Ask HN: how do you avoid burnout and getting taken advantage of?
When I told them I was quitting, they offered me a giant (>25%) raise, but I couldn't stomach the thought of staying after accepting another offer, so I moved to another startup. I took my first project from $50 to $700+ daily revenue in 2 months by working 100 hours weeks. Yet because I take a modest salary, and have significant but non-founder equity (1-2%) to be vested over 4 years, I feel like I'm just making other people rich. I'm starting to become depressed. My sex life with my girlfriend has become non-existent. I dream about the rewards of hard work--I want to travel, to live the good life--but then I look at my life and see my twenties beginning to slip away, with a high likelihood of nothing but memories of hard work and my morning coffee to replace them. My company would have to be acquired for $10 million, at the very least, to make a very modest improvement to my lifestyle, and over $50 million to make any significant difference.
Am I being too impatient, or am I simply having my twenties milked by charismatic CEOs who know how to exploit eager young workers, and how can I even tell the difference? What is the best thing I can do, right now, to take control of my professional life? Is it okay to ask for more salary just two months into a position? I feel exhausted and exploited.
80 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadI think the answer to your question is quite clear to me. Be the founder or part of the founding team at your next startup. What's been holding you back, you seem to be a good enough engineer to either be part of an upcoming YC class or do it on your own? You'll work just as hard, but I think the satisfaction will be much greater, and of course a financial upside if it works out!
Good Luck
There's this idea that's beaten into us as children: our success depends upon how hard we work. That's only true insofar as zero effort probably equals zero reward. In reality, your reward is much more proportional to the risks you take (and of course, you have to be lucky and skillful enough to see that risk pan out).
You have to understand the bargain that you are making when you accept an employment offer. You are pledging your effort in exchange for a mostly-fixed amount of cash. In return, the company bears the (not insignificant) risk that your project will be a failure in the marketplace.
My last project made more money for the company than I will ever earn in wages during my lifetime. However, there's a good chance that my current project will lose more money for the company than my last project made. And then future projects that it enables will hopefully make all that back. At my previous employer, I completed two projects that were big successes inside the company and big failures in the marketplace. The point is that my employer is bearing the risk, not I. I knew that was the tradeoff that I made when I accepted their offer.
If I were in your position (and I have been, several times), I'd ask myself: given the startup ideas I have, what are my chances of success? And what can possible employment opportunities give me that will increase those chances of success for future startup ideas? Part of playing your hand well is knowing when to fold, and part is knowing when you're right and everyone else is wrong and you ought to double-down.
In other words, you should think more like a hedge fund manager and less like a programmer.
I've heard hundreds of people in my career talk about how much money the project they worked on made for the company and how they felt shortchanged, but I've never once heard someone ask how much of their salary they should give back when a project tanks...
Sure. Look at Goldman Sachs.
matt@dynamictyping.org
Once you've made that change, what should you do? Get away from programming and the tech industry! Call in sick for two days and shag your girlfriend stupid. Go to the beach and relax in the sunshine. Enjoy life. Being successful requires sacrifice, but it should not require the sacrifice of the small things in life which make it worth living.
Once you've done readjusted to living life a day at a time, you'll at some point want to dig into a new project. At that point, start hacking, but not too much. With any luck, you'll find yourself founding a startup in no time.
Take them gradually and you'll see how things are chained together.
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for...
It sounds like you had some pretty negative experiences at your previous positions, but I'll bet the experience you gained puts you in a position to be a lot more successful when you do eventually start your own company. So you were "learning," where the financial payoff isn't going to be that high and the real reward was honing your skills and expertise.
I say "when you start your own company" because it seems this is your issue and it's just a matter of time before you realize it -- you've spent a lot of time "learning," and now it's time to "earn." You can approach this a few different ways. If your track record at your current company is good, ask them about what it would take for you to get more equity. If the company is destined for a multi-million dollar payout, just getting a bigger piece of that pie could put your mind at ease.
But I suspect what you really need to do is start putting yourself in a position to start your own company. Brainstorm possible projects that could become startup ideas. Start saving up money in the event you want to quit and bang out your idea over a few months or something. Reach out in your personal network and look for possible cofounders. The good news is that being an engineer, the execution is all in your hands. You're not just some scrub MBA with a business plan and no way of actually executing -- you can implement any idea you want, largely because of your experience at your previous positions.
Soon it won't be long before the tables are turned, and you'll be the charismatic cofounder with a huge financial stake in the company, while a bright young engineer cranks out code for a modest salary -- but with the skills he learns working for you, he could be destined for a payday of his own, and such the cycle continues.
Use your current job to build a 6 month nest egg (calculate what you need to live on if you won't earn a penny for 6 whole months). Then parlay that 6 month safety net to start your own venture, or become part of another startup as a founder with more equity options.
And in the mean time, learn all you can from your current job. Not just about your work - but about how the company is creating its strategy, how its hiring people, how it manages folks, how it handles finances and gets external funding, how it gets clients - try to pick up a bit about everything.
Chill out: you're not the only recent grad who is not a multi-millionaire. Look at the people you work with as mentors; even if they're lousy, they can serve as an example of what NOT to be.
Even if you think you're being exploited now, you will remember your time with them fondly in the future; one gets screwed harder as one's responsibilities increase.
Then again, I might just be rationalizing away the horrors of aging as I near 27 years of age.
... to die, eventually.
If his 20s suck, something crazy has to happen at some point for his 30s to start to rock all of a sudden.
If his 20s had rocked, all he'd have to do is keep on rockin'
I realise the above sounds a bit elementary but it's my experience that when I've been flailing, it's because I don't have clear a goal in mind which leads to moving goal-posts and poor decision making.
Actually, I feel the same, so I've decided my learn period will be up soon. I'm saving up enough money to live off and early next year intend to work on my startup full-time. Staying where I am isn't bringing me closer to my career goals.
Take risks, make demands, or else you'll never move up in life. Not just about doing your own startup, but even within an existing company. Make an impression, make demands, and if they're treating you badly just work 9-5pm and spend the rest of your time working on a startup idea. Really, there's plenty of ways around this.
It probably helps to just talk it through and see what other people say, but at some point you have to take care of yourself, nobody else will.
If you're truly working 80 hour weeks, sacrificing your personal life and youth for a tiny stake in another man's dream, then yes, you're being exploited. You're an employee, not a martyr for a cause. The salary and stock options are compensation for a slice of your (extremely limited) time on this planet. So you need to get your head straight, and take responsibility for what you are: you're a mercenary. You're trading money for labor.
Stock options are like lottery tickets; they're probably worthless. Value them as such. So do the math, decide if the total expected compensation is worth the time you're giving. If you're not being paid enough, cut back on your hours. Eighty hour weeks are exceptional situations, not the norm. Adjust your schedule appropriately, and remember that it's perfectly acceptable to demand more compensation for your time. It's also acceptable to refuse to work longer hours at any price.
But that's all strategic advice. Tactically, I think it's pretty easy: take a sabbatical. Get some space. If you don't have enough money to do that, start saving, then take a sabbatical when you do. Perhaps even work an hourly job doing mindless labor to make ends meet. Fix your problems in your relationship by focusing on your relationship, and make a regular habit of sitting on a rock somewhere, staring at the ocean, and thinking really hard about what you want out of life, what you're willing to sacrifice to get it, and how (or if) those two things can meet.
Finally, remember that it's not wrong to change your goals to accommodate your life, even if everyone else around you is doing the opposite.
What does "the good life" mean to you?
Is it about money? Building useful things? Improving your relationships? Having a family?
Take time to reflect on this question. Let the answers guide you. If what you are doing now doesn't fit your ideal of the good life-- change. And, if that change does not bring you closer to the life you want, change again.
Introspect. Reflect. Adapt. Persist.
If some one pays you $50k to work for them, give them $50k worth of work. The rest of the time is your time. You can donate it to your employer if you'd like because the work interests you (I'm sure they won't object), but it probably would be better to use that time to find balance in your personal life.
If you and your employer have different ideas about what $50k worth of work looks like, you'll part ways. Its a market. They don't have to buy what you're selling, and you don't have to sell. If you don't want to be the seller, start your own company and be the buyer. If nothing else, it will radically change your perspective on these experiences.
The people you worked for were not evil, they just got above the expected return on their investment in you. I'm sure they're thrilled, but good references are about all you should expect from that.
Put another way, if he'd done the work, whatever it was, as an independent worker, how much profit would he have walked away with after a year? I imagine it probably wouldn't have been $1m. If it ended up being $50k then maybe the $50k he was paid was actually fair.
If you try to start a company on your own, you will see behind the curtain. That $1m is probably not all yours, and probably not 10% yours.
I really recommend you start some business on your own, even be a freelancer. That would makes things clearer. If I'm wrong and you really contributed all the $1m, then you'll get rich.
At least, not unless the only thing that you are receiving (and the only thing that your employer is offering) is $50k of salary.
However usually in jobs the total compensation consists of other, non-monetary emoluments, only some of which would ever even be mentioned in an employment contact.
Firstly, there are usually psychological, cultural and social benefits to employment whose value to the employee will depend on all sorts of contextual factors.
Secondly, there is the possibility of future income increases -- whether in case of future bonus payments, future income rises, or other as yet unrealized monetary reward. In some professional services and finance careers, these can vastly exceed the annual pay received at junior levels. (cf http://ingrimayne.com/econ/resouceProblems/Tournament.html)
Thirdly, there is the future value of experience gained today.
Fourthly, there is the often significant social capital accrued through consistently excellent performance. If one of your colleagues starts a new business, or finds herself in a favourable position in another company a few years hence, your stamina, diligence, tenacity and good humor will be remembered. The vast majority of jobs are unadvertised, so this kind of social capital is often increasingly important as your career unfolds.
Far better to think of the paid salary component as the 'tip of the iceberg'. At the start of any career, it is very rare for an employee to capture much more than a small fraction of the value she creates. As time goes on, that changes. At any point construing too narrowly the notion of 'compensation' as 'cash received this year' is extremely risky, and may lead you to underinvest your time in a career.
You will likely be working for many decades. Salaries tend to rise through one's 20s and 30s and only peak (for men) in their early 40s. And remember, the time you'll actually need the money is not now: it's when you'll have a mortgage, kids or other structural outgoings.
So: take a long view. Be patient. Find a balance today that is acceptable, but consider the hours you commit as an investment in the social capital you will cash-in later. Take a holistic view.
Case in point: I've recently gone into business with the former founder of a company I worked at many years ago (where, at the time, I worked like a dog, and for very little cash). Turns out I wasn't really working for her then at all: I was really just auditioning for the opportunity to go into business with her 10 years later. What goes around, comes around.
Oh, come on, empty promises much? How likely is it these days to stay long enough with one company to reap the benefits of that? My stance is: if something is included in the pay, it should also be in the contract. Empty words tend to not manifest.
As for the other stuff: how likely is it that the OP will be able to continue pulling 100 hour weeks in his 30ies and 40ies? I don't think it is very likely. Besides, it would be better to pull 100 hour weeks if you get 100$/hour than as a junior (that is, take it easy now, pull 100 hours as a senior).
Sorry if I am cynical, but so far I have never seen a company honor excellent performance. Maybe it happens, then you are lucky. But usually developers are considered to be tools. Companies don't go around looking for an excellent developer. They are looking for somebody who can do X. Therefore they only care that you do X. If you don't want to do X anymore (bored, not enough salary, whatever), they will look for somebody else to do X. It doesn't matter squat how many hours you have poured in. They also won't go "hm, we have this excellent guy, lets see what useful thing we could make him do". It is the other way round. They need something done and hire a guy for it. The guy's personal development is not interesting.
Some companies might "see the light" and offer personal development schemes to the employee. These however are also just meant to tie you to the company and get more work out of you.
Again, sorry if I am cynical - but some people end up with millions, and others just with empty words and "experience" of questionable value. What is wrong with simply getting your money's worth???
I think the main reason why young people tend to work for cheap is that they don't know how much money they will really need eventually. Just having been a student, 1000$ seems like a LOT of money. It takes a couple of years to realize that you have to save for retirement and feed a family. By that point you are old and your job will be taken over by new young developers who are underpaid.
Another reason to ask for good money: perhaps then the employer will think twice about putting you on boring tasks.
It comes down to how you really feel about the job. If you really believe you are being taken advantage of, and management is unresponsive to requests for raises or additional equity then you have a choice. You can passive-aggressively coast along being mediocre to milk a paycheck or you can find something better. I refer to the former choice disparagingly because once you adopt this attitude then you have stopped training yourself for a startup environment. Instead you are preparing yourself for the ass-covering world of corporate employment. Maybe you can use this tactic to build a nice little nest egg to start your own business, but you will effectively have stopped learning about how to make a startup succeed.
The bottom line is that when you go to work for an entrepreneur, if they are any good they are going to milk you for all you're worth and its up to you to negotiate for what you think you deserve. You wouldn't want to work for a startup where the entrepreneur gave away cash and equity like candy because those companies are orders of magnitude more likely to fail.
Ultimately if you want double-digit equity you need to become a founder yourself. Whether to do this now, or continue working in other people's startups to gain experience is a strategic question that everyone needs to answer for themselves. However whatever choice you make you shouldn't be bitter with the outcome unless promises were actually broken, and even then you just need to shake it off and chalk it up to experience. A lot of people go the cynical route and I believe that is a huge mistake.
BTW I say this as a two-year 80-hour-a-week family-having 31-year-old working for someone else on less then 2% equity. If we achieve some kind of exit I'll probably do my own thing next, otherwise I'll probably join another startup.
We're The Fireworks Project and we are a digital corporation borne out of the Vermont Project. http://lawlab.org/digital-institutions/vermont-project/ http://www.fireworksproject.com
But I get a feeling you want to do something big, and I hope you will have success.
You mutually agreed to certain salaries and jobs with fixed rates, you got your money and you did your work. Who is being taken advantage of here? If you feel abused by such a simple, mutually voluntary agreement, then clearly you need to stop working for the man. While that will be worthwhile no matter how much you make, I'd caution you to rethink your take on your current situation, and your underlying mode of thought. Employees make a certain amount of money even when the company doesn't yet, for the sole reason and on the calculatory basis that if it succeeds, they still don't make that much more money. In return, they only work a fixed number of hours and take some time off for holidays or sickness every once in a while, unless for some reason they choose to work harder and longer than they'd have to, like you did. Go to the other side of the table and be a founder, if you have or have earned the means to take on the financial risks. You certainly have the passion and work ethic to make more money for yourself, but don't take it out on your previous employers now when all they did was stick to their part of your agreement.
Other models exist in the world if you don't like that one, such as mutual co-ops, non-profit foundations etc.
Oh yeah, your sex life with your girl friend is certainly something you need to sort out yourself too, just like your riches --- your previous or current employers might not care that much. Sometimes they do and that's great and all, but they certainly don't have to and hence you better not count on it...
- You can make products that make money.
- You have startup experience
- You can work hard.
It's time to make yourself rich. What are you waiting for?
After two years start freelancing. Eventually build a startup. Live happily ever after.
While the submitter's work situation certainly could use improvement, the loss of sex drive, fatigue, and feelings of worthlessness may be symptoms of a disease. Left unchecked this could lead to a number of maladies, including suicide.
Your complaints seem to be:
- you feel you're working too hard and too long
- you don't have a work/life balance, hence the girlfriend problem
- you want to lead the good life
- you are peeved that your hard work is making money for others
And who are you?
- by the sounds of it you're a good engineer
- in your twenties you can command a salary in the $100k range
- you're a workaholic, or you allow yourself to be sucked into being a workaholic
From all the talk on here about what startups are like, you'll end up working long hours, you won't improve your work/life situation and all for the questionable payoff at the end. Of all the YC funded startups, all the posting on here of 'feedback on my startup please', how many of those people are walking away after say two years with anything comparable to the $200k you'd make in those two years?
If I were you, I'd restrict my working to 9-10 hours a day Monday-Friday, don't work in the evenings and don't work at weekends. Sort your personal life out. If you're as good as you think you are, which I have no reason to believe you aren't, then in 5 years time you could be earning a salary + bonus of $250k+, all for working a sane schedule. What life style do you want to lead that that wouldn't be enough to live on? And don't worry about the fact that your CEO is earning more than you, someone's always going to be earning more than you, the only thing that matters is whether you have what you need to allow you to live the way you want to.
Also, if the OP worked the hours he worked, chances are he didn't have any occasion to get a solid business experience. And a startup's success depends on many more factors then good engineering - for example sales.
That being said, it may not be possible for you. Just like many of the people here on HN, you may be cursed with the knowledge that only by working for yourself will you be happy.
If you wanted to earn £150k in the UK at age 29/30 (leaving university at 21/22 with 3 + 5 years of work as I suggested) one way would be to work in financial IT. A salary of £70-100k wouldn't be unreasonable if you were very good and a bonus of 50-100% would be possible, again if you're very good. I'm not in this situation myself so don't speak form direct experience but I know people in the industry who almost certainly are (it'd be rude to ask...).
If this all sounds far fetched, I work at a fund which is on track to make a profit per employee of around $500k this year (and as everyone knows, this is a bad year). Even given that bonuses are skewed towards the researchers that means they can still afford to reward the best IT people handsomely. And they're sensible enough with money to know that there are people in IT who they really couldn't afford to lose so they will pay accordingly.
Most of these are permalance arrangements, those numbers will get you up in >200k range.
Get into computers/UNIX/Linux when you're 13. Start working at startups when you're 15 as a junior sysadmin/scripter. Continue doing contract work through college. Become an expert UNIX developer by the time you are 21.
After college, work a few years for a company doing a high-end specialty product such as enterprise search or ERP system. Work on big client accounts. You want to beef up your resume at this point.
After 4 years start your own consulting firm in this space. Earn $150/hr+ for 30 or so hours/week doing consulting work and charge $5k/month/server for managed hardware running aforementioned enterprise platforms.
At this point you'll easily be making $250k, probably closer to $350k.
Or you could learn how to program in college and spend years 21-30 writing shitty web apps for startups, hoping to strike it rich when you're not a founder (stupid). This is what most people do.
Moral of the story: either do high end enterprise work, or be a startup founder. You will surely get screwed otherwise. This is a brutal industry and those who don't choose their paths wisely become wage slaves who make significantly less than blue collar tradesman.