There's a difference though, an individual startup's equity will probably be worthless to you as an employee. The average return on equity across the industry is not worthless.
The difference is VCs own equity in a spread across the industry. Accepting that for every 10 investments 3-4 will fail outright, 3 will return a 1-100% of the invested capital and 3 will have a positive return. They hope one will become a unicorn.
You as an employee don't have that diversification.
I agree. The expected value may be comparable but one might not achieve that payout in their career because they can only work at a limited number of places.
That variance is the biggest differentiating factor.
Strategy is to work at a startup who have raised money from investors. It shows they "might" have a great product. You might get less equity though, but considering 80-95% of startups would fail over the lifetime, it might be worth the less equity in my opinion.
Another strategy would be to get a remote job at big tech and a remote job at a startup. You could improve your skills and career growth a lot while also benefitting from compensations, but you're mostly likely going to throw away your work-life balance working at two jobs.
While the blog talks about the "money" side of one's career which aligns with the title "Investing your career", I also believe that experience and exposure also contributes to the same. The latter can be found in a much higher quantity and much richer quality in startups as compared to the big tech giants.
Impossible for us to say for sure if big tech vs startups are better for building experience on average. It depends too much on the specifics of the team/company you're joining.
I could see a startup or big tech team with high quality peers, mentorship, and exciting work being a great place to learn.
There's a difference though, an individual startup's equity will probably be worthless to you as an employee. The average return on equity across the industry is not worthless.
The difference is VCs own equity in a spread across the industry. Accepting that for every 10 investments 3-4 will fail outright, 3 will return a 1-100% of the invested capital and 3 will have a positive return. They hope one will become a unicorn.
You as an employee don't have that diversification.
I agree. The expected value may be comparable but one might not achieve that payout in their career because they can only work at a limited number of places.
That variance is the biggest differentiating factor.
Strategy is to work at a startup who have raised money from investors. It shows they "might" have a great product. You might get less equity though, but considering 80-95% of startups would fail over the lifetime, it might be worth the less equity in my opinion.
Another strategy would be to get a remote job at big tech and a remote job at a startup. You could improve your skills and career growth a lot while also benefitting from compensations, but you're mostly likely going to throw away your work-life balance working at two jobs.
That’d be amazing if you could pull off two jobs. Work life balance would definitely go out the window haha
Also would be hard to grow your career at either one since meeting expectations would already be a lot of work
While the blog talks about the "money" side of one's career which aligns with the title "Investing your career", I also believe that experience and exposure also contributes to the same. The latter can be found in a much higher quantity and much richer quality in startups as compared to the big tech giants.
Impossible for us to say for sure if big tech vs startups are better for building experience on average. It depends too much on the specifics of the team/company you're joining.
I could see a startup or big tech team with high quality peers, mentorship, and exciting work being a great place to learn.