Anyone recall this blog post years ago about FAANG being the path to multimillions vs working at a startup? https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ tl;dr, working at a FAANG for a decade will make you 2M at least. Vs unknown wealth of a startup
FANG pays way better and is more stable than startups. Many of my friends from grad school bought into the lies and did all startups. I've been in larger companies the whole time. That was a decade ago. They're finally buying houses now. Houses that I bought 7yrs ago. I'm earning 600k and they're still around 250k. And that's after years of them being around 120k. Granted this is all small sample size. But we all know startups mostly fail or peter out. If you want a house and family you need stability, and the much higher paycheck is nice too
What level and role at Salesforce?
PMTS dev. Average for this role is probably 450k or so, but good timing on a large stock grant, and market uptick has made this amazing.
I make more money every year at Google than I did when my startup was acquired and I was within the first 10 hires
TBF, I don’t regret the startup. It helped me rapidly become an expert in a sub-field and learn how a whole business works. IDK if my career at Google would have been as successful without the startup first
I'm 3 for 3 on startups, with two acquisitions and one still going and profitable after 10 years. My stock in all was worth $0, though I did get a $350k cash bonus as an exec after one acquisition. That bonus, plus my salary of $180k, was $300K less than I made in my last year Meta. Startups are lottery tickets. Join them to learn and have big impact. Don't do it for the money.
What level at Meta now?
I'm not at Meta anymore. Was an E6 that joined when stock was in the 70's.
Not all startups are the same. Surely people who joined Airbnb or door dash pre IPO made great money, way better than working same years at one of the faangs.
more lucrative if you started back in 2015
Every startup I joined is either dead or in a coma where they’ll never IPO. Made all my money at the FAANGs. That said, if your base is low and you’re trying to pump it up then a startup is a great place to do that. You can also completely make up a number for your options when you negotiate your next gig since the valuation isn’t public.
What about title and level? Did startup experience heal you with that? How many startups did you work with?
Also, for in coma stage startups, were there any liquidity events?