Hi For myself * worked at a startup from seed to series C (2 years) * worked at another startup from series D to series E (2 years) * work at Google ( 1year) I have some input to compare working for big tech vs startups I personally think big tech is better for the following reasons: 1. Startup pay is much lower and going to series C does not guarantee financial success = the startup I worked for got to series C rather quickly. Currently it is at series D (for 3 years now) but growth has been flat and all founders/early engineers left the company as a venture style person has been appointed as CEO. I thought series C meant eventual IPO but boy I was wrong. I think they are going bankrupt at series D 2. Working for a startup does not necessarily make you grow faster/better = I think had I worked for a big tech, I would have got more industry standard tech and skills. Startups are usually strapped by time that you do whatever works. You don't really have time to think and look back to compare pros and cons of different tech/approaches. You just do it sometimes without understanding the full picture. So it doesn't grow you better. 3. Startups are not much more impactful = Impact is relative. Working as a "cog" behind for example Google Search is not less impactful than working as a lead for 5 people startup. You sure have more say in decisions but it is most likely geared towards one customer or multiple customers in limited scope. I think startup founders have to pay you by selling the vision becuase they pay you money less. 4. It is unclear how much you are getting paid = My friend who joined Affirm had to pay $50k year to exercise options. He did not have money so he did not exercise them until Affirm IPOed and he was taxed at 40%. People generally are not knowledgeable in stock options and do not know taxes, exercise cost, upside, valuation and just take whatever the recruit says. This is a big problem since what you thought your TC was might be completely off Startups are truly lottery tickets. I think you should work at startups only if one of these conditions suffice 1. Founded by big shots that have successful track records (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Paypal Mafia) 2. Insane growth (8-10x yoy growth) 3. Highly moated proprietary tech or community (rare) 4. You own startup (will prob fail but at least you are the pilot) If not those, people just get a job and get lucky. I think it is strictly better to work at a big tech, until you have enough yoe and skills to get a job as at least a director at a startup. Even then, it is still questionable if startups will yield better outcome #gitlab #stripe #revolute #jetbrains #linkedin #plaid #hashicorp #caldendly #netscope #onetrust #automationanywhere #fivetran #collibra #atlassian #airtable #samsara #rubrik #box #ptc #momentive #netskope #snowflake #infoblox #datadog #bitpanda #uipath #qualtrics #github #cloudera #okta #netlify #mongodb #cloudflare #databricks #twillio #improbable #reddit #optiver #docusign #hubspot #dropbox #newrelic #cisco #salesforce #bolt #deliveryhero #circleci #spotify #waymo #trustpilot #janestreet #cockroachlabs #redhat #adobe #yelp #bloomberg #vmware #square #sumup #pleo #expedia #skyscanner #uber #visa #qualcom #takeway #booking #mastercard #elasticsearch #docker #airbnb #accenture #fujistu #nvidia #hulu #intel #surveymonkey #workday #citadel #vectara #replit #bmw #audi #siemens #deliotte #grammarly #sap #ing #messagebird #kibana #tripadvisor #amd #disney #lego #huawei #bytedance #tesla #paypal #flix #kiwi #citi #goldmansachs #autodesk #notion #toast #intercom #zapier #crowdstrike #fastly #riotgames #oracle #palantir #servicenow #meta #google #netflix #apple #anthropic #affirm #chime #ebay #instacart #intuit #lime #lyft #peloton #quora #redfin #rivian #slack #snap #twilio #twitch #upstart #wayfair #zoom #algorand #anaplan #argoai #audible #aurora #benchling #bettermortgage #blend #brex #cameo #carbon3d #carta #checkr #circle #citadelsecurities #clickup #coda #cohesity #compass #coursera #cruise #dataminr #deepmind #deliverr #deshaw #discord #doordash #drw #duolingo #fastco #figma #fiveringscapital #flexport #ftx #aemini #glassdoor #gopuff #grubhub #qusto #hotstar #hudsonrivertrading #imc #instabase #ironclad #kraken #lattice #mendingclub #microsoft #mongodbnextdoor #niantic #nuro #nutanix #oci #opendoor #outreach #pagerduty #pathai #patreon #phonepe #pinterest #point72 #postmates #quadeye #ramp #revolut #ripple #rippling #robinhood #roblox #roku #sarcos #scaleai #scratchpad #shopify #skydio #splunk #swiggy #tableau #teradata #tusimple #twitter #twosignma #ungork #verkada #wework #yandex #yext #zendesk #zeta #zillow #turo #blaze #playstation #cvs #chewy
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There are pros and cons to each. You highlighted some of the cons. Personally I think startups are a good choice early and late career but not middle. Financially it’s only worth it if you’re part of the exec team and preferably a founder. Even then it’s a wash vs a big tech job. You do it because you have more agency as part of the exec team and it’s obviously much easier to get one of those jobs than exec team at a bigger tech company. If you’re an IC or middle management big tech is overwhelmingly better. (Btw I don’t think your post is controversial at all - this take gets repeated almost daily on blind)
Similar experience here. Multiple startups and big tech. Startups regularly over inflate their valuations. So, it helps when you are junior, as risk is low and when you are at a senior position as upside is very high. Sr. IC, first or second line of manager, you are better off in big tech.
‘Financially it’s only worth it if you’re part of the exec team and preferably a founder.’ This is really tough to land, less than .01% of people.
This is not controversial at all.
At least do some positives. Btw the tech stack is much more standard across startup ecosystem, more of the tech is open-source and cloud-based. If you work at Google or Meta it is all proprietary tooling and even languages.
And ‘big tech’ is tiered, ie there’s only really 5 companies everyone (particularly on blind) seems to obsess over, most others work for tier 2 techs if I may call them that, its not all startup A vs MANG/FANG
if your primary goal is money per unit time then join any big company at any level if your primary goal is learning per unit time then join small company at any level if your primary goal is both then learn and own a business like laundromat, real estate Few more rules - education and wealth have nothing in common - education makes you a good worker in capitalistic market - gaining wealth in true and tested way is found in the oldest business like real estate, lending etc if have lot of education but not much risk taking ability then you are best value is innovating in large company and then some day when you are ready to retire - you can start your own company...
I agreed until you mention laundromat
Totally agree that the best way to gain wealth is by starting a traditional business which everyone needs in their life. Everyone needs a place to live- real estate. Everyone needs to eat- groceries, restaurants. Just think what people needs are and start a business on that, your success will be higher. Not writing some code where only less than a thousand developers in the world cares.
What happens when you left series c - do you get to keep the options still
Controversial: designer brands are better quality than no name brands
It’s very obvious. Any “controversy” is start up people tryna cope.
What happened to the startup at E?
Series B-C is the right time to join a startup. Before that is too much risks, after that you won't get rich and should just join an established firm already. One of my lesson is never join a company that just recently go IPO. Once a company goes IPO, it will go through some rough patches in the first 2-3 years until it figures out how to deal with wall street. And usually that's where the management shuffling, politics happens.
Its almost the combination of downsides of both a mid size-large company (startups should only be considered pre IPO or effectively before A/B/C, even by C the offers greatly reduce in value)
You are right about startups, I agree. ✅