hey tech leech here and welcome back to
another episode of the tech lead today
we're going to talk about a very
fascinating interesting topic startups
versus big tech companies it is coffee
time with the tech lead I am the tech
lead at Google tech lead by the way
let's have a sip here not bad not bad at
all now sunny cooler let me just clarify
something for you if you are working in
tech adult and I think that you're gonna
be doing great you're gonna be doing
good and no choice is really going to be
a bad choice and startup or big tech
company it's all good really now I have
worked in a combination of startups as
well as at Google as an X Google tech
lead and they're very different in some
ways but they're also very similar the
quality of life that you get your
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thank me later you know no matter
whether you're working at a startup or a
big tech company you're gonna be having
a pretty sweet comfy job you're gonna go
and you work at the computer you do some
typing do some code spend some time
surfing the net surfing reddit play some
ping pong you may
have to pay for your online tour you may
get some lunch catered and by the way
the food that these large tech companies
are not necessarily better there may
simply just be more variety but it's all
going to be buffet style food and often
is quite easy to beat any of the sweet
just go to any restaurant and the food
quality is already going to be beaten
supposedly they like to advertise that
they've got all-star chefs but in order
to feed thousands of people it's just
going to cost way too much they're gonna
end up using more basic ingredients trip
ingredients and then do it buffet style
and you're not going to want to eat too
much food anyway it's not gonna be
healthy for you just gonna get
overweight essentially most of the time
no matter where you are you're going to
be working at the computer doing some
code across startups and big tech
companies is going to be similar now
let's talk about the main differences
here one is going to be compensation
compensation at a tech company a public
tech company is going to be well-known
it's going to be fixed
you're gonna know exactly what you're
getting is a public company and when you
get stuck you're gonna know for sure
that that's going to be worth something
when you go into a start-up you don't
really know what the value of that stock
is going to be and oftentimes it's going
to be a complete mystery it's going to
be completely obfuscated for you and
startups have a bunch of different ways
to screw you over they can dilute the
stock they can kick you out fire you
before they IPO they can delay their IPO
intentionally and force you to stick
around and stay at the company and work
longer they can tell you that you have a
million shares but it really there could
be a hundred trillion shares outstanding
and many companies simply aren't going
to tell you what percentage of the
company you truly own and even if you
were to somehow find that out which you
probably won't be able to find out most
companies I've seen they never quite
tell you exactly what percentage you own
even if you do find out they're just
going to devalue that when you finally
leave the company when you quit
oftentimes they'll say that you have to
exercise these stock options within a
certain amount of time like saying you
got three months to use that up and when
you do exercise those options you're
going to have to pay tons of taxes on
this stuff if the company never IPOs and
it could take ten years before the
company actually IPOs you've just paid a
bunch of money on stock and you've taken
a big risk you don't really know what
you're getting sometimes this stuff all
pans out maybe you'll get some money but
oftentimes it's not necessarily going to
be life-changing money I'm known
scenarios where I've joined companies
actually in other
people join companies and then the
startup eventually gets acquired right
acquisition happens more commonly than
IPOs and in an acquisition everybody
gets some payment for their stock it's
not all that much it's not really
life-changing money you might be like 50
K right 60 K something like that
if you're lucky it could be more if
you're not lucky it could be less one
thing that a lot of engineers don't know
is that even if your engineer number one
at the company you could already be
getting less than say 1% of the company
you would be putting in as much work if
not more work than the founders and
still the founders would have like 99%
of the company you would have one
percent or even 0.1% by the time your
employee numbers say ten or twenty your
ownership would already be point zero
zero zero one percent or something like
that
it would be a minuscule amount and
that's just a culture of startups
personally I got so disgusted by all of
this one time I remember I had the
business partner a friend and we were
going to start a company together and
then he said that yeah we would be 50/50
partners except he wanted 50.1% and I
would get 49.9% I just thought why why
not just 5050 and he was so insistent on
this point that it smelled fishy to me
and I backed out of the whole deal and I
didn't start the business because I
figured that he could just say well
let's take a vote should I get kicked
out of the company after I feel
everything yeah let's take a vote he's
got 51% ownership oh yeah he wins I mean
he could just kick me out he can do
whatever he wants now it's just our
pretty tricky and I remember there were
even times in my life when I just sort
of said to myself I don't like startups
I don't want to work at them and if I
were gonna work I would rather work
either for a large tech company or I
would found the company on my own and
those would be the options I would be
going for now having said that let's
talk about some of the good things about
startups because I've worked out a few
of them and there's some good things
about them one is the challenges are
going to be very different between
start-up and large tech company large
tech company you often work in a large
code base a lot of the challenges are
going to be organizational you're going
to have to deal with a lot of people
cross-functional teams and there's going
to be a ton of code and people blocking
everything that you're trying to do and
in a small tech company in a start-up
you're going to have a lot more freedom
and anything you want to do
anything you want to try just not going
to be a lot of people standing away you
want to try something you have the
flexibility to try that and that goes
for rolls as well so if you don't really
want to be an engineer let's say you
want to be more of a product manager or
designer or prototype or in a large tech
company it would be an entire shift in
careers you would have to get the proper
approvals maybe even do an interview
just so that you could do some p.m. work
however in its small startup you're
gonna have a lot more freedoms to take
on any role that you want and in this
sense I would say that there may even be
better career mobility for example if
you wanted to get into management it may
take a lot of effort to get into say
senior management at Google right that
would require you proving yourself and
everything but if you were to go to a
start-up you could probably get a
management role quite easily because the
requirements just aren't as strict you
can start building up your experience
and over a number of years you would
have that experience and then you can
transfer into large tech company like
Google and do management there and you
would already have built up a lot of
that experience if that were your
interest and so if there were areas in
your career that you want to do develop
more into a startup may be a good path
for that and that's really what a
startup is good for I would say it's
learning so I would recommend this if
you are a junior engineer or even if
you're not and you want to get some more
experience and learn and build your
skills in a certain technology there may
be a field that you're interested in
getting more until you think it's cool
and you want to do that then the startup
is a great way to do that the worst
reason to join the startup is because
you think as a library ticket and it's
going to make you rich and you hate the
work and you're not trying to learn
anything but you're just doing that
currently for the money because in that
scenario I would say I startup there's a
little chance it's going to work out for
you if I you curveballs money the other
thing I might mention here is that I
don't think money is the proper
motivation number one if you're a junior
engineer say either way your pace look I
know it sounds like a lot for you now
but it's not going to make a difference
for you in a few years when you look
back on that salary range that you're at
just spend your time trying to learn and
guide your career in the direction that
you want it to go to but trying to argue
and optimize for a few thousand bucks
here and there it's just not really the
right time to be doing that because
you're really splitting pennies at
point the other great thing about
startups is they can be a little bit
more closed now I remember I worked in a
start-up with one of my professors and
during the company holiday party it was
just us with our spouses or girlfriends
or boyfriends or whatever and there just
felt more like a family the office was
like the professor's living room you
don't really get this sort of dynamic
when you're in a larger company in which
it's an open door right people are
coming and going all the time and
there's tons of people that you may be
interacting with you don't really get to
know anybody really that well sometimes
people just get fired to just disappear
randomly and that just seems to happen
sometimes
so overall let me put it this way I
think that if you can get into a large
tech company then you might as well try
and it's good to explore your options
and see what you can get
but startups are great too you can learn
a lot there develop your skills and
experience there are some good
connections get to know some people
there and overall it's probably going to
be a pretty good time working there
because it's not like going to a large
tech company like Google you're gonna
have a 10 times better experience there
it's not quite like that it's more like
it's just bigger it's not like the food
is 10 times better it's not like the
computers are 10 times more powerful
it's still essentially the same stuff
the same environment that you're working
in maybe for lunch instead of having a
single item on the menu you may have 10
different items on the menu but you
still just pick one thing to eat when
you interact with people and self
interacting with five people you may
have to interact with 50 people when you
work on a codebase it would just be a
larger codebase and the office overall
may be larger instead of having a single
building there may be 10 different
buildings that are interconnected but
you still end up going to a single
building your small little desk whenever
you're going to work in that sense the
work environment is similar and often in
many scenarios a startups work
environment the facilities the bathrooms
the kitchens that stuff can actually be
better and higher quality than what you
may find that large tech companies I
will say that for a lot of people it
might make sense at some point once
you've learned enough once you've
developed enough experience that you may
want to prioritize compensation maybe
make sure that you've got some real
money on the table that you can lock in
there maybe tackle some different types
of technical problems and challenges
those that have to do with larger code
bases dealing with many different types
of people you know that
interesting challenge in itself and also
just add some more options to your lunch
menu those are all things that larger
tech companies will be able to offer you
so it may not be a bad idea to consider
those two at some point I mean the way
you think about startups versus large
companies in the comments below if you
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