[LargeWu]

Agreed. This sort of advice is great if you're the founder/owner, because you're the one standing to get rich when somebody comes in with a buyout offer.

If you're an employee at such a shop, though, this is a sucker's bet. Most likely your hard work is paid off with a bunch of feel-good bullshit about how you're changing the world, and the expectations that you'll do it all again in three months.

Having a crunch time (especially scheduled) is a tacit admission that you are not, in fact, reducing scope properly.

[justin_vanw]

Startups are machines for learning. This isn't limited to learning the market and finding business fit and reproducibility, it also applies to all the participants, whether they are founders or employees. No corporate job is going to let you become a DBA and a Frontend Developer and a Backend Developer and a Product Manager all at once, in a production environment, with no safety net. There is no other place where you can learn at that depth, and there is no other place you can learn at that rate.

There is also something to be said for the experience of personally identifying with a goal, no matter what that goal is. The other people at your startup will quickly become your best friends (sure, maybe that's because you are spending all your time with them at the expense of your other friends). You work together, eat together, play together. The level of camaraderie and sense of membership that develops can only be compared to military service (I've done both, and it is very similar).

If you are lazy, or you don't want to sacrifice in exchange for an amazing experience where you will learn and grow more than you ever could anywhere else, then you shouldn't be working for a startup. There are plenty of big companies that will pay you a decent salary and let you stagnate, work 10-4, never expect or require of you any growth, and let you phone it in until you eventually die. Good luck whichever way you decide to go!

[LargeWu]

All I can say is, good luck with that attitude when you get married and have a family. Your perspective on what is important in life will completely change.

Believe it or not, you can be serious about your career without sacrificing your personal life.

[justin_vanw]

I have been married for over 10 years.

I have 2 children.

Would you like to continue to chastise me from a position of authority on the subject?

[triplesec]

You both seem to be guilty of universalising your own work values and denigrating the choices of others as either "lazy and don't want to learn and grow" or "too immaturely self-oriented!" Take it from the Bard: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

[foobarbazqux]

> No corporate job is going to let you become a DBA and a Frontend Developer and a Backend Developer and a Product Manager all at once, in a production environment, with no safety net. There is no other place where you can learn at that depth, and there is no other place you can learn at that rate.

You mean breadth, not depth.

> Good luck whichever way you decide to go!

Wow that was disingenuous. There are non-startup jobs that do not suck, and at any rate, the goal of a startup is to become a big company. You just have a personal preference for working at early-stage, high-growth companies, which is fine.

[justin_vanw]

> Wow that was disingenuous.

Sarcastic.

[foobarbazqux]

I read it more like passive aggressive (obviously) fake niceness, but sure.

[justin_vanw]

That's not what passive aggressive means.

People always use this term wrong.

Specifically, the definition is: "pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations"

Example: Letting the air out of someone's tires. This is an aggressive act. It's not passive aggressive, because it's not passive. It is sneaky and cowardly, which has nothing to do with being passive.

Example: Your manager is on the hook to have feature X ready on Monday. He has annoyed you by buying the wrong brand of coffee, so you read HN all day on Friday and avoid working on the feature. On Monday your manager looks bad for not delivering the feature on time. This is passive aggressive, because it was via withholding of sufficient effort that you managed to harm someone.

Why it does matter, especially if everyone seems to get it wrong: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[foobarbazqux]

That's only the DSM-IV definition. Psychology is a lot bigger than that, and the English language is bigger still. The difference between passive aggression and aggression boils down to whether the anger is being expressed directly or indirectly. It isn't solely determined by inaction, and there's a spectrum in-between the extremes. Letting air out of someone's tires is passive aggressive because it avoids confrontation while causing harm, whereas going up to the driver and punching them in the face is aggressive and does not avoid confrontation.

Faking niceness is similarly passive aggressive because it avoids confrontation while causing harm. Adding sarcasm into the mix, admittedly, makes it more aggressive, but it's still more passive aggressive than being straightforwardly aggressive in the first place.

Regardless of whether or not I'm right, regardless of whether your comment was disingenuous, passive aggressive, aggressive, or sarcastic, I'm unhappy that you're openly and unapologetically being uncivil on Hacker News, it's against the guidelines, and I'd like it to stop.

[bkmartin]

Not true at all. I work for a 107 year old family owned printing company. I get to be the DBA, Frontend Developer, Backend Developer, and Product Manager (our LOB applications). And it all leads from test to production. So you are just plain wrong. And there are LOTS of companies out there that have people doing what I'm doing. Lots of manufacturing businesses in the $50-$400 million dollar a year range have small in house programming staffs that have to be jacks of all trades. Doesn't always work out so well when people expand knowledge begrudgingly, but those who really have a passion for learning can have a long interesting career solving all kinds of problems that truly make a difference to the company bottom line.

[bcbrown]

There are also companies that give you room to learn and to grow, help you advance your career in the direction you want, and also let you work reasonable hours.

[justin_vanw]

What does "let you work" mean, as if work is something to balance against your "real life".

In all sincerity, if you feel this way you are doing it wrong. Find something you can love and you will stop trying to compartmentalize it.

[bcbrown]

What? I'm doing it wrong because I work 40 hours a week at a job I love, then go home in time to go for a walk in the park, read a book and watch the sunset, play a sport, and see friends?

I'm glad whatever you're doing works for you, but don't assume everyone else has similar needs.