BenSchaechter, you've been hellbanned for at least 506 days, probably because of your submissions. Normally I don't tell people that they've been hellbanned, but since this is your post that has been linked to I thought you should know that not everyone can see your response to their comments.
Edit: @coolsunglasses, thanks for the follow up. I can see why a YC moderator would think that his posts are linkbait.
He's been told this several times before, that he hasn't noticed is amusingly symptomatic of why he got hellbanned to begin with. (Spamming/saying his piece, then never returning)
> I wake up, shower, and drive to work early to have breakfast. I spend all day at work, go to the gym and have dinner, do a little bit more work and don't get home until 9 or 10 every night. My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep.
I'm glad he's happy (right now), but this is exactly why I will never work for a company like Yahoo. I absolutely love what I do. And I protect it by ensuring I have healthy boundaries. No, Yahoo isn't "taking care" of you Ben. They're taking advantage.
Yup, exactly. I've been at Y! for almost 4 years and when I started I was absolutely a workaholic, but over the last 3 years I've transitioned into having a much healthier (and happier) balance. You can certainly work as much as want at Yahoo, but I don't think too many feel forced to.
I was pointing that out because it seemed like a massive contradiction to say that working at Yahoo is comfortable, but then to say in the following sentence that home life is non-existent. I often ponder the long term stuff in the tech realm as a current full time grad student, and this particular section was striking to me.
There's not anything else worth doing in Sunnyvale besides working. Being in a part of the country that seems super nice, but is actually very dull, is part of the Silicon Valley economic miracle.
C'mon now. Sunnyvale isn't Las Vegas, but most of the time, "there's nothing else worth doing here besides working" is simply an excuse. And not a very convincing one at that.
Eat (lots of great restaurant)
Drink (lots of fun bars)
Hike (plenty of hiking trails in the nearby mountains, biking trails, etc)
See a movie (lots of great theaters)
Hang out (lots of great open spaces, big parks, and downtown sunnyvale is nice to just hang out).
Now, to be fair, I live in Cupertino (right next to Sunnyvale) and I would rather live in Berkeley or SF, because there is certainly MORE to do, but Sunnyvale isn't THAT bad.
If you can't find something to do, you're probably just being lazy.
1. If you like the outdoors, there are plenty of wonderful places to run/hike/bike in the South Bay/Peninsula.
2. There are frequent sporting events at HP Pavilion.
3. Sunnyvale may not be Paris, but museums and art galleries do exist in the area.
4. The diversity and quality of Bay Area restaurants is unrivaled.
5. Nightlife can be found in San Jose.
6. For weekend getaways, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay and Napa are all within reasonable driving distance.
7. Like most metropolitan areas, there are tons of gyms where you can stay in shape and meet people.
8. Meetups of all types abound in the Bay Area.
9. If you like shopping or window shopping, you could do a lot worse than Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row.
10. A lot of the downtowns in the area are great for grabbing a cup of coffee and people watching.
@7Figures2Commas sorry to say this but "45 minute drive to SF" would have been less boring that the 10 reasons you gave. Seriously, I think I would do the same if I were in Ben's shoes. If you're in your twenties and can't be in an exciting city (San Jose is large but I don't think it's comparable to SF), it's much wiser to work hard and improve skills than wasting time engaging in a mediocre entertainment like hanging out at a Sunnyvale museum. Maybe after 2 years when he's free to go, then he'll move to SF (and probably start another startup), and that's when he should enjoy his life.
1. Most of the people I know who complain about boredom are not bored because of their location. Some of them have moved to "exciting" cities and they are just as unhappy. Location is just a convenient excuse.
2. Trying to compare cities on a relative basis is a pointless exercise. You could easily find people living in major cities outside of the Bay Area who would suggest that San Francisco is boring. That doesn't mean that if you live in San Francisco, you should lock yourself in your room and wait until you can move to Miami or Las Vegas to have fun.
3. The idea is that you can't have a life and work hard and improve your skills is asinine.
4. The sad truth is that "I'll do x when y" is usually just an intellectually dishonest rationale for convincing oneself not to do y.
I lived in the area for years. I know what there is to do in the Bay Area in general. None of the stuff to do is in Sunnyvale. It's nice (sorta), but it's boring. That's sort of the point of the suburbs. The skatepark is pretty good, though.
To be fair you could take Sunnyvale and draw a circle around it the same size as a "fun" place and see how much you got there. But the whole 'south bay is boring' narrative has always been weak for the same reason that equating 'walking in poo in the tenderloin' with it being 'edgy' is weak.
There is a pretty active club scene on Murphy street, there are great restaurants on Sunnyvale a few miles up in Mtn View, a few miles south in Cupertino, and a few miles south in Santa Clara. You've got hiking and parks with wetlands and concert venues (Shoreline, Great America, HP Pavilion), soon you'll have NFL football and world cup Soccer nearby, and you've got an amusement park with concerts and roller coasters, and you've got quicker access to the mountains, and the Steven's creek trail for some excellent biking, running, and walking.
Downtown Palo Alto is a quick train trip, where you can walk from the University Ave station to pretty much anywhere.
What you don't have are some high density urban buildings. More of those are coming with the Murphy Park build but they will still not be high rise apartment/condos. Its not clear to me what the buys you, but it is a difference.
And yes, I'm a bit defensive when people say "its so boring and plastic" (or words to that effect) but getting them to say what is 'not boring' or 'not plastic' seems unexpressable.
I'd love to know what makes a for a 'non-boring' place if you have a list.
For myself, there are a few criteria. First is the visitor test. If my family members comes to visit me, can I give them a week's worth of stuff to do that is nearby, or are we driving over an hour each way to find something to do? Would my relatives in Australia be stoked if they came to visit me, or would they be bummed they skipped over Hawaii and Disneyland? Second, can I easily meet new people outside of work? Third, is there a good bookstore? Fourth, can I do outdoor sports I like, such as bicycling and skateboarding easily, or is it a headache and/or dangerous? Lastly, if I didn't have to work here, would I still live here?
A few places I've lived, such as NYC, Tokyo and Paris, have had all these things, but also a whole bunch of other stuff going on I wouldn't have ever thought of. A few other ones have had all this stuff, but didn't really surprise me in any way, like SF, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland. Most places I've been meet some of these criteria, but not all. I found that Cupertino did not have anything on my wish list, and also didn't have any other stuff going on that I wouldn't have thought of. In addition, there was a lot of stuff that seemed additionally negative: driving everywhere, expensive, bad rental properties, mediocre food, etc.
Can you define what kind of stuff is in the numerator in the 'culture:size' ratio? I'm trying to get a handle on what people mean when they use the word.
I hope we are not going to get once again so ecstatic about free food and gym. I know that this looked truly revolutionary during Google's hiring binge.
They can be, but it depends on the company's culture. I personally prefer to go home and cook for myself, and when places offer free dinner, I worry that it comes with social pressure to stay and eat there, which I'd prefer not to do. If you have a family it's a bit less of a worry (you have an "excuse" for leaving to go eat with your family), but if you're single, there seems to be this expectation that of course you'd love to eat dinner at work, and you must be somehow weird if you prefer to cook for yourself at home.
Just to chime in, there is zero pressure at Yahoo to stay and eat dinner on campus. In fact, not too many people stay unless there was an event going on before hand or something. Most people just leave. But as you said, it depends on the company's culture.
Nope. I'm an intern there and usually work ~10-6, call my girlfriend back home/hang out for a bit with people, eat, and go home. There's really no judging, everyone seems super chill.
I worked at a company that had free dinner (which it heavily advertised) but no free lunch. It was a horrible place. I don't know if I'd connect the two; it's a "small data" situation that has me making a correlation.
I'd prefer a higher salary and getting my own meals, but free dinner without free lunch is a huge warning sign.
Office gyms are usually awkward as well, but the shower is useful because you can bike or run to work, so that's a plus.
I'm 24 and I've been at Yahoo for 5 years as a full-time Software Engineer. This place is a different company with Marissa leading the way. I share the OP's tone. I may also be naive, but the place is a lot flatter and there's a lot less in my way to make new ideas happen. I no longer stay at work late into the night, however. :)
> My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep.
Not for long, hopefully! There is clearly a need for on-campus dormitories so that employees don't have to worry about maintaining their own spaces and finding things to do on their own time.
I can see it now...
Google employee: "I live in the Adwords Apartments. Pretty ritzy. Where do you live?"
Yahoo employee: "I'm in Flickr House. It was recently renovated."
Facebook employee: "You should apply for a job at Facebook. If you're really lucky, you might be able to get a room at Poke Place. We have the best co-ed hackathons on Saturday nights."
But seriously, I feel like technically you could be homeless if you're single and work at Google or (now) Yahoo, they've got gyms, couches, private rooms to chill, you just put a tie on the doorknob (or whatever) and sleep there for the night. and Boom! you've just saved yourself like $1000+ /month, not to mention paying for internet/cable or furniture and other household items, in fact, I wonder if people aren't doing that right now...
Please delete that link! How are mainstream business magazines going to write glowing articles about this latest Silicon Valley innovation if everyone knows this didn't start in Silicon Valley?!?
Acq-hired people are not going to be having the normal employee experience.
I would honestly rather have a $100k take-home but my employer pay $500k (i.e. 400k goes to charity) and think that's my salary, than a regular $150k. You get treated better if you cost more. Your salary is what it costs your employer to waste your time, so if you're at a high level, management actually fucking listens to you. Taking a long-term career perspective, it's worth a $50k/year drop to be in a situation where management feels like it can't afford not to take your ideas seriously.
In fact, I think that's so many talented engineers quit the employee game and become consultants in their 30s. Even if you're only able to get a few hours of work per week, you at least know that your boss is going to take your suggestions seriously.
Acq-hires are people bought in at a panic price ($1 million+ per engineer) so management actually listens to them because of what they cost. Until the "golden child" aura wears off and they're just regular employees.
I've been at Yahoo for 5 years as a Software Engineer.
This really is a new company under Marissa. I wasn't special, aqui-hired, or anything. I now can easily access management when I need them, my suggestions are taken seriously and acted on, and I get everything I need from upper management to excel at what I do. My manager has always been great, but now she is more empowered to get stuff done more than ever before.
I'm also 24, so I have a bit of a way to go before I get jaded and go into consulting. Maybe. But I've also been working for 5 years instead of school, which gives me a less than rosy perspective of life at a big company.
Hey congratulations on doing that and thanks for shedding some light on things inside. Sometimes I actually consider applying but the SRE jobs are a but scarce in London.
Can you speak a bit more on your unique situation of before a software engineer there since you were 19? Im quite curious what led to that.
> This really is a new company under Marissa. I wasn't special, aqui-hired, or anything. I now can easily access management when I need them, my suggestions are taken seriously and acted on, and I get everything I need from upper management to excel at what I do. My manager has always been great, but now she is more empowered to get stuff done more than ever before.
This is pretty much the exact story from the two folk I know it Yahoo! They went from being at the point of nearly resigning to being really happy post-MM.
Kind of off-topic, but your comment raises a question that I've been mulling over for a while: Given that the "acqui-hire" employee experience is so much better (more lucrative, more responsibility, more exposure to upper management, whatever your definition of "better" is), you'd think there would be more people trying for this path.
Why jump through the traditional hoops applying at 100 companies, interviewing at 10 of them, then maybe getting an offer at one of them for a "market rate" salary, when instead, you can take a moderate amount of risk and a little bit of time, and start a company with the sole intent of being acquired for $1MM/head? It doesn't even matter what your company makes, as long as it's something that shows off your talent.
I wonder if one day we'll see "acqui-hire incubators" sprint up, focused on helping teams land such positions..
Have you worked on a startup before? That's not how it works. There's no such thing as "moderate amount of risk". People who just read Techcrunch may think that it's so easy to get acq-hired, they think "Hey I could have built that, I guess it's so easy to get acq-hired". But what they don't realize is there are tons of other--failed or ongoing--startups that did the same thing started by founders who may be much smarter than the one that got acq-hired, but it's all based on luck. There are many factors, for example if you got an investment from a prominent VC or angel investor it's much easier to get acq-hired compared to you doing it alone. Doing a startup for the sake of getting "acq-hired" is the stupidest thing one could ever do.
Thanks for your insights. What you say makes a lot of sense, and you're right--you only read about the success stories, not the failures. As someone who has never tried the startup thing, on the surface it seems like a more straightforward path to employment, particularly in today's challenging job market. Clearly there are many factors, including luck.
Having been at three "failed" startups in my 15 year (to date) career, I guess I can provide a data point.
I've been involved in the staff and eventual senior management (but not founding) of three small companies in my career: two began as bootstrap startups that morphed into relatively successful lifestyle companies once it became clear we had no scalable product/market fit. They settled into hardware or software consulting, one is pretty sizeable now (a few hundred strong), the other remains under a hundred employees. The final one got to Series B funding but tanked after burning through $15 million.
To summarize, all were highly intense and emotional experiences. I compressed 2-3x the amount of learning I would have otherwise had in most other jobs, particularly in areas where you don't usually get exposure to as a young geek: business development & sales, marketing, HR, finances, etc., and I also became a much better software developer.
That said, small companies, especially if you're involved with steering them, are very personal affairs, and are extremely sensitive the founders' personality quirks while they're under 50 employees. They were hard to work for after a while.
So, in sum:
- Working in a startup is a great experience if you're not in it to get rich, but rather to improve your career by compressing your learning & working on something that inspires you
- Get involved with senior management if you want the experience, but be prepared for the emotional/health toll
- Luck is important, but not just any luck, you want luck that helps you survive - a good market being most important.
If you look hard enough you'll definitely be able to find a lot of the failures. A lot of startups make the risk even higher because they're not always transparent with their finances. You might be working hard to meet a deadline and show up to the office only realize your company has gone bankrupt. A lot of newly funded startups live month to month and offer no security whatsoever (although they definitely try to make it seem like they can).
If your plan is to get acqui-hired, your goal is not to build something awesome for your users.
That's not the same thing as saying people who are acquired for their talent didn't try to build something awesome -- it's just that, if your GOAL is to get acquired, that's a different goal than building something people want or need.
