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Back in 2010 I had to pick between a steady office job or a risky startup offer.
The office gig paid $55k a year with full benefits. The startup offered $40k and a 2% stake, but the hours were crazy. I took the startup job because I was young and wanted to build something. We worked 70 hour weeks for three years before the company got bought out. My share ended up being worth about $80k after taxes, which was good but not life changing. Looking back, was the stress and lower pay for those years worth the experience and that payout? Anyone else face a similar choice back then?
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the_amy6mo ago
Yeah, I read a piece once that argued the real value in those early startup years isn't the money, it's the crash course in how a business actually works (or falls apart). For 80k after three brutal years, the math seems rough against the steady paycheck you passed up. But that hands-on experience, the stuff you learned by doing everything wrong until you got it right, that's hard to put a price on. It probably set you up way better for whatever you did next than the office job would have.
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faithk926mo ago
But what if you just go broke learning it?
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