Would you leave a stable corporate job to be first employee of a small company?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9855816

by panjaro • 11 years ago

1 8 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

bahador• 11 years ago

yes.

edit: depends on the company.

f2f• 11 years ago

no.

edit: depends on the company

panjaro3• 11 years ago

Only thing that scares me is the type of person the owner is. If he is typical strict non-technical and demanding boss then it'll be hell I guess

dudul2• 11 years ago

No.

Never be the first employee, be the last founder.

panjaro3• 11 years ago

Reason?

dudul2• 11 years ago

Based on my experience, first employee is the worst position.

There is a shit load to do so you'll be working 60 hours a week, you take a significant paycut cause the company is living on seed or series a money, and you most likely don't get equity. You'll get what, 1% in stock options at the most (probably more around 0.5). It will take several years to vest (again, the average tenure today being around 3 years you won't see all your options vested), most likely will be deluted in series b.

And the funny thing is that they'll start hiring a few months after you, and the budget approved by the board will be higher so other employees will make more than you.

greenyoda• 11 years ago

Depends on the company (who are the founders? do they know what they're doing?), their product, the compensation they're offering, the job they're offering (I don't want to be a manager again), their location (no interest in moving away from NYC), who their competition is, and countless other factors. But most probably no.

panjaro3• 11 years ago

It's an established company but not IT. Recently owner has decided to go more aggressively on the software/website/apps side of the company. There was one freelancer working on it but they want someone on site now as freelancer won't be able to continue full time.

Would you leave a stable corporate job to be first employee of a small company?

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