Why are startup folks so entitled?

I'm surprised to see on the comment section that people actually support this load of crap. To any newbies or freshers entering tech this year, don't follow this advice. These CEOs exploit your time to gain revenue and when the time is not good they wouldn't think twice before considering layoffs. Just do your job and go home to your life and family. This advice only applies to entrepreneurs who have huge stakes in the company. Because if the company do well they get millions in returns as dividends. As an employee, even if you work for 25 hours you only get the same salary. Don't follow any so called self procalimed entrepreneurs advocating for the hustle culture. You hustle for your life, not for your boss or your job.

I am so frustrated by observing how some Indian startup founders have been mistreating employees. This is happening literally in all the startups and corporates. Many of us invest their precious time and money obtaining degrees, only to become corporate employees. India won the WC on Saturday night, and since then, I have seen numerous rant posts from people complaining that they missed this moment because they were overworked. The rate of employee exploitation is alarmingly high, as founders often believe they have alot of options and are driven by their greed for money. Look at the plight of startups, the top management says they do not have money so they lay off the whole departments without any prior notice. Yet they spend so lavishly on showing investors or on their socials how cool they all are. We are bloody engineers, not their family bound slaves. Why do we suffer ? I believe it is high time that we establish a union for employees working in the IT industry. This exploitative culture needs to come to an end.

IIT grad here building a venture backed startup. I think 99% of folks here believe that venture backed founders are super entitled and in a much "cosier" position than employees Just sharing a few facts about our journey so far if it helps anyone improve their perspectives- 1) Paying ourselves 33% of our campus salary & 60% of what we are paying to our employees (Talking about Pure Base Salary here, not including ESOPs) 2) Insane stress - You basically have to raise money to build (esp if its deeptech because of the high fixed costs) and there are predefined metrics you have to always chase, sometimes just beyond yourselves. Your product will be copied if it's good because well, they always have more money than you. You work 7 days a week for insane hours, chasing metrics required to be "afloat" 3) 99% of venture backed startups result in 0 liquidity gain for founders. So basically in all likeliness, everything is for a net negative return compared to if we took the campus job So, when you wholeheartedly bash founders as if they are sitting On a goldmine while you are toiling for THEIR gold Treasure, just understand that more likely than not, there is not really any gold but rather an irrational hope they are clinging to Also, Yes-we pay above market to our employees (100% hike for the last one) but the truth is some startups just Can't afford it. And ironically, there is a much higher looking down on these startups with meagurely paid founders rather than giants like Tech Mahindra paying peanuts to their employees while having a 1000% salary hike for the executives. Yeah, most startups need to do better but please appreciate if someone is atleast trying to do better because trust me, it's INSANELY HARD.. The number of posts I see about Flipkart making hundreds millionaires is way too less than the ones I see about pinpointing at every single mistake early stage startups do & I just wanted to express my opinion on it Peace!

I have been through ups and downs in IT, but these layoffs seem crazy. There is just no pattern to it, more like everyone is firing let me fire. Honestly I feel its high time Tech companies, Startups take a hard look at their business and revenue model. Most just seem to be in a herd mentality. Every one is mass hiring, let me also mass hire. Every one is giving exorbitant salaries, let me also give. Its become more a cycle now, hire in large numbers, find there is no work to give, no revenue to sustain, and so mass fire again. This just cant be going on. Who makes mistakes that results in revenue loss or crunch? Top management Who gets fired ? Every one except the ones who are responsible. Dont fucking give me the reasoning that you are doing this for efficiency and streamlining. No you are just doing it to protect your own arse, while making scapegoats of others. So the Musks, Pichais, Zuckerbergs happily take fat bonuses, while drafting teary regret letters for firing. And they are supposed to be our role models to look up to? Enough is enough IT industry can't forever be running in this same mode. These hire and fire cycles are getting weary nowadays.

The current startup tech employees and founders are filled with so much junkies who do not care about the product at all. The culture is set when the startup is founded,when the first set of employees arrive. These folks are some of the most driven and talented and that's fine, it's how it should be. But the problem begins when these folks do not find their own hiring strategy and copy the hiring strategy of other companies. Instead of analysing what works best for them they justify their hiring means by saying this is what other have done. The result is you get a bunch of leetcode warriors who are always wanting to jump ships when given opportunity, never forming deep knowledge about their industry and their product. I work in one of the legacy tech companies, sure we do not hire the best people but we nurture them and that earns loyalty and long careers in our company. Even the employees have a very 360 degree view wrt product. We always deeply care about our product. Tbh I love seeing the stupidity of the market and it makes me happy that more confident that these people are wrong and always will be. Even the Indian startups are unoriginal and copied from the west then how do you expect the hiring to be unique. We are all living in the circus where jokers are supporting each other in making the circus bigger.

Data on founder Salaries in India https://inc42.com/features/founder-salaries-tracker-fy23-amid-the-funding-winter-how-much-did-startup-founders-earn/

I am starting up soon. I care about working on meaningful problems, with good people and building the right culture. Have been hearing from a lot of folks about culture problems in startups. Seems more of a norm rather than an exception. Curious to know why do startup culture degrade? What pitfalls should I avoid to create a healthy culture?

I recently worked at a startup and it was terrible. To be honest, I still worked at one of the better ones but it just sucked. Some of the clear downsides I see - Survival mode leads to chaos. You can be treated anyway and asked to leave whenever even though you left big opportunities to be here - Brand loss to find next job (Big problem) - Trying to make you feel unworthy(Doesn't bother me but I have seen people lose self confidence) - Loss of opportunity to build real skills like building sustainable teams for the long run I think over all working at a startup especially early teams is a losing proposition. Do it only if - - you know the founders/team well - you know the industry and market well and it is a bet you personally believe in - you are secure enough in life that if you go back to your job, you will easily get employed For middle class kids, startups are the worst bets one can take.

There is so much negativity around startups right now due to the market cycle since 1.5 years and because of a few bad names but I think overall startups have created massive opportunities in terms of wealth creation, up skilling and giving major breaks to people to learn faster. I think this is largely a founder driven issue as they simply want to be cool and startup for the sake of it but I’ve also seen founders that are committed and passionate however is getting difficult to recognize them and find companies actually building a good product that is solving good problem statement AND not get toxic culture. Can people share some examples in the last 5 years of such founders/startups so we can discuss them more and get some positivity on this platform?