Poll: Are startup founders a minority on HN?

Presumably they must be? There's a lot of people on HN. This site used to be called "Startup News", but within a few months had shifted to a broader focus.

Founders are a small percentage of the population in general. Seeing as this is a public forum I'd expect to see a similar percentage (a bit larger) represented on HN.

> I am thinking of doing a startup or new business in the future

That might cast too wide a net. Many of us are always "thinking" about it, with varying levels of seriousness.

Might be too late now, but a "I've done a startup in the past, but have no plans to do one gain" option might have been interesting.

Yes

You should add "I was a startup founder but now I'm not". :)

Worked in startups, and operate some small projects. Not seeking funding. To me, HN seems to have a high signal to noise ratio of information, so it keeps me around.

I have a feeling this post will be biased towards those who either have founder experience or aspirations – how can that bias be reduced?

I have founded startups with institutional backing before and am not interested in doing so right now and completely fine with being an IC

these things aren't linear, your poll doesn’t account for that

Should there be a thing for "I'm not a founder but may start one some day or join as a founder"?

I am a business owner who has never taken funding and has no interest in venture capital until they line up around the block to pitch me.

I tried and failed in the past. Doing a standard mid-size corporate job now for stability.

I picked "I am thinking of doing a startup or new business in the future" as I intend to try again one day.

I'm not even in software anymore

I feel like HN has skewed risk averse over time, so the start up founders, indie hackers kind of get drowned out

What do people who are early engineers (or employees) but not founders count as to you? (Early meaning like first 5 eng, or first 10 employees overall.)

I personally have no interest in taking VC funding (to be honest, I feel like this defeats the purpose of founding a company, which is to have control over it) but currently own a small company (bootstraped side gig) and plan to move to full time when the startup I am currently a FTE at exits.

I'm in the tech industry. I come here because I see interesting stories posted and intelligent conversation.

I have worked for 2 startups and both failed. I have zero interest in ever starting my own company and zero interest in ever working for a startup ever again.

I'm a past startup founder. Bootstrapped and sold two companies. Taught myself how to program. Wrote the code for two other startups that were acquired.

It's a little weird that there are not past tenses in Poll.

I've been in 3 different start-ups and each has had a different trajectory, but I didn't quit just because we went public (my definition of not-a-startup) so I've got no answer unless I guess the future.

I came here because I heard that interesting news is discussed here. I was here for about a week before I discovered that this place was related to startups. I rarely comment and I have never posted. I keep coming back because of the quality of the commentary, my subjective opinion is that the commentary here is orders of magnitude better than that in other forums discussing interesting news.

What a strange assumption. There are probably more students here than startup founders (yeah, I know you can be both).

Was a startup founder. Sold it. No current intention of doing it again, but may change someday. No option really addresses past founders.

I have been told I run a "small business" not a "startup."

So that's what I do and it's not an option in the poll. I would have chosen the second option but I'm not the CEO either, I fairly quickly hired one. I am not qualified to be the CEO. Founder, yes. CEO, no.

Even among users that self identify as a startup driven person, there’s wide spectrum of what that means. For example, I mainly doing startups for fun as hobbies, never been motivated to take on funding, or for that matter even take the time to sell any “successful” ones I have managed to fine. To me, I just enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to build businesses, but idea of operating a business is not fun.

worked at startups in the past but don't intend to start one. I think in general owning a business is quite costly and time consuming. Depends on your jurisidction of course but in general you'll have to take care of your own healthcare, pension, there's no paid time off and what else have you.

Given the costs/risks I think of starting a business more of something you do if it's the only way to get what you want but I'm weary of it as a sort of lifestyle choice which startup scenes are sometimes eager to advertise it as.