[tjradcliffe]

Riding a company into the ground can be an interesting an educational experience, so I kind of recommend doing it at least once if you're going to stick with the startup world. It isnt' pleasant, but after the first time you'll find your attitude toward work and life will likely be quite different than they were previously.

[derefr]

Amusingly, every startup I've joined, I've joined effectively in the middle of it running headlong into the ground. In fact, these startups were either drastically misspending their remaining cash in the bank (and hiring me in the first place was part of that misspending), or they were hiring me because the original engineering lead had already seen the blood in the water and quit.

The annoying thing is that, because of this pattern (paycheques always evaporating, etc.), it's been really hard to get paid, so for the longest time I've had no savings, and was thus forced to stay at these jobs for the money... which they don't have. Kind of a vicious circle.