> But guess what: you are not special, you are just a workplace and you compete in the marketplace for talent just like everybody else. For economic reasons that have nothing to do with you, you have more negotiating power for a limited time. That is all.
I think it’s perfectly legitimate to not want to hire people with this attitude. Just a few people with this attitude can completely ruin an early stage company.
And the same goes in the other direction: I don’t want to work for anybody who sees me as a commodity they’ve bought in a market. I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet.
That's a fair retort, especially on HN. But I hope we agree an early stage startup is a very very particular organization that is looking for partners, not employees, because the efforts of each has a compounding impact on the capital gains of all.
So while it might be true for GP's company, it's not true for the vast number of available jobs. If you are not in the cap table (or have only unfavorable terms), then by definition you are something the company has bought on the market and that's exactly how the company is thinking about you - else the ownership situation would reflect it. It's a business, not a social club, you either own the capital or you are the capital. Expecting anything else in exchange for you unique snowflakiness is self-delusional and the road to abject bitterness, as many ex a googler and twitterer found out.
> I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet.
There may be only one person exactly like you, although with 9 billion people it remains to be proven. But you sure are replaceable by many others with approximately the same set of skills.
Sure. And my general attitude is that if my employer can replace me then they should, so I can do something more productive (where I will be harder to replace). And to state the obvious: when you run your work life like this for 20 years you get pretty hard to replace.
Look: It’s not that we disagree about how the world works, it’s that we give it a different emotional coloring. Yours sounds bitter and resentful to me.
I believe in this entire thread the attitude of "just do your job well and exceed expectations a few times a year" is very under-represented. And I've met many employers who have it.
I think it’s perfectly legitimate to not want to hire people with this attitude. Just a few people with this attitude can completely ruin an early stage company.
And the same goes in the other direction: I don’t want to work for anybody who sees me as a commodity they’ve bought in a market. I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet.