> And good hackers are desperate to find good startups. Why does this have to be such a hard problem?
Both have a recognition problem.
Also, there are multiple definitions of "good". Cool problems are great, but if you're offering below market rate compensation, you can't offer below market rate risk.
Many hackers can do arithmetic on equity. 1% after dilution is >$1M only on a >$100M exit, which is relatively rare.
We've no objection to you getting rich. However, it isn't worth much to us either.
I don't think this is like the 20th Century DotCom bubble, where you could get rich off of stock options as an employee. Working for a startup is ultimately no different for the employee than working for an established company. If anything, it's possibly worse, as the employee is expected to put in a lot more effort "for the good of the company" than for their own good.
Well, in theory you don't have to deal with established company garbage ... but startup problems can be far worse (after all an established company has shown some level of competence to get there). And you can have a much greater effect, opportunities to do things right or at least OK instead of trying to fix up stuff that was done wrong long ago.
But the post-SarBox "more work for less compensation" trade off is anything but attractive, and to bring this back to NYC, it's clear it's one of the areas that don't particularly respect hackers (I suspect most are that way (the D.C. area is) and places like Boston and Silicon Valley are the exceptions).
Both have a recognition problem.
Also, there are multiple definitions of "good". Cool problems are great, but if you're offering below market rate compensation, you can't offer below market rate risk.
Many hackers can do arithmetic on equity. 1% after dilution is >$1M only on a >$100M exit, which is relatively rare.
We've no objection to you getting rich. However, it isn't worth much to us either.