[whymauri]

Sounds like a cult. They can look back on this work culture with rose colored glasses because Stripe was successful. But for every Stripe there are dozens (hundreds?) of companies with equally demanding cultures that simply fail.

I doubt this person would feel the same if Stripe had been a failure. Articles like this encourage companies that don't have product-market fit (no amount of 15 hour days will fix product market fit, sorry), adequate talent, nor adequate resources to imitate this kind of culture. The end result isn't pretty.

I might be biased because I could never imagine myself working this hard for an Internet payments platform (noting that in 2015, Stripe was already worth $5B. This is not a seed or Series A/B scenario). Maybe it's because I came from bio- and medical engineering where the people who work this hard save lives and cure diseases.

[ergocoder]

OP probably takes in 3-5M a year. It is far from a cult when its benefit is a borderline generational wealth.

It is not surprising that OP likes Stripe so much.

You would fucking love your company if you were paid $5m USD per year as a regular engineer. Let's not kid ourselves lmao.

[crooked-v]

Of course, there are many other people in exactly the same situation who end up with nothing at all because they guessed on the wrong startup to work for.

[ergocoder]

Are we talking about Stripe? Or you like to vent about startups in general?

If this is just about startups in general, I fully agree. I didn't know we have moved on to a new topic but ok.

I was responding to the parent thread regarding Stripe being a cult. No other cults pay most of their members in millions of dollars.

[crooked-v]

The point is that getting paid that much is, for the average employee, purely a lucky result of having happened to choose the company that succeeded.

[ergocoder]

Sure, so it is not related to stripe.

I totally agree with you. Bad luck and/or choosing bad company would get you in a bad situation. Water is also wet.

[tomnipotent]

> OP probably takes in 3-5M a year.

I would be surprised if they're bringing in more than $250k pre-tax.

[kache_]

lol

>levels.fyi

[ergocoder]

250k is like base salary for staff level. It is not that high.

[tomnipotent]

You're completely out of touch if you think that. Maybe a SWE/PM with 10 years of experience, but OP is a writer/researcher at a company of one. No one is paying mid-level PR/comms that well. At $250k you're in the top 5% of earners.

[ergocoder]

OP was at Stripe. And while at Stripe, she likely earned way more than 250k a year.

You are the one who is completely out of touch.

[russelldjimmy]

I’m reminded of this article when I see a comment like this

https://www.riknieu.com/the-gods-on-hackernews/

[ergocoder]

In that article, people demean having product with $1000 MRR by comparing to the compensation of FAANG

The opposite happens here. Comments are criticizing OP for worshipping her time at Stripe. OP was working too hard blah blah blah... except that OP was also paid handsomely for her work.

[RikNieu]

You called? XD

[peyton]

OP is not an engineer.