[lukeholder]

This puts into words very clearly my feelings and experience. I have a friend (very smart) who graduated top of class MBA. He has a 'co-founder' with him working on their idea who is also an MBA. They are looking for a coder, and offered %5-%10 stake in the company for virtually building the whole app and everything with no salary. Completely warped view of an app/online service startup.

Of course they would have every right to give me no equity if they payed me the going rate of 100k year.

[Jabbles]

Is that the going rate for a job that has a high likelihood of not existing in a year's time?

[delinka]

I don't think I understand this question. No job you take (in the U.S.) is guaranteed to be there in a year's time. You might work for a month (being paid a month's salary) and poof the job's gone - company folded, political bullshit got you caught in the crossfire ... whatever.

You keep a fraction of your income in savings for just such an occasion. You add that month to your résumé and move on to the next job that might not last. This assumes you're not the reason you lost the job, of course.

If you know where jobs with guaranteed longevity exist, please give the rest of us some pointers.

[sopooneo]

The parent's point is that some jobs are more likely to disappear than others, for example working for a company that seems likely to fail. And when the risk is higher, the skilled programmer might justifiably require that compensation be commensurately higher as well.

Too often in discussions of risk management, someone points out that I could be hit by a bus.

[JoeAltmaier]

Its a very different statistics, the chance of your job being around vs the chance of the company being around, in a year.

Jobs come and go all the time, even at Dell, even at GM. Rockwell (has a local plant in Cedar Rapids IA) hires and fires hundreds of engineers yearly, as the contracts come and go.

[rhizome]

He wasn't talking about guarantees, just likelihood.

[redthrowaway]

Depending on the area, sure. Not everyone gets Valley rates.