I've come to the conclusion that unless you are the founder of a moderately successful startup or are lucky enough to be one of the first 100 employees of the next FANG, you probably won't earn anymore than you would at FANG in the equivalent timeframe. Keep in mind, from seed to IPO is something like 5 to 10 years, more towards the 10 side in recent years. Would you take a chance on a seed-stage startup as an employee or keep the comfy FANG life?
Basically what I’m saying is keep faang life till you can and want to afford a pay cut and assume your getting nothing but your base
TC-wise you are right. You will make more money in FAANG. Looks like what is most important to you is 💰. However, for me personally it took time to realize that 💰 is not everything. Startups will give you learning and growth which is not easy to achieve in big FAANG companies for various reasons.
Startup gave me a lot But it didn’t pay the bills as well as faang This is why I say that at this point I’ll do faang for couple of years and decide then. (And I had a few very senior offers at startups that would pay very close to faang money in terms of pay plus bonus vs tc Plus wanted to diversify my expirience Bottom line - a person should try both But it’s easier and nicer to do faang to startup than startup to faang)
What’s the point of learning and growth? Isn’t it just to make more money in the future?
Was in a startup Among first 10 people Grew to value of over 100mil and raised 10s of millions Left it after 8 years - it’s still growing ... Unless you joined early in a unicorn - it’s a waste of time money wise I learnt a lot , did a lot but now it’s time for some “comfort” at least $$$ wise
Do you expect to make enough money to cleanly retire or is it more like winning the lottery at this point? If you raised tens of millions, the bulk will be split between founders, investors and late-stage executives (e.g. external CEO)
Yes what happened? How much did you net? After exit, what was your average Tc over 8 years?