Working for a startup? You're getting screwed
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You're supposed to be on a vesting schedule, and they begin to make it tough for you to vest.
How specifically? Do share, please.
How specifically? Do share, please.
For every Facebook, there are probably hundreds of stories like this in which employees get screwed or the company fails.
Here's another thing to watch out for in startups. The one I was at was wonderful and then about 6 months in to my tenure, they hired a CIO without letting any of the employees interview this person. The CIO was a complete PoS, you could tell they did not know what they were doing. After a few weeks, they hired their friends into positions of power and slowly fired everyone else.
I had to decided to leave my first startup job and go Singapore work for a big firm. I was told by my cofounders not to leave because they thought they would be billionaries in a few years. In a few years this startup and 3 other startups I joined shut even before they could earn their first million
I suspect this happens a lot. For VCs it’s very much in their interest to hype up the startup life and indirectly ruin financially as many people as possible.
Somehow I’ve never worked for “fresh” startups. Alway worked for startups that had at least 4 years of life (they qualify as startups at that stage? I guess so). It’s been great:
- Never had to do extra hours. 9-5 only
- Plenty of room to “bring your own idea”. At this stage, startups have a tiny bit of organizational structure in the tech department, not enough to keep your tech idea out of the table. There’s usually no “architecture team” nor “secops team”, so everything moves faster
- Plenty of room to make mistakes as well. Not much is rigid, so you can screw up things. That’s always good because if you screw up something then you are probably going to be the one fixing the underlying process that lead you to make that mistake. Your colleagues appreciate that
- Code base is not very old (so, you can still ask around the original writers), nor it’s that big. So, either a small monolith or just a few microservices
- And plenty of room to learn. Perhaps you are interested in architectural topics… maybe you even end up as the “architecture guy”. If you stick with the company you may even fill that new role they just opened “Head of architecture “
- Never had to do extra hours. 9-5 only
- Plenty of room to “bring your own idea”. At this stage, startups have a tiny bit of organizational structure in the tech department, not enough to keep your tech idea out of the table. There’s usually no “architecture team” nor “secops team”, so everything moves faster
- Plenty of room to make mistakes as well. Not much is rigid, so you can screw up things. That’s always good because if you screw up something then you are probably going to be the one fixing the underlying process that lead you to make that mistake. Your colleagues appreciate that
- Code base is not very old (so, you can still ask around the original writers), nor it’s that big. So, either a small monolith or just a few microservices
- And plenty of room to learn. Perhaps you are interested in architectural topics… maybe you even end up as the “architecture guy”. If you stick with the company you may even fill that new role they just opened “Head of architecture “
You're going to have to work over 100 hours a week, and you'll think that you're going to be rich. You'll hope for the best. Your business partners will smile at you and reassure you that you're going to make millions. Some of you might jump on board without a solid contract in place (big mistake).
If you are smart enough, you'll hire a lawyer before any code gets written. Even with a lawyer, though, you are on a vesting schedule - meaning you can still work crazy hours and get screwed.
You'll raise millions if you are lucky, and your business partners who are much better at business than you will attempt to take your shares away. You won't see it coming, but thinking about it years later, you'll realize that the shift started on day 1. The secret meetings. The gas lighting. The this is not good enough, so redo it. The verbal abuse. The constant monitoring.
When they do corner you to take your shares, you'll be blind sided as you didn't see it coming.
Of course, they have their reasons why they are taking your shares (they could have hired a programmer for much cheaper, for example). You'll probably fall for the reasons they give you, and sign your shares away hoping to keep the peace.
You'll try to resume working with them, but the relationship is already toxic. You're supposed to be on a vesting schedule, and they begin to make it tough for you to vest. They might be nice at first because they still need your code, but as they start hiring people, things get toxic. They make unreasonable requests. You're supposed to code a complete IOS app in 1 week. Your position is no longer safe. You are replaceable.
Meanwhile, your mental health has taken a hit. You are stressed out, worried, and paranoid. You're becoming unhappier day by day. It slowly begins to sink in that this is not going to end well. You're also wondering if this startup will succeed. I mean 99% of startups fail.
Oh - they stop calling you a co-founder. You were just an engineer that they happened to run into.
Even though you invested 100s of hours per week into this startup and helped it raise millions of dollars, you quit because you have no choice. Your health is way more important.
Are you working for a startup? How do you feel?