Any founders who went back to 9-5 jobs?

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. *Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books 4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

About the series - Asking questions that you generally don't find answers easily or think they are too basic to be asked Idea originated here - https://share.gvine.app/utBVxDbxRZxLFgzS9 Expanding the question - Most founders have worked high profile roles before going full time in building something of their own. The uncertainty in finances, in most cases reduction from the lifestyle their salary allowed them to maintain, how do they navigate that?

It's more difficult finding a job as a founder I've realised 1. If your venture is still continuing, they don't trust that you'll work enough at the job. 2. If your venture is shut, extra questions and judgement as to how and why it happened. 3. If your venture is successful and profitable, they'll ask why you want a job if it's going so well. I've never received any preference because of being a founder. On the contrary it's made getting good jobs more difficult. Thankfully I've managed my earnings through my startup, but I feel stuck because I'm not earning as much as I want to, plus I can't work on new things anymore. I would have liked to work on other things but it doesn't seem like I'll be able to get a chance to do that anymore.

About me: 25M working in a super early stage startup for 1yr. The startup is only 2 yrs old with seed funding. 2 pivots, but none worked. The 3rd pivot is interesting and we still don't know if it'll work I want to understand the life of an Early employee, how do you manage to keep hope, or when to call it quits? Have vested esops. Also feel if I can get 1.5X cash salary if i switch

This is not a question for the cocky new grad in the overvalued startup, but for the few seasoned PMs that still reply out here. Where do PMs go after they peak? By peaking I mean arriving at a GPM or Staff PM position at the top 10-15 companies (you can do your own ranking here). Nobody has the true statistics but I will use the assumption that 75% (debatable) of those who peak, will get laid off within 2 years from their ‘peak role’. The remaining will be able to progress into DoP and VP in the same top company or another in the top 15. Where do they go then? I am pretty positive, from experience, that they don’t go any up. Do they go down the ladder of new startups for titles and ending up in the worst ones after being laid off 4-5 times? Do they quit all together? Do they open a farm? Do they start their own startup? Comments and thoughts folks!

Want to build a AI startup. Finding it impossible as 1) Incumbents with distribution and data will easily build AI to their products 2) I don’t have PhD to build something truly innovative. 3) For consumer space, I don’t think it’s possible to build a new device or a OS etc (Incumbents again!) I seriously wonder how startup founders start something! Do they just BS VCs about nice ideas and raise money? Any tips *from actual founders* will be useful

I feel like this is a general problem that people who join startups in really early stages face. They get hired to do a function, then once the startup picks up, someone more senior gets hired and they’re practically demoted. This is happening third time to me, but still haven’t figured how to deal with it. The first time, someone from Stanford got hired and I felt really insecure about it. We got along pretty well but I couldn’t take that we were of the same age and this person was managing me despite me being around in the company for longer. That person left, my function was changed as well and again after a year, I was layered by another person. I just joined a new company four months ago and feel like the same thing is about to happen. I know they’re hiring someone. Makes me feel anxious about how I’ll lose ownership of things I’ve been doing and I haven’t even gotten the chance to prove myself yet. Do I just wait it out? Or talk to the founders about it? I understand where they come from, they do what’s best for the company. But I feel like I should look out for myself as well.

With the host of startups closing down, was curious to know what does founder net worth usually result in and how do they generally make money for them along the way. Few questions- 1. Do founder sell percentage of own shares in Series A and B raises? I would assume there would be some checks on this but want to know what's the practical reality of this and if this happens what's the amount a founder can make through this 2. If the startup is clear it has to shut down, what typically happens? Acquisitions? Insolvency? 3. Assume a Series B level startup with valuation around 150 cr with say 10 Cr annual revenue and 40 cr losses and 30% founder stake and it's clear it has to shut down. In the absence of any acquisition, what money comes to the founder