Ask HN: Rescinding a Job Offer for Another

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9496813

by section16 • 11 years ago

6 7 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'll be graduating soon and I've been having second thoughts of working for a company I've accepted an offer from. (I interned there, enjoyed working there and their product)

After reading this however (Any Stories of Employees w/Equity Successfully Taking Home Over 1M? 500K?): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225960

It has pushed me to reconsider. The number 1 company I want to work for instead is Uber mostly because of it's astounding growth -> I'm more likely to get rich.

HN, what are your thoughts?

Peroni• 11 years ago

I'm more likely to get rich.

This is the worst possible motivator when it comes to building a career.

I interned there, enjoyed working there and their product

I can't imagine a more compelling reason to pursue this opportunity.

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.” – Maya Angelou

bigiain• 11 years ago

I reckon you'd have needed to be working at Uber 36+ months ago to ride off on your dream of getting rich being a loyal employee. It's got almost 6 billion dollars worth of VCs and investors holding their hands out for a 1000times return. Your skills and hard work are now competing with all of that.

symbion• 11 years ago

"It has pushed me to reconsider. The number 1 company I want to work for instead is Uber mostly because of it's astounding growth -> I'm more likely to get rich."

Ask yourself how likely ? Is it 50% or more like 1% ? I know very little about Uber, mind you.

greenyoda• 11 years ago

What makes you think you're going to get rich working at Uber? As a junior employee who was not one of the first few hires, you're going to get an insignificant amount of equity. Even if the company IPOs for billions of dollars, you probably won't get more than a few thousand. That's hardly getting rich.

I'd agree with Peroni: if you got an offer from a company where you had a positive experience interning, it sounds like a good opportunity.

notahacker• 11 years ago

To put things into perspective, Uber will give junior engineers a fraction of their current salary in stock, vested over four years. It's going to need to increase in value by at least a factor of 10 before it becomes serious life changing money, as opposed to the sort of bonuses or pay increases the OP might get at the other employer in a four year period simply because that employer wants to keep them.

To put things into perspective, a 10x valuation increase in Uber would make them the second biggest company in the world. That doesn't seem a sufficiently likely scenario to bet a career on it.

pm24601• 11 years ago

You are not going to get rich with uber. You may be a thousandaire that is approaching a million but unless you are joining high up in the organization you will not get significant stock options.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber

There are ~5,000 Uber employees at this point. At this point, you are going to get ~0.001% of the stock ( maybe )

At this point, Uber is not a startup. Uber is equivalent to working for IBM. All the major tech decisions have been made, so unless you are bringing some unique expertise to the table ( did you do your PhD in something that Uber cares a lot about?), you will not get many options.

aaronbrethorst• 11 years ago

    I'm more likely to get rich.

You're going to be terribly unhappy when you turn 30, have spent the past 8 years working 80 hour weeks, and have no friend circle or significant other to show for it. Maybe you'll be rich; you probably won't be, but you definitely won't have anything else to show for it.

Ask HN: Rescinding a Job Offer for Another

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