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"San Francisco contains a large number of start-ups with small teams where employees feel like they can have greater impact. Many people found their own businesses to pursue their passions or are part of larger teams working on causes they relate to. This leads to a culture of creating impact on others and of doing something that’s has wider benefit than to just oneself." This is more startup and corporate hype than reality. Many startups pretend to set out to change the world to get funding, try to motivate their employees, and get good PR. The media is often eager to be fooled and jump on any bandwagon if there's a story in it, but people who've been in the industry a while and aren't wet behind the ears have heard such hype repeatedly, and it gets really old after a while, and is not very convincing. Most people, whether in SF or anywhere else in the world, work because they get paid. Sure, it's nice to work on what you love, but relatively few people achieve that dream in the long run. Much more common is burnout and disillusionment, not just in tech but in many other careers as well. It often looks rosy and beautiful when you're fresh out of college, but gets less rosy with each passing year, unless you happen to win the startup lottery and have fuck-you money to really work on whatever you want whenver you want, or not, as the mood strikes you. Otherwise, it's mostly work, not play, and certainly not saving the world. |
What most startup employees don't understand that even if their start-up wins the lottery, they're not going to have F-U money. That's reserved for co-founders and investors. Maaaaaybbeeee if you're employee 1-20 at the next Facebook or Google you'll end up with a substantial sum. But the rest of the pack? You're .1% (if you're lucky) might next you $500-100k. Not enough to brag about.
If you have .1% and your company sells for $100 million, you don't get .1% of $100M. You get .1% of whatever's left over after the investors have gotten their 2-3x preferences, all debts have been settled etc.