The cost differential is about right given that Indian labor, skilled and unskilled, is about 1/10 the cost of the US. This mission employed 2500--not exactly Spartan.
This particular design doesn't take a lot of skill to create, and I'm not sure the author knows what problem to solve. The triviality of the redesign should be embarrassing to the creator.
Hiring #1 is tricky: you need to find someone good, but also naive. In this era of the ray startup, it makes little sense for a great engineer to work for someone else: the first employees work almost as hard as the founders, but receive 1/50 the ownership of the company. In the age of the acqhire founders' risk is very small.
Practically by definition, employee #1 is shouldering less opportunity cost than the founding team. The founding team was able to start a company and raise money sufficient to pay the employee. The employee is accepting full-time employment. Why would they do that unless they didn't believe they could be successful (whatever that might mean) starting something themselves?
I think there's a whole lot of taking-advantage happening in startup hiring, but there's also an industrywide lack of understanding of how risk and basic economics work, too. Equity isn't a merit badge.
It sounds like there's a bit of a trend towards passing some of that risk on to the employee early-on though, by not really considering the job a real job with a presumption of continuation. The 2nd story here recommends only "trial-hiring" people for 1 or 2 months at a time, and even companies that don't go that extreme have been trending towards quick-to-fire for vague reasons like "poor fit" (more than bigger companies). Of course, you can always be fired in a regular job (in at-will states), but the understanding is that you normally won't be fired one month in, unless either you totally screw up or the company's situation changes significantly. Hence you have a bit less risk because you have normal job + salary, while founders have more risk, but that's not as true if you don't really have normal-job anymore. Of course, if you have a pile of contract work you can transition to at a moment's notice even this arrangement might not be a huge risk, but depends on the person. And in that case you might prefer to just stay a contractor and bill your regular rates, rather than shouldering the opportunity risk of committing to a possibly-evaporating job.
> I think there's a whole lot of taking-advantage happening
> in startup hiring...
One warning sign of this is when the salary is below market rates. Founding members take low salaries and lots of preferred equity (and lots of risk), while employees take a market salary and a few incentive stock options.
No, founders vest. For the love of all that is holy, don't join a founding team with no vesting. Funding or no funding, vesting is non-optional. Get vesting worked out from the jump.
not true if they are taking on money. any investor will require a vesting period over 4 yr w/ usually a 1 yr cliff (which resets every time you take money)
That's silly. You need someone who values the startup experience in some way to balance out the salary hit. That's all. They may love small teams, might be seeking early experience, might want to build cred so they can raise money someday themselves, etc.
"the first employees work almost as hard as the founders, but receive 1/50 the ownership of the company."
The founders take considerably more risk working for free, raising money (time consuming for 99% of startups), and greater opportunity cost... Working 6-9 months or more on an unproven/unfunded startup is WAY RISKIER than joining a funded startup for a slightly reduced salary.
"In the age of the acqhire founders' risk is very small."
This is just plain wrong. What % of failing teams are acqhirable? Stanford grads will have no problems, but many/most teams are too small or too weak from a resume point of view to get a deal done. I've watched very solid teams fail to find a suitor a LOT (including MOST failing YC companies).
But they also get a salary: money the founders raised. That difference is huge.
That said, I completely agree. It takes a great match. Equity percentage can't be the only dimension considered.
Also, if you're struggling with hiring, giving more equity can be a solution. There are plenty of "cofounders" that came on as employees after money was raised but needed a sweeter deal to join.
This has been done dozens of times. Not sure why it hasn't taken off. I think some people crush everyone then claim they were joking, thereby burning the other side. There should be a limit on the number of crushes allowed.
This could be more accurately titled, "why entrepreneurs thought they failed." Personally, I'm not sure failed entrepreneurs are qualified to make that diagnosis.
The entrepreneurs themselves may not be accurate in knowing why they failed, but there is learning to be had from hearing why they think they failed. Comparing these data with reasons from other sources would be even more interesting.
TL;DR Title is misleading, possibly false. The Aussies spied on a trade negotiation and offered to share the intel with America. It is not known whether or not the Americans accepted any information which was the result of spying on Americans, or passed it on to negotiators. We only know they provided "clear guidance" about what information they would accept.
Why did you leave out the quote immediately after that? It's relevant.
> the Australian agency "has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers"
Whey would they say that the (continued!) intelligence provided by the Australian agency was "highly useful" if their counsel ruled they couldn't use it?
Because there was other intelligence to be gleaned which was not the result of spying on Americans. Only the law firm was American; the rest of the parties were not. It's possible (likely?) that the NSA said, "give us everything with a non-American source" which would keep them within the law. I have not seen any evidence from Snowden that the NSA deliberately breaks the laws that bind them, though they make give the law liberal interpretations at times.
Hotels are a form of progressive taxation: rich out of town travelers pay more for housing than permanent residents. Generally travelers are richer than non travelers because traveling is usually a discretionary expense or paid for by a corporation.
AirBnb eliminates the progressive taxation, thereby raising living expenses for poorer residents. Rich people love it, poor people hate it. Sure, you can make some money in the short term by renting out your spare room, but in the long term, as rents rise, this process involuntarily turns your two bedroom apartment into a one bedroom + strangers' room apartment.
Just wait until San Francisco "Google bus activists" get a whiff of AirBnb.
