off tips.

~~~
malebolgia
Counterpoint: salespeople.

------
thebear
Many people seem to believe that if you want to do a startup, you have to do
it when you're young. Young people can afford to take a lot of risk, because
they have few responsibilities to hold them back. And if they fail, there'll
be plenty of opportunity to make up for lost time. What few people seem to
realize is that there is a second phase in your life where almost exactly the
same is true, namely, when you're old. The only thing that is no longer true
is that you won't be able to make up for lost time in case of failure. But if
you lived a good life, you don't have to, because you've already made up for
lost time in the past. And there are some extra perks, like you've probably
got money to fund yourself. And you should know a thing or two that you didn't
when you were young. And BTW, I'm not just blabbering here. I'm 60 and I'm
doing it. Granted, I haven't been successful so far, but having the time of my
life anyway. No fears, no regrets, and high like a kite on adrenalin 24/7.

~~~
jfasi
Thanks for saying this. I'm an early twenty's kid who's decided to forgo the
fashionable startup scene in favor of an extremely well-paid (given my age)
position in a top-ten tech giant. I have a hunch that it would be more
sensible to sharpen my skills when I'm young, and focus on becoming a happy
and fulfilled person, only to emerge as a powerhouse of compounded experience
and technical and social skill.

As someone who's already emerged on the other side of that process, can you
speak to one's capability to capitalize on that experience and personal growth
throughout one's life? Does middle age have to be a time of complacency and
conservatism?

~~~
thebear
>> [...] can you speak to one's capability to capitalize on that experience
and personal growth throughout one's life? <<

Given the fact that I haven't been successful with a late-in-life startup,
some may deny me the credibility to speak to that. That being said, I do
believe that yes, you can capitalize on past growth and experience. That's
assuming you can pull off that Zen thing of keeping your beginner's mind. Know
what you know, know what you don't know, and strive to be an expert with a
beginner's mind.

>> Does middle age have to be a time of complacency and conservatism? <<

 _Complacency_ , no, that doesn't sound good to me. I believe you should
always be able to describe yourself with an adjective or a combination of
adjectives such as "ambitious," "dedicated," and the like. Of course that
could be dedication to a family, accompanied by less ambition in your
professional life. But that's still different from complacency. _Conservatism_
, yes, that would describe my own middle age pretty well. Everybody's rhythm
of life is different of course. But it makes a lot of sense to have one
extended period in your life where you plant a tree and watch it grow. The
middle of one's life is a pretty good time to do that.

------
dustingetz
one point al3x didn't talk to: not all startups will teach you to be an
awesome engineer. If a startup is really hiring the best of best, a less
experienced programmer is not likely to make the cut. Ever look at your code
from 6 months, a year, 5 years ago? and how bad it is? Many tech startups
don't have time for that, the quality of your work can make or break a
startup. Elite startups want "ex-googlers".

So if you want to get good, you need to work with people that are better than
you, who have already learned from their mistakes so you don't have to. Find
the strongest shop _that will hire you_. It will not be the best shop. It
probably won't be an elite startup. But more mature companies can afford to
pay for your learning curve. You also will probably make more money, enough to
pay off your student debt and save up to bootstrap when you're more
experienced.

~~~
jcampbell1
I run a bootstrapped company and we hire the cheapest engineers we can find. I
interview for competence in the one thing they understand, and then just how
fast they learn. I cannot overstate the number of people out there that are
incredibly smart, but can't describe basic information like how the HTTP
protocol works. It is completely baffling. These people can be explained how
the protocol works in 10 minutes, and spend 8 hours at home looking at the
Chrome web inspector, and completely grock the protocol. I find myself a seed
planter. These people are smart enough to figure it out, but for some reason
they don't do it without a 10 minute verbal overview.

My advice to any to young person is to judge the job by the quality of the
mentor. Smart people feel ecstasy when learning new things, and if you have
anxiety about your job, then you are likely in the wrong position.

~~~
dustingetz
i totally understand and respect your position and that's definitely a
strategy that can work.

The other end of the spectrum is, you could contract someone like Tony
Morris[1] at $250 an hour for 20 hours a week, and he will build your product
faster than a team of untrained engineers, or more likely, build a product
that untrained engineers aren't capable of building, with a defect rate close
to zero.

Not every strategy is right for every business, but generally, the harder the
technical challenges, the more cost effective it is to pay for a superstar.

[1] <http://tmorris.net/posts.html>

~~~
oblique63
Yeah, but I think the over-arching idea that the OP was getting at, was "what
if we can breed these 'superstars'?"

That would certainly seem feasible if you interview for personality traits,
interests and learning skills, more than actual/concrete knowledge and working
skills. And of course, this would be a lot more cost-effective as well. In
that case, I would say that the key would lie in paying more attention to
human psychology/intelligence research than to tech blogs/circles to find out
more about 'superstars'.

~~~
btilly
To a point that is possible. However there are key lessons that don't really
sink in until after you have made certain mistakes and have seen the
consequences. For instance I understood the value of forcing variable
declarations, and of having multiple layers of safeguards after a typo in a
variable name caused me to take down Bloomberg's ftp server about 15 years
ago.

Judging from ability and personality, it was clear at that point that I had
potential. And I received some excellent mentoring. But potential and
mentoring do not ensure a smooth path to success.

~~~
oblique63
While that's true, it still seems a bit orthogonal to the point, because the
argument being made is essentially about efficiency, not necessarily
effectiveness. If we think about all the people that have had such experience
changing epiphanies, then take the subset of those who might actually be able
to communicate these valuable experiences across in a programming interview,
suddenly your selection pool becomes rather small. Which is oddly reminiscent
of the current 'talent shortage' issue. Thus, approaching the problem from a
different angle which considers this concept of 'experience' to be more of a
byproduct of a certain set of traits than a trait itself, you suddenly open up
your list of possible candidates to something a lot more workable.

Because after all, there is nothing preventing people selected for personality
traits to reach these same epiphanies that 'experienced' people have
(regardless of mentorship), it's just a matter of whether or not you as an
employer would be willing to accept this 'risk'. Given the current state of
affairs with regards to 'talent', I could see many finding the risk
permissible. Not to mention the fact that the set of 'smart people with
potential' is not mutually exclusive with the set of 'smart people with
experience'; of course, selecting purely from the set of people that meet both
criteria would still fall under the realm of chasing unicorns, but the point
is that the two are not exclusive.

~~~
btilly
The point that was made was that smart people with potential are cheaper to
hire and easy to train. My point is that smart people with potential and
training are great, but aren't actually as good as smart people with potential
and experience.

The trick is, of course, that smart people with both potential and experience
tend to be easy to identify..and very expensive.

~~~
oblique63
Well yes, but the fact that they are expensive is a byproduct of their rarity
(which results in us talking about cheaper engineers), and that can be
symptomatic of a system with an efficiency problem. The argument then is about
confirming that it is.

~~~
btilly
Expensive, yes. But expensive compared to value produced?

Every decent programmer has stories of a time they put in 10 hours of work to
save a highly paid person 20 hours/month for the rest of time. I say stories
because there are many such. On my resume I list a number of cases where I
added X millions/year to the bottom line of small-medium companies. It is not
a complete list. What value should an efficient market put on a programmer who
does that repeatedly?

For those willing to work as an employee in the Los Angeles area, the value
the market places is significantly under $200k/year. Now you tell me, is that
expensive relative to value?

~~~
oblique63
Expense wasn't even remotely the issue I was addressing; the expense of such
'experts' makes sense within the scope of our system. It is the rarity that
seems out of place.

------
beatpanda
>Maybe the best way to meet your goal is starting a non-profit or going into
politics.

I'd like to know whose, or which, goals are better met going into politics.

Politics, at least in America, are a machine that eats good ideas and shits
murder, and anybody with half a brain and the desire to change the world
should know, from even casual observation, to steer clear.

For example, Elon Musk and entrepreneurs like him have done more to move the
world away from fossil fuels and towards alternative energy in the last decade
than the U.S. government (at any level) has in the 25 years they've been aware
of climate change. Musk is inventing the future, and in Congress they're
_still_ arguing over _whether climate change exists or not_. And that's just
how fast things move in that arena. It's unavoidable.

At this point in history, even if you don't care about money at all, even if
hate for capitalism runs deep in your blood, starting a business is the _only_
means available for make a positive impact in the world on a reasonable time
scale.

And I should also point out, going into politics or non-profits means you
would actually be spending _more_ time raising money than you would if you
were running a VC-backed startup. So, if your goal is to get really good at
raising money, the author's sentence makes sense. For _any other meaning_ , it
doesn't.

~~~
lukifer
> starting a business is the only means available for make a positive impact
> in the world on a reasonable time scale

There is a great deal of validity to what you say, but blanket statements like
this are absurd. What capitalist venture is going to make an impact on gay
marriage? What was the business model of MLK Jr.'s speeches?

~~~
beatpanda
I would argue that Khan Academy is doing more to correct disparities in our
education system, including of the kind caused by centuries of
institutionalized racism, by making high-quality tutoring available for free
on the Internet, than any modern-day legislator or activist.

Large companies like Google are able to set standards in their industries
around things like health benefits, which, while not providing the social
recognition many gay marriage advocates are after, does provide one of the
material benefits of marriage without waiting for the government's blessing.

And meanwhile, the systems that our government uses to suppress movements like
King's (in his day it was COINTELPRO) have gotten _frighteningly_ more
effective. The Occupy movement was subject to a massive, coordinated campaign
of extreme police repression _before it even started_.

Given how bad police repression of the civil rights movement already was,
imagine what would have happened if anything as pervasive as the Patriot Act
or computer-assisted social network analysis had been available.

------
pg
"Yet, there is no enduring formula for creativity and rebellion."

This is a fine sounding statement, but it's false. We've been accumulating and
refining techniques for having new ideas for centuries, at least. Leonardo da
Vinci mentioned several in his writings.

~~~
ibdknox
The word "formula" is very important in his statement - yes we have techniques
for coming up with new ideas, but we do not have a formula for it. A formula
produces a consistent and reproducible result. If we actually had such a thing
it'd be the real-life equivalent of a magic lamp; make a wish for a new idea
about x and out it comes.

The reality of the situation is far too messy for such a clean solution to
exist. There are an infinite number of variables, biases, and contexts that
foster or hinder "creativity" and the very notion of "rebellion" is defined
entirely by context. So while we may have techniques that increase our chances
of coming up with new ideas, we're no where near a factory for _real_
creativity.

EDIT: I define real creativity as "reasoned new ideas" - it's trivial to write
a formula for combining things randomly, but I don't think anyone here would
argue that as actual creativity.

~~~
sillysaurus
_make a wish for a new idea about x and out it comes._

Isn't that a description of a YC RFS? It's still too early to tell whether RFS
works or not, but it's almost precisely what you've described.

~~~
ibdknox
I guess you could make the million monkeys argument, but that's just playing
with the law of large numbers. The original statement was intended to apply to
a single person or at most a small number of individuals.

Even beyond that though, I'm not sure that "ask for ideas" (which is all the
RFS is) could really be construed as a formula for creativity. It's a
mechanism for surfacing creativity that springs from elsewhere.

You'd have to ask PG whether or not the RFS stuff has really been that
helpful. From my experience in YC, the most "successful" companies had nothing
to do with the RFSs.

------
205guy
I feel the OP raised 2 strawmen:

1) Many jobs are at startups now, and those startups are roughly similar,
therefore it's not cool anymore ("is the novelty even there").

That is just bad logic. It may be that startups replicated high pressure low
gratification corporate jobs, but that's not inherent in the argument that
there are more startup jobs. It could also be the case that the tech economy
has really shifted from large corporations to small agile (and sometimes fun
to work at) startups.

2) Startup jobs turn into corporate jobs, so you shouldn't take them in the
first place.

That change is not a given, nor is it that the change will be done poorly, nor
is it that the employee won't want the change by then. Anyways, if you get 1-3
years of startup experience that you enjoy, make contacts, have a chance at a
payout, then there's nothing wrong with taking the startup job with the
knowledge it may change and you may want out later--in fact, in every US
employment contract, it's a given that the employee or the company may change
their minds later.

I do agree with the idea that we need to demystify the startup scene. Being
beholden to a VC is no different than to a corporate middle manager, they're
both trying to carve out their little empires with your work. I think the
interpersonal cost is real in certain cases, and the comment about fetishizing
disruption is right on. But the 2 logical errors above weaken the message,
especially since they are above the more lucid observations.

~~~
obstacle1
1) The author isn't arguing that. He is objecting to the portrayal of startups
as more free, open, and fluid than traditional enterprise. Unless I'm bad at
reading the author didn't even mention the ratio of startup:traditional jobs,
so that isn't relevant. And the objection wasn't to the fact that all startups
are roughly equivalent (which was, though, a point made). The objection was
that startups are roughly equivalent to traditional enterprise in structure,
form, and execution (i.e. Super Cool Startup is just as non-free, non-open,
and non-fluid as Enterprise Shop Inc., and this is systemic). The equivalence
comes from the startup scene having been wholly co-opted by a system (VC-
istan, anyone?) that amounts to traditional enterprise (formulaic, mass-
producing, repeatable templates). This is a textbook binary deconstruction:
the startup/corporate dichotomy as it exists in popular consciousness is
false.

Food for thought, see pg's comment in this thread: apparently there is now a
formula for creativity and rebellion. Questions: if you can formulaically
rebel, how is that rebellion? By definition your 'rebellion' is deterministic
-- how is that possible? If 'creativity' can come by formula, what are you
creating? The 'new' is just a function of what you already knew, i.e., it
already existed. So the 'new' is by definition not new at all.

2) Again, the author didn't make this point. He argued that people considering
taking a startup job should consciously look through popular delusion and
consider the bad with the good. There was no mention that one should or
shouldn't take a particular kind of job.

------
fixxer
Really liked this part:

    
    
        "As there was in the first dot com bubble
        there is a current proliferation of startups,
        incubators, accelerators, angel/seed funding,
        and so forth. ... accompanied by a shared set
        of values, norms, and language."
    

I'm currently doing a start-up. I went the University incubator route and have
regretted it ever since. Feels so pedantic...

~~~
jfasi
I'm not sure I understand. Could you please elaborate?

------
galactus
I liked this part: "Startups have been systematized, mythologized, culturally
and socially de-risked; reduced down to formulas and recipes. Yet, there is no
enduring formula for creativity and rebellion."

~~~
michaelochurch
Most of these startups would be just regular corporate projects except for the
fact that corporate stinginess and lack of vision is at an all time high.
Startup "CEOs" are just project managers on a shoestring race to the bottom,
as observed in the long hours and extreme personal sacrifice involved.

The reason the strategy works so well is that corporate politics are even more
stifling to experimentation than VC-istan (but not by much).

In ten years, there'll be an open-allocation (Valve style) company that has
figured out how to solve this for realz.

~~~
digaozao
Some companies seem to be like a VC in disguise: I would think of
Supercell([http://blog.idonethis.com/post/48277151394/least-powerful-
ce...](http://blog.idonethis.com/post/48277151394/least-powerful-ceo)) and
Google when it had 20% free time. I liked the 20% free time model, people have
some freedom to pursue their goals without worrying so much about money. It
probably leads to more innovation being done as it takes money out of people's
concerns. I don't know how it's done now on Google.

------
marssaxman
"There are so many ways to make a dent in the world", he says, but fails to
suggest any.

So what if the startup thing isn't all it's cracked up to be? It's still
better than the alternative. What else are you going to do? Go waste your time
in a big corporation learning how to withstand endless, meaningless tedium?

If you're young you can probably afford to take some risk, so go take some
risk! Take a shot at accomplishing something cool. The big boring corporations
will always be there. If your startup experience sucks, so what? You're still
better off than you'd have been if you'd spent the time playing small cog in a
big machine.

~~~
Zimahl
There are plenty of small to medium sized business where you get to learn and
have an impact. I tend to favor those - I have the autonomy to contribute
without the overhead of 6 different managers.

------
YuriNiyazov
And this is why I stopped playing that particular game and started playing a
very different, but no less systematized and traditional game: being a
consultant software developer with clients that pay per project or per hour,
rather than in four-year equity vesting cycles.

~~~
acjohnson55
I'd love to read a blog post on how you set this up, and what kind of work you
do!

------
chuckcode
Don't start a company because you like coding, Aza Raskin summed it up nicely
for designers but same hold trues for programmers
([http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/psychological-pitfalls-
and-l...](http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/psychological-pitfalls-and-lessons-
of-a-designer-founder/))

Working for a startup has been a good source of learning new skills for me but
as the author notes can be hazardous to the rest of your life...

------
triplesec
This is a great cautionary polemic to those who may jump in without
understanding what they really want. I'm sure it has flaws, but the intent of
the author seems to be fair and careful warning to the unthinking. Fine
advice, and if you still want to do a startup having analysed this piece, then
you're in the right business!

------
volandovengo
Great way to end it:

"If you’re not part of the intended audience and are very very mad that a
stranger on the Internet has a different opinion than you, I encourage you to
direct your energy into an alternative argument that a young person might
benefit from reading."

------
jparishy
As a twenty year old who left school (in late 2011) and is currently working
for a startup, the article really struck a chord with me and I must admit that
it is very accurate, particularly the section, "Startups have an ongoing
interpersonal cost."

That being said, I have very few regrets and have learned more than I could
have ever imagined since leaving school. But there are days I wish I stayed
for both personal (ex. making friends is hard and it is insanely easy to
become woefully lonely) and professional/career (ex. I spend many hours on top
of work studying algorithms and mathematics I would have been taught in
university) reasons.

------
luckydude
I don't have a lot to add here other than liking the two sides of the coin
thing the author mentioned.

With any choice there are pros and cons. Lots of people, not just the young
people, tend to look at the pros and pretend the cons don't exist.

~~~
johnjlocke
I really liked this article, it doesn't just apply to startups. Engineers are
like the rockstars of today. Instead of the Sunset Strip, everyone is headed
to the Bay Area for their own shot at glory.What's to be remembered is that
nothing should be done except for the inherent love of what you're doing, and
nothing should be done purely for the sake of "success". Be a decent person,
have respect and courtesy for others, and you can enjoy life, whatever the
vehicle of your creativity is.

------
CWSpear13
I'm a freelancer that has started his own company, and I contract with a lot
of companies, one in particular could have been considered a startup at one
point, but I'm not sure you'd call it that now.

I think of VC as debt. I've worked really hard to stay out of debt. Apart from
a house, my goal is to never take a loan out or borrow money for anything. We
have two pretty crappy cars, but we paid cash for them, and honestly, after
some repairs and such, they've been running fine.

To bring it home: I treat a lot of my business the same way. I'm extremely
skeptical of doing work on "borrowed money." This once-startup contract I have
has been profitable (by good margins) for 5 years now, and I've been working
on a $2 million project for them about 7 months now, but it was all with money
the company already had.

I've turned down lucrative work in the past because they had financiers
involved. I tend to work on smaller, more manageable projects (with the
exception of the aforementioned example) because of this. Maybe a little more
work at times (to find work), maybe a little less money, but I've never had an
issue getting paid (except that one time when the business literally got
washed away in Hurricane Sandy), I've not had to meet crazy deadlines or feel
that sort of pressure, and I'd still consider myself to be doing very, very
well.

All that said, and I am a college dropout. But I wouldn't recommend people do
drop out of college, especially for a VC gig.

------
robocat
Business influence, autonomy, responsibility, variety, opportunity, risk,
unclear solutions to open problems : things a small new startup are likely to
offer to a 2[0-9] year old and a large business is less likely to.

The question is, do your personality and abilities suit a startup environment?
Or is one more fitted to a structured environment? Maybe a short internship
would tell.

If someone inexperienced says they want to do a startup, my advice would be to
join a business with 40 to 80 employees in a market that interests you, learn
how to tell who are the productive people in sales, marketing, operations and
development and start a business with a couple of them. Work out which ones
are hard working, effective and entrepreneurial and want to begin a business.
Knowing who is excellent in areas you are weak in is a critical skill to learn
(and I find extremely hard to judge unless working fairly closely with them).
Many many businesses don't know who the real key employees are, or are under-
valuing/under-appreciating them.

I had opportunity to join the most effective dev and marketer in a business I
was working in when 24 and I didn't jump on the opportunity so I missed out
(stupid me). I created a similar opportunity many years later, and it is
working out very well (although rough for a couple of years).

~~~
robocat
Conversely, learning how to tell who are lemons, and you must not join is also
critical. Just because a few people are doing a start-up that sounds good
doesn't mean it is a good idea to join those people. One must also learn to
have enough insight to work out if one is a lemon oneself -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

Another great place to learn these skills and to pick the really skilled is in
an incubator or shared space. That has also worked for me.

------
sloria
I have collected my favorite quotes and talking points from this piece,
Michael Church's "Don’t waste your time in crappy startup jobs", and Aza
Raskin's "Psychological Pitfalls And Lessons of A Designer-Founder".

Here: [http://www.stevenloria.com/disillusionment-in-startups-
colle...](http://www.stevenloria.com/disillusionment-in-startups-collected-
quotes/)

I intend to add to this list of quotes, and I also welcome others to email me
related bits of wisdom.

~~~
jfasi
That is a beautiful website. Is it custom, or is it something I can install
myself? Feel free to refuse to answer :P

~~~
sloria
Thanks. It is this: <https://github.com/holman/left> with just a few
modifications.

------
samfisher83
In some professions this guy would be considered young. Its kind of amusing to
read. He has made it so even though there is some bitterness in his writing,
he has obviously benefited from the system, and unlike being a struggling
actor you are making some bank at a startup with a potential to make it big.
Compare that to making ends meet as a waiter.

~~~
datalus
Any idea how old Alex is? My guess is late 20s to early 30s, which makes me
wince at the title.

~~~
dchichkov
Why? Age is of little importance and can be misleading. It is not uncommon
between people here to have started developing software professionally as
teenagers or even as kids. By the time someone is in early 30s that someone
may as well have been coding for a quarter of a century. And on the opposite,
you can have somebody just starting at that age, with minimal or zero
engineering experience.

------
intrazoo
You see the same problems in students going to film school because they like
to see themselves as a director. You see the same problems in big studios
making blockbusters for money.

To be Primer, you have to have a specific, burning idea. To be Fassbinder, you
need to have something to say (and be a genius).

Else, you can only aspire to be Cars 2 or The Phantom Menace.

------
makerops
I started, and invested my own money (6 figures, that I earned) in a b&m
business in my 20s, lost a lot of time, money, and experienced a lot of
bullshit... but I learned a lot. That preamble is because, while I have no
experience with your typical SV startup, I have put my own time and money at
risk.

By joining a startup you are pretty much guaranteed a salary, an office to go
to, and you have to weigh the risks of lower salary vs options, but so what?
That's no more risk then someone working a corporate 9-5 and chooses to
actively manage their portfolio, which really is minimal risk imo (wrong?). As
an outside observer it seems to be in the financiers interest to perpetuate
the sexiness of startups to "market" their investments. Can someone that is
more into the startup culture clear this up for me? What risk is there in
joining a startup as an employee other than what I have described?

------
absherwin
Think of what's being built as a machine for taking several great ideas and
spreading them to areas to which they haven't yet spread.

While there's much talk of disruption in startups, their goal isn't to
destroy, it's to build something better and the destruction results therefrom.
Considered that way, the institutionalization of startups doesn't contradict
their mission any more than writing in a higher level language makes one less
of a programmer.

I agree with most of the details; most people's incentives aren't pure. While
that may not be ideal, yet far it has accelerated innovation.

------
jonathanjaeger
First off, I agree with much of what you said. I think there is a way to be
insanely devoted to your craft and still maintain your relationships. Sure,
you might not be the social butterfly who goes to parties every night, but if
you can't maintain some small semblance of a life, what's the point? Unless
you're some entrepreneur martyr..

"A startup is just a means to an end. Consider the end, and don’t seek to
revel in the means."

-I disagree with this. The journey is often the most exciting, exhilarating part. Creating something from nothing is what I want to live for.

~~~
acjohnson55
To extrapolate form the rest of his post, I think he phrased that part poorly.
I think he really meant to advise not to revel in merely being a participant
in a startup, as if that should provide you with satisfaction in and of
itself. If you're in the startup world and have chosen your position well
enough to be enjoying the journey, I don't think you're the target audience.
He's really targeting the people who might become entrepreneurial martyrs.

------
KedarMhaswade
I am still trying to understand Alex's post well, but it reminds me of a
Warren Buffett quote: "Bad things are not obvious when times are good".

------
Osmn
Good read, pretty relevant to me as a 17 year old entrepreneur. Love the "A
startup is just a means to an end." paragraph.

------
davecap1
"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

------
esharef
What's the most entrepreneurial thing you've done to get a job at a start-up?

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teawithcarl
Alex Payne is the best.

------
demianturner
I wonder how many people get the Rilke reference? Why is it that programmers
are not well read?

------
michaelochurch
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-
yo...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-your-time-in-
crappy-startup-jobs/)

~~~
gmack
Thank you for posting this. I know it's from last year, but there are
realities here that should be understood by every engineer who is considering
working for a startup.

Be as hard-core about your negotiation skills and awareness of employment
terms, as you are about your coding skills.

------
dschiptsov
First become _known_ (or even famous) for what you do, _then_ apply yourself
to an actual, unsolved problem (in a very small time window) _then_ people
with positions and money will notice you, and then _they_ will arrange somehow
that Yahoo will buy your shit.)

------
icpmacdo
It is strange how anti startup HN seems.

