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.
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..