[morgante]

Also interesting that it seems like his relatively minor 1 year stint at pre-IPO Google was successful enough to pay for many other endeavors.

It's a great example of the power laws in startups: it's much more lucrative to have a minor role in a major success than a major role in anything minor.

[scarface_74]

I would go even further, it would have been much better statistically to work at any of the BigTech companies even in the past 10 years than take a chance at a startup.

Seeing the outcome of the startups he listed, it would have been much better to work as an enterprise CRUD developer at a bank, insurance company, etc

[dowager_dan99]

That really depends upon what you are optimizing. Someone with a PhD who wanted to be a professor, worked in an academic role in a big org, worked at the edge of many technologies; doesn't seem like someone who would be happy at an insurance company.

I will also repeat the obvious (but oft missed) observation: working in a revenue-generating industry, not a cost center. This doesn't need to be a startup, but very few banks or insurance companies generate their massive products within IT.

[scarface_74]

That’s true. But the author wanted to be a “successful startup founder” and that never happened.

I said in another reply, that I made plenty of mistakes and had plenty of “failures” so I’m not faulting him for that. But where did he say that he learned from his failures and worked on his weaknesses that allowed him to succeed based on his goal of becoming a successful startup founder?

[morgante]

> Seeing tts outcome of the startups he listed, it would have been much better to work as an enterprise CRUD developer at a bank, insurance company, etc

Enterprise CRUD developers don't make that much. I'm confident OP made more over his career than them.

[scarface_74]

How much do you think he made at his failed startups that didn’t exit and didn’t make enough to draw a significant salary?

The average CRUD developer working in the US in most major cities can make $130K to $165K within 5 years with aggressive job hopping.

[morgante]

OP would have to speak to his experience, but between a Google IPO and the $10M Virgin acquisition I would be surprised if he didn't average >$200k lifetime.

Throughout this thread, it's clear you have an ax to grind. Startups are obviously not for you, but many enjoy them and benefit.

[scarface_74]

He wasn’t a “founder” at Google. Google IPO’d in 2004. How many of the $n number of startups founded around the time that Google was founded and it IPO’d were successful and how many disappeared into obscurity?

There are so many people especially on HN who succumb to survivorship bias. Most failed startup founders never admit it. The original author is not one of them and he was willing to be open about it - that’s a compliment by the way.

“Many” may benefit from them. But statistically, most don’t

[drewr]

> the $10M Virgin acquisition

I think he wrote that he didn't make anything from that. He held onto the equity because he (unfortunately) thought Virgin would turn it into a success.

[AbrahamParangi]

I think this is actually not as obvious as it seems as equity is also power-law distributed. An executive founder may have 10-50x the equity of a founding junior employee, who themselves might have 10-20x the equity of a key early employee.

The power laws actually cut both ways. I think the optimal path is not entirely obvious without some particular understanding of whether or not you are a stronger player as a leader or a follower.