Working at startups is terrible

Much of the upsides people mention do not exist ot matter as much

1. Financial wealth building -

VCs invest in 20 companies and one works out. You as an individual will have to work in too many startups to have the upside.
Odds are stacked against you

2. Growth

The skills you learn at startup especially non tech ones may not be that useful because they fail at scale. You don't get to manage large teams which is a problem

3. Growth

The Growth is often an illusion. Sure you get a larger title at a small or. But the moment you will go back to large org they will move your title to the same.

I could relate to this post. Working at an extremely profitable startup.

My experience has been a hit and miss. Joined almost like a founding team member but without confounder level leverage.

Joined at the below market salary, ESOPs were a verbal promise but no clarity on volume and value until recently when it was given, it got low balled.

No title promotion as I had almost the same YOE as the co-founder boss.

The grind, effort, hustle, stress all were equally the same as the co-founders or may be more as early employees.

But the non linear rewards are only for founders not the employee.

Just got to know that the amount of salary cut I had taken, had I invested the same amount back when the company started I would have gotten more shares as a seed investor!!

I'm still grateful that I got to build a team that respects me and that's the only motivation ( alongside the average cash increments in the last few appraisals ).

After making the startup profitable, the founders develop a god syndrome and play information asymmetry game.

They forget that it's the people below them whose goodwill and grind gave them their current success.

Experiences vary from people to people. It seems you ended up at a place where there was no direction.

You want to play with fire 🔥 then join startups which maybe highly rewarding. You want to stay chilled like ice 🧊 then join good service based companies having good long term projects which may or may not be rewarding.

It has its place in everyone’s career ladder but ya I haven’t seen long tenured folks in startup unless they’ve too much at stake (esop/equity).

Having worked at a startup before, my experience was completely opposite to this. In fact I feel joining mid-tier MNCs is a waste of time and money.

Maybe you joined some small pre-seed startup which is still figuring out its MVP.

Advice I’d give my younger self. Work at startups till your mid 20s then seek to join an IPO bound startup or MNC, stay away from Indian companies. Never join a startup post 30s unless you get to be the Head of your department or are paid at least 80% more than market value.

Depends on a lot of factors , but my experience thus far has been a mixed bag -

1. Own startup - learnt more than any job or mentor could teach me. The financial opportunity cost was immense - my peers moved to 30-40 lpa CTC, while I was slogging at around 15-18. Although this auto corrected in the longer term.

2. Fortune 50 enterprise- Perks, WLBull , monotonous, learnt a ton on process and people management but hard skills had to be developed on my own time. I hardly had to work 16 hrs / week as opposed to per day in startups. Growth was driven by YoE among other things.

3. Series B startup - Absolute roller coaster UP AND DOWN. Learnt somethings, taught other folks a lot. Esops are farcical in any startup less than Series D (>100 mil revenue)

4. Seed stage startup - Absolute mockery of an experience, false promises, no benefits, not even tax deduction was proper. A major wrong step.

5. Series C startup - leadership was great, strategy, positioning and processes were great as well, no false promises. Learnt a ton, really great experience.

6. Unicorn - Good and bad, majorly bad . FK has a certain way about how things are done, which might not suit many people.

7. Series D startup- joined 5 months ago. So far so good.

To summarise, I think, -

Joining a startup with <5 mn in revenue should only be done if you’ve time on your side. The probability of failure is much higher than success.

Joining an established startup which is not yet a unicorn is the best imho.

You should work in a large org at least once, people bash large companies a lot, but you’d take a lot away from it, if you choose.

Also, never believe Indian Founders on ESOPs, do your research thoroughly, and try to convert as much into cash comp as you can. ESOPs are generally never encashed and even when they do, there’s a large list of complications before you can actually reap the rewards ( minimum 4 years and the luck of a liquidation event or buyback) .

I agree with everything the OP said. Startups are great if you are looking to switch roles. But most of them are extremely chaotic. The unicorn/pre-IPO ones have shit culture - can vouch for Razorpay, and have heard enough and more stories about Swiggy. But if you get into a US based startup, things might be a tad bit better, but can’t say for sure.

If you work in startups throughout your 20s, you are very likely to get branded as a “startup guy”. If you apply to a large company, they will re-level you based on experience. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google prefer to hire MBAs, so if you aren’t one, it will be tough to get in. Out of the three, it is only Amazon that opens roles often, and Amazon’s culture horror stories need no mention. They HAVE to fire 5% ppl every year - so you are like a hamster in a wheel, hoping it doesn’t catch up with you.

All in all, it is a risky bet. You are honestly better off building something of your own if you are in your 30s. Working in startups will enable you to do that.

What I am saying holds true primarily for non-tech roles. Can’t say about tech so experiences may vary.

Startups are a good way for non tech folks / no name college folks / career switch folks to get into tech tho