Hackers with no equity in company: good or bad?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=64188

by prime0196 • 19 years ago

10 34 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Does YC frown upon applicants who have hackers on their team but hold not equity stake? How should they be included in the application.

cperciva• 19 years ago

I'd list such people under "suckers". YC doesn't provide enough money to pay anyone a decent salary, so anyone who isn't getting equity is being short-changed.

prime01968• 19 years ago

They are being compensated, not looking for YC to do that.

rms2• 19 years ago

Would it hurt to throw them a couple percent?

prime01968• 19 years ago

What would be the reason for "throwing" them an equity stake? Many people believe this makes a person more dedicated to the company, which is absolutely false.

rms2• 19 years ago

Make it vest and you've got nothing to lose...

pg3• 19 years ago

Then why do you think startups have such a thing as options? Do you think everyone else is just mistaken in believing that equity matters in startups?

german• 19 years ago

Why do you think that is false?

gscott2• 19 years ago

If you are paying someone to work an 8 hour day, no problem just paying the programmer.

But if you want someone to work a practically unlimited number of hours as is most often the case then you are going to either need to pay the person to work two 8 hour shifts, hire additional programers, or give the programmer some equity in the business.

nanijoe• 19 years ago

A word of caution...100% of zero = zero. If you spend so much effort trying not to share equity with anyone, you may end up owning all of nothing.

sama• 19 years ago

you will not get accepted.

anamax3• 19 years ago

I trust that you're not going to complain if they quit your project for a project that does offer them equity.

FWIW, no one is indespensible in a startup; some are merely harder to replace than others. I'll bet that "original idea" guys are getting equity even though they cease to be indespensible.

hga2• 19 years ago

"no one is indespensible in a startup"

I have been in too many startups that died because they lost or failed to recruit one particular person---or in the case of LMI survived (for a while) because I recruited one indispensable classmate who made their LAMBDA processor work---to believe this.

A reverse example would be the receiving clerk at Intel who single-handily almost killed them as mentioned in Chringley's book.

In my experience, just about every founder of a startup is "indispensable" after you shake things out a bit---make a single mistake with any of them, and you're not likely to survive.

anamax3• 19 years ago

The fact that a startup dies when someone leaves doesn't imply that said person was indespensible.

electric• 19 years ago

I think hackers are a critical component of technical teams and therefore should be rewarded with equity/options.

davidw• 19 years ago

The verdict: "bad" - but what did you expect from this site?

Hackers with no equity in company: good or bad?

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