By fast-growing startup, I mean a company that seems decently likely to be one of the top ~20 highest valued startups founded in a given 5 year period.
This sounds more like âtop startupâ than âfast-growingâ? Not trying to nitpick, the terms just seem pretty different to me.
I think the bar need not be that high for some of the benefits you mention. I had an experience that jibes with this:
About 6 months after joining, I started leading a team of ~5 engineers on a high priority engineering project. That was mostly due to the company needing leaders to keep up with our growth, and my hustle and generalist skills making me well-suited for the role. That experience taught me a lot about leadership, management, and long-term engineering projects, and it seems like this type of experience is much more common in fast-growing startups.
from joining a startup that was certainly not one of the top ~20 in a five-year periodâit was âjust a TechStars company.â I found this really valuable. Probably I got fewer of the other benefits you mention around working with the top people in a given industry (this was a ârandom webappâ startup, not an ML startup, so that didnât really apply.)
Top and (sustainably) fast-growing (over a long period of time) are roughly synonymous, but fast-growing is the upstream thing that causes it to be a good learning experience.
Note that billzito didnât specify, but the important number here is userbase or revenue growth, not headcount growth; the former causes the latter, but not vice versa, and rapid headcount growth without corresponding userbase growth is very bad.
People definitely can see rapidly increasing responsibility in less-fast-growing startups, but itâs more likely to be because theyâre over-hiring rather than because they actually need that many people, in which case:
Youâll be working on less important problems that are more likely to be âfakeâ or busywork
There will be less of a forcing function for you to be very good at your job (because it will be less company-threatening if you arenât)
There will be less of a forcing function for you to prioritize correctly (again because nothing super bad will happen if you work on the wrong thing)
Youâre more likely to experience a lot of politics and internal misalignment in the org
(Iâm not saying these applied to you specifically, just that theyâre generally more common at companies that are growing less quickly. Of course, they also happen at some fast-growing companies that grow headcount too quickly!)
Makes sense, upvoted. I like âfast-growingâ more than âtop,â because âtopâ makes me think more âis already Airbnbâ vs âcould be the next Airbnb.â Maybe the best term would be âexceptionally fast-growingâ or âexceptionally likely to be successful.â
Fast and successful are definitely a spectrum, and it seems definitely true that somewhat successful is still good for career development. I think one claim I didnât spell out fully is that people arenât selective enough in choosing which startups to work at. Of friends who worked at companies in the âYC or Techstars startupâ reference class, I think several had really positive experiences, but several worked at companies that went under and werenât that positive, and it seems to make a big difference to choose one that is exceptionally good vs ok.
I think this implies some breakdown of efficient market in startup valuations, like saying that EAs are (much?) better at picking startups than top 10% of VCs or so.
I sort of agree with this personally, but I think many other financially literate EAs who I respect disagree (and also others who believe this much more than I do); Iâm not sure why, and itâd be good to know where the cruxes are.
I have a draft part 2: itâs easier than it sounds. One of the reasons I believe that is because many of the best-of-the-best startups have many vcâs that want to fund them (so itâs not as hard for them to identify which are the best, but it is hard for them to compete to be the one to fund it). On the other hand, these startups need all the excellent employees they can get.
One EMH-obeying way you can estimate whether the âmarketâ expects a startup to grow is tracking the valuation:# employees ratio. Startups that are highly valued per capita means either each employee is already responsible for a lot of revenue growth (with some asterisks) or the market expects large revenue growth.
This isnât helpful if you want a large payout, but is very helpful from a career capital perspective, assuming billzitoâs model is correct.
Re: not being selective about what startups to work atâoh thatâs interesting, makes me more think I got lucky (in startup selection or in some other way).
This sounds more like âtop startupâ than âfast-growingâ? Not trying to nitpick, the terms just seem pretty different to me.
I think the bar need not be that high for some of the benefits you mention. I had an experience that jibes with this:
from joining a startup that was certainly not one of the top ~20 in a five-year periodâit was âjust a TechStars company.â I found this really valuable. Probably I got fewer of the other benefits you mention around working with the top people in a given industry (this was a ârandom webappâ startup, not an ML startup, so that didnât really apply.)
Top and (sustainably) fast-growing (over a long period of time) are roughly synonymous, but fast-growing is the upstream thing that causes it to be a good learning experience.
Note that billzito didnât specify, but the important number here is userbase or revenue growth, not headcount growth; the former causes the latter, but not vice versa, and rapid headcount growth without corresponding userbase growth is very bad.
People definitely can see rapidly increasing responsibility in less-fast-growing startups, but itâs more likely to be because theyâre over-hiring rather than because they actually need that many people, in which case:
Youâll be working on less important problems that are more likely to be âfakeâ or busywork
There will be less of a forcing function for you to be very good at your job (because it will be less company-threatening if you arenât)
There will be less of a forcing function for you to prioritize correctly (again because nothing super bad will happen if you work on the wrong thing)
Youâre more likely to experience a lot of politics and internal misalignment in the org
(Iâm not saying these applied to you specifically, just that theyâre generally more common at companies that are growing less quickly. Of course, they also happen at some fast-growing companies that grow headcount too quickly!)
Makes sense, upvoted. I like âfast-growingâ more than âtop,â because âtopâ makes me think more âis already Airbnbâ vs âcould be the next Airbnb.â Maybe the best term would be âexceptionally fast-growingâ or âexceptionally likely to be successful.â
Fast and successful are definitely a spectrum, and it seems definitely true that somewhat successful is still good for career development. I think one claim I didnât spell out fully is that people arenât selective enough in choosing which startups to work at. Of friends who worked at companies in the âYC or Techstars startupâ reference class, I think several had really positive experiences, but several worked at companies that went under and werenât that positive, and it seems to make a big difference to choose one that is exceptionally good vs ok.
I think this implies some breakdown of efficient market in startup valuations, like saying that EAs are (much?) better at picking startups than top 10% of VCs or so.
I sort of agree with this personally, but I think many other financially literate EAs who I respect disagree (and also others who believe this much more than I do); Iâm not sure why, and itâd be good to know where the cruxes are.
I have a draft part 2: itâs easier than it sounds. One of the reasons I believe that is because many of the best-of-the-best startups have many vcâs that want to fund them (so itâs not as hard for them to identify which are the best, but it is hard for them to compete to be the one to fund it). On the other hand, these startups need all the excellent employees they can get.
One EMH-obeying way you can estimate whether the âmarketâ expects a startup to grow is tracking the valuation:# employees ratio. Startups that are highly valued per capita means either each employee is already responsible for a lot of revenue growth (with some asterisks) or the market expects large revenue growth.
This isnât helpful if you want a large payout, but is very helpful from a career capital perspective, assuming billzitoâs model is correct.
Re: not being selective about what startups to work atâoh thatâs interesting, makes me more think I got lucky (in startup selection or in some other way).