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Background: Did my Bachelor's in EECS at Berkeley, and I've lived in Japan for longer periods of time (including startup-related stuff). I would claim to understand the Japanese culture and work environment pretty well. I a huge advocate of taking time off (whenever, before college, after college, during college), and I believe that starting a company or building a product is one of the best ways to spend that time. I have taken time off multiple times and looking back it has always been the best decision/experience. HOWEVER, I would be wary of this particular opportunity as, from what it sounds like, it probably won't pan out as you imagine. It sounds a bit fishy. Just some thoughts: - Take a very good look at the exact terms and make sure they are not using you as cheap labor. "Get some equity" sounds as if you will be working 80h/week (typical for a founder), not getting paid very much, and not even receiving a large portion of equity. Do they want you to recruit other people? How so? - This is a generalization (but still applicable in 98% of all cases): Japanese companies are extremely bureaucratic, very old-fashioned, and you will most likely have much less freedom that you currently think you will. A lot of your work will consist of doing fake work (reports, spreadsheets, etc) to fulfill some bureaucratic requirements (typical for all Japanese companies) as opposed to being actually productive. I'm also happy to talk offline, see profile. |