[cj]

> It's literally the worst deal you can take

I joined a YC company as a 1st employee (and also did YC as a founder).

I agree working at an early stage (especially < 10 person) startup is a terrible idea if you're looking for stability, consistency, high pay, etc.

But (depending on the company size and the founders) it can also be an amazing crash course in how to build a company if you aspire to build your own company one day.

Being part of a tiny startup gives you visibility into things that work (and more importantly, things that don't work) when you go on to start your own company one day.

If starting your own company is what you aspire to do, joining a very small startup is a free way to learn a lot of lessons about how (and how not to) run/build a company. For some people that can be priceless. For others, it's not.

I also think there's a good argument to be made for working in Big Tech for a few years (e.g. maximize salary potential) if you aspire to start a company, especially if you don't have savings to fall back on.

It really depends what you're optimizing for.

Edit: FWIW, I was definitely underpaid by the YC startup as a 1st employee and didn't make any money on stock options and worked crazy hours with barely any vacation time. But I learned so much during those 2 years. It was an amazing way to see first hand how companies thrive or fail - it's way better to learn the hard lessons as an employee via observation compared to as a founder making the mistakes first-hand. It was also exciting and fun. The one fear I have is that this experience may not be reproducible in a remote setting. Almost all of what I learned by being an early employee at a YC company were things I observed sitting in the same room as the founders 10 hours a day (as a developer). I don't think it would have been nearly as rewarding if I had been working remote the whole time.

[questime]

Nope, the best way to learn to start your own thing is to start your own thing - I know several successful YC founders who would never join a random YC startup to be an early employee since the risk/return is so bad. A lot of YC founders are random 20 something who may not even have a network, or very often they are terrible mentors.

These same successful YC founders hired a bunch of people saying the same stuff you are saying even though they would never take that deal. It's stuff you say to the plebs (to hire them for cheap) but the social proof/networks are better at late stage startups and FAANG.

[bb88]

> A lot of YC founders are random 20 something who may not even have a network, or very often they are terrible mentors.

Or are just toxic people entirely. Or worse, they started out as good and they got a little taste of power, and instead of becoming humble from it, they become a tyrant. Or their bad personal habits from college (drugs, alcoholism, weird sex crap) are forced onto the employees in uncomfortable ways. Or handle failure badly -- by taking it out on others.

Founders become founders because of their assertiveness and confidence in front of VC's. But then some make this weird trend towards anger and aggro towards others -- particularly if they're not succeeding and drowning in their own failures.

[robocat]

Founders at YC have an expected return of ~$0 (most fail, moderate success only pays preferred shares and common gets $0, power law returns). https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-life-and-death-of-y-co...

Early employees often invest $ (cheap salary) but they don’t get preferential shares for their money - that’s a hell of an uneconomic trade.

Sure, early employees get to do “Startup University”, however the strictly better deal is to become a founder and do “Startup University on Steroids” (even though expected return is $0 for founders).

Ideally you can bootstrap a startup and retain 100% of ownership. A small pie you win, is better than a slice of big pie you failed to win. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472121

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35624331

Disclosure: millicorn co-founder, investigating startup market but a long long distance from the centre of the VC galaxy.

[sokoloff]

I think there's a good case to be made that being the first non-founder in a startup is one of the worst risk-reward profiles in the industry. The people who got there before you have far more upside (which is entirely fair, but still mathematically true) and the people who join later as the company grows and evolves have a lower risk profile.

I agree that you can learn a ton by being the first non-founder into a startup. You can learn even more and have more upside by being a founder.