Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/three-paths-in-the-tech-industry-founder-executive-or-employee/ <comment><USER3> This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing.

I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day.

The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of money and prestige. I think this is a damn shame, and we should be striving to stop that. This is a good painting of how bad things are today, but instead of "tricks to game the system" i wish it layed out a path of how to build an industry that doesn't attract all those ambitious selfish (executives) people.

<comment><USER4> I have a different (admittedly controversial) take, having been on the "tech ladder" for some time now (as a Senior SWE and Lead Engineer): most individual contributors overestimate how much value they actually provide, especially in the Bay Area. That isn't to say we're not under-appreciated and under- compensated (we are both). But realistically much of the time work we do is easily done by literally thousands of other people just as well. The same just isn't true of product development, sales and marketing. Any one of those three teams, staffed well, will account for well more than the value of the entire engineering organization.

Mostly this is a self-inflicted problem. Especially in the Bay Area, where developers tend to value CS ability signaling rather than the ability to work well with product teams and the ability to engage in practical engineering.

There's too much focus by developers on shallow things, like fad-following the latest frameworks, on pseudo-intellectualism or technology-purism (e.g. "coding is doing math", code "elegance", whether/how FP is just so much better than anything else, etc.), and trivia like programming language choice.

<comment><USER5> > The same just isn't true of product development, sales and marketing. Any > one of those three teams, staffed well, will account for well more than the > value of the entire engineering organization.

Why is it not true for them? Sales are not magic, it is a profession that can be learned. I have seen a lot of companies stating how important is sales, and how unique they are. It can't be true for all companies. It is like everyone thinking that they are above average, it is just not possible.

If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Without sales and marketing, you will also have a hard time. It is collaboration what brings success.

> There's too much focus by developers on shallow things, like fad-following > the latest frameworks, on pseudo-intellectualism or technology-purism

This is usually a problem with recruiting. You get what you pay for. If your interviews are about technical expertise and you ignore basic persona-values evaluation and fit to build valuable features, you get that. And it jeopardizes the viability of a company. You need some really good experts, but you don't need everyone to be one.

<comment><USER6> >If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Without sales and marketing, you will also have a hard time. It is collaboration what brings success.

The distinction is that product development, sales and marketing can act as multipliers in a way that engineering seldom does. A tech company's growth is rarely due to the technical excellence of their product. There are obvious exceptions at the extremes, but very few of us are working for a Pied Piper with some truly amazing competitive advantage in technology.

For example, what would happen if magically Twitter's tech became 50% better overnight? That would certainly reduce costs, but would it lead to any growth? Would the average person use the service more if the tech was better? Would companies buy more ads? Would revenue increase?

Now imagine their product development, sales and marketing teams became 50% better. They could have actual product improvements beyond doubling Tweet length. They could instantly sell more ads. They could increase external partnerships to bring more attention to the platform. They would have all sorts of opportunities for added revenue and growth.

<comment><USER7> > _sales and marketing can act as multipliers in a way that engineering seldom > does_

(I cannot distinguish product development from engineering as cleanly as you do, but on sales and marketing...)

Can't disagree more. At least with the definitions I have in my head, this sentence is logically inconsistent with such definitions. Engineering is _the_ way you get non-linear leverages. Sales and marketing, almost always give linear multiples at best.

I feel once you have the "golden goose" leverage delivered by engineering in hand, you start calling it sales because that's the final step in conversion to $$$. Also, that's when the linear multiple provided by sales and marketing is the biggest in absolute numbers.

[But yes, if you call everything you see as "marginal contribution" engineering, and everything valuable "product development", then you tautologically "prove" your conclusion.]

<comment><USER8> interestingly, a lot of enterprise Saas software is "sold before its built", by which i dont mean its complete vaporware, but its a very common practice to build a shitty first product, sell sell sell, and only after the first 10-20 customers are on board, do these companies start to spend more on engineering etc. Even after that, in order to sustain the machinery of building product, you need to keep selling. I think both are important, but in the technical world we tend to seriously underestimate how important sales it. At the end of the day, you can have the best alogrithms, the most elegant code and the sexiest UI, but if you dont have someone taking it to customers, and bringing their feedback back, all you have is a beautiful product without a business.

<comment><USER9> This is exceedingly common. It also makes a helluva lot of people miserable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about freelancing? I've been doing that since 1995 -- and my income and happiness have never been higher.

Pros: \- Work on what you like, with the people you like \- Potentially very high salary, definitely more than you would get as an employee \- Want to work on side projects (e.g., software, books, and courses)? Go for it, and benefit from multiple income streams.

Cons: \- You're running a business. That requires time, as well as skills/knowledge (often learned the hard way) that are completely separate from programming. \- You have to market yourself (until you're good enough that people contact you). No marketing, no work. No work, no salary. \- It's harder to do when you're married and have children. (I started when I was single.)

In many ways, freelancing is like the "founder" described in the article. However, the article also talks about teammates and a financial plan (including funding). Plenty of successful freelancers make good money just by themselves (or maybe 1-2 junior people). And I definitely never intend to take investment money.

Not everyone is cut out to be a freelancer. But it's a very viable option, beyond being a founder, executive, or employee. And I can tell you that many of the founders, executives, and employees I meet as I travel the world teaching Python are quite jealous of my satisfaction.

<comment><USER11> Cons: Insurance and pre-existing conditions.

Not to put a damper on your post, as it sounds like you have had good success. But this is a very real thing for many people. When I graduated and went out into the world, I needed insurance, and this was before the ACA, which meant that my pre-existing condition was not something that would be insurable, at least at any decent rate. The ACA fixed that, but now you have the GOP attempting to return things to how they were before, especially for pre- existing conditions. They failed now, but they're not going to stop. So, for many people, currently the climate is not one where they could go without a group plan that they'd get at their employer.

<comment><USER12> Getting political for a moment... it's disturbing that we've had health care fundamentally tied to employment (in the US) for decades now. I don't quite know how you break this down. I wouldn't think it has to be 'single-payer' to get past this but... I don't know.

> for many people, currently the climate is not one where they could go > without a group plan that they'd get at their employer.

It's been this way for decades. 20+ years ago I remember talking to people about freelancing, or starting their own business, and the same reasons came up "Oh, i've got this medical condition" or "we can't afford to lose this insurance".

I can't speak to the 60s or 70s, but for the bulk of my adult life where I've been aware of this issue, it's been like this. :(

<comment><USER13> > I wouldn't think it has to be 'single-payer' to get past this but... I don't > know.

For a start, eliminate the tax discrimination that makes employer paid health insurance cheaper.

<comment><USER12> From a tax standpoint, as an independent contractor, my premiums are 100% deductible. But I don't get any sort of 'group rate' discount.

<comment><USER13> But for regular employees there's a different tax treatment when they pay for their own health insurance, isn't it? (Not an American myself.)

<comment><USER12> I have to assume their is, if you're purchasing directly for yourself, but are also considered a full-time employee of an employer that doesn't offer it to you.

Hrm... found this, to explain it...

[http://www.healthedeals.com/articles/are-health-insurance- pr...](http://www.healthedeals.com/articles/are-health-insurance-premiums- deductible)

" if you're self-employed and claiming the self-employed health insurance deduction on Form 1040, you don't have to exceed the 10 percent mark. That's because you're writing the premiums off as an adjustment to your income rather than as a deduction."

This is what I do.

The standard approach many folks take is to "take a deduction" (which occurs at a different point in the tax calculating) - and for that, you can only deduct any amount that exceeds 10% of your "adjusted gross income". In my case, I'm adjusting the gross income by deducting the insurance expense there. That may only be something I can do because I'm not an employee of anyone? I do this every year and it's still confusing as heck to me.

But the original point stands - anyone that is purchasing health insurance should be able to not pay any tax on the premiums. Or... no one should be able to(employee, employer, freelance). Level playing field theory and all that jazz...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The advice I always give to a new college grad is try and get a job at one of the big tech companies.

The work and the mission may not be exciting, but there is huge room for growth and often the large companies have programs especially designed for career growth for new college grads.

But don't get stuck. The job will comfortable. After a few years it's time to move on. Maybe you've found a few folks to cofound with, or maybe you just have a good lead on a much bigger role. But the only way to really advance is to leave — most big companies have artificial limits on salary growth and promotions. You can always go back later.

<comment><USER15> It sounds very stressful to work at a major company

<comment><USER16> Eh. Having worked at a Defense Company, a unicorn and then a Big 5 tech company I can honestly say the work life balance is probably the best at the the Big 5.

At Defense companies you're both clearly a cost center and a cog in an unfathomably large machine. Imagine a combination of Kafkaesque and Chtulhu.

At a Unicorn. You learn a lot but only because you work insane hours. Also you're paid under market wages because your job is sexy.

<comment><USER17> Very much agree here. I've done the same to a lesser extent (defense contractor, maybe a Big 15, failed startup, and then freelancing).

Freelancing is pretty good in terms of work-life balance as well, although it can feel like an endless pursuit of finding projects (interviewing, selling yourself, etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Regardless of which path you'd like to go down, learn some basic financial planning, frugality, and learn to live like a miser. It'll pay dividends, both figuratively and literally.

Regarding the executive path, or more generally any management role, learn early on if it's for you. If you're the type that gets caught up in human interest stories, considers it inhumane to fire low performers, or generally believes in a sense of fairness to the world then forget about it and stick with being an employee. It's better for your own sanity.

<comment><USER19> For someone who recently graduated and quite clueless about financial planning, do you have some resources to get started?

<comment><USER18> The usual generic financial advice I give is:

\- Maximize every retirement vehicle offered to you (max 401k, HSA, etc).

\- Pretend that any money you sock away for retirement doesn't exist. This is best done with automated withdrawals so you never even consider it money in your checking account.

\- Learn to cook. This doesn't actually save much money at the individual level but is huge for families.

\- Set up separate accounts for expenses and savings. Most payroll setups allow you to automatically divert funds to multiple accounts. This lets you automatically put $X in your expense account and $TOTAL - $X in the savings account. Again, the idea is to never consider that money spendable. It goes into a lock box.

\- Shoot for a 50+% after tax savings rate. It sounds nuts but it's actually easier than you think. The key is to not bump up your expenses as your income increases. You might not be there when you first start out but if you're increasing earnings 5-10% per year you'll get there quite quickly (particularly in tech).

\- Never buy a new car. They're for chumps.

\- Never lease a new car. That's for the biggest chumps.

\- Once you've built up an 8 to 12 month nest egg of reserve cash, start allocating the rest in a diversified portfolio. Pick securities from the trading company that don't have transaction costs (large discount brokers usually have in house mirrors of popular ETFs for this).

Stick on this path and you'll eventually be sitting on a decent nest egg. Plus if you've reined in your expenses, if you decide to go the founder route you'll have plenty of runway to pursue your ideas.

<comment><USER20> > \- Never buy a new car. They're for chumps.

> \- Never lease a new car. That's for the biggest chumps.

Disagree on the leasing if you have your own company. The lease payments are all interest and deductible from your income. Sure, you don't end up with a car but if you do a 36 month lease, your new car is under warranty the whole time.

I've seen too many people suffer from the false economy of used cars. If you are lucky (or a skilled mechanic), you can benefit, but if not, the repair expenses and vehicle breakdowns become a large drain.

I agree that financing a new car is just a depreciation hole, but you need your wits to avoid being screwed over when getting a used car. You just never know what's been done to it.

<comment><USER21> > I've seen too many people suffer from the false economy of used cars

Just get a 1-2 year old low-mileage CPO vehicle. It should still have the original warranty active. Ideally you should also target brands with great warranties like Hyundai (100k miles/10 years). This is as far as I can tell close to the optimal financial strategy for car ownership.

Personally, though, I do buy new, and I pay cash so I never, ever have a car payment. I hate the feeling of paying off a car over years as it depreciates. I really prefer to just get it over with and then enjoy knowing that I totally own it, no strings attached.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I liked this essay better when Venkatesh Rao wrote it in 2009.

[https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER23> This should be the top comment. Three paths indeed.

</comment></comment><comment> Chiba-City I founded a company that helped many other 90-00's founders along with some legacy industries in crisis. I am a reader so I read many business books. But I missed two specific dynamics I wish I had known earlier.

First, executives will routinely attempt to take the founders' roles. Industries vary widely, but they are roughly "showy spenders" and not savers. Many have no experience in new ventures. They have ridden high and will panic against adversity. If they cannot flee in an overall industry downturn, they will feed on the founders. Be very careful to make "executive" expectations brutally clear and consequences for any and all hubris terminal.

Second, many founders want to be 1-hit wonders. Unlike our industry ecosystem building heroes, they are neither in the ecosystem nor interested in developing the ecosystem. They want in to get out ASAP. Their short termism sadly translates into teaching bad examples to employees.

Nevertheless, the information rich life of the "small rooms" where plans are crafted and industry roads remapped on whiteboards are truly the most wonderful teachers anyone can expect to access.

<comment><USER24> > "Be very careful to make "executive" expectations brutally clear and > consequences for any and all hubris terminal."

Any examples of how to "do it right?"

<comment> Chiba-City I wish I had a clear answer. We have to be nice enough to people, but we have a world of needy charlatans transacting for themselves with little concerns for outcomes, responsibilities and reputations.

Here are some ideas.

IBM's head of federal sales said make hires show their past tax forms. Her point was to remove any "cleverness" over negotiating salaries and outcome responsibilities. Negotiate serious matters "naked." Watch details like commute times, time consuming rituals or debt levels.

Reading and writing are paramount requisites of organizing. I would recommend seeking at minimum faithful business press readers who are not day traders.

Seek executives who show up for smart dialog at the office. Teams have to share the world and not just their own company. Smart people are team players who seek correction or validation.

Seek executives who apply methods they can describe. Beware the latest buzzword fads.

Places like SV, NYC Or BO have deep benches of worldly smarties. That worldly wiseness is important in a startup seeking relevance to very real supply chains in constant motion. Many job seekers at all levels are very narrow specialists who have "rounded themselves" adapting to roles deep inside very incestuous companies or industries. Those folks are motivated by popular delusions of "riches" or "wonders" hiding elsewhere.

Attrition is normal. But recruiting is costly and executive attrition is super costly for the teams and companies left behind.

Industries are all different. But enduring purpose, role and focus are good character attributes to seek in startup hires. That's not highly prized in our fast-transacting careless world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is a fourth path. _Levi Strauss_.

Don't get me wrong. The gold miners needed jeans and supplies. But Levi Strauss lived off them and not the reverse. So the fourth path is service providers: lawyers, accelerators, accountants, contractors, ..., even VCs to a degree. I think Silicon Valley has a competitive advantage in having the best but it is a different path. And as much experience as they have when I talk to them, they haven't done it themselves.

Well, most haven't. Ben Horowitz knows. Some know but most don't. That doesn't keep them from doing an awesome job. It's just a different path.

<comment><USER26> That would be a founder solving a specific problem by providing a service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can a failed, or mildy successful, founder jump to the exec track and get some level of success faster than if they had just set out on that path to begin with? I'm thinking of those people who have run a business for 3+ years before it tanks or who are looking for a new thing and just decide to leave

<comment><USER28> Isn't this the default route for failed founders?

I know a bunch of them now leading some divisions or branch offices.

<comment><USER27> Was thinking the default route would be to try again but if they didn't would it be a _faster_ way to climb to exec

<comment><USER28> I don't know...

It seemed to me that most people aren't 'serial entrepreneurs' they just heard of the success of SF tech founders, tried it at home, failed, marked it as something they weren't made for, went for a simpler job.

Also, some get a family and start to avoid risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When considering these different paths, it's also worth considering the kind of temperament one needs to have to be successful in each role.

Founders, from what I understand[1], tend to be high on the Big 5 Personality trait "openness", which has to do with creativity. Executives (and employees to an extent as well) who are successful tend to be high in trait "conscientiousness" which has to do with being hard working and orderly.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P830JMVeKLo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P830JMVeKLo)

</comment><comment><USER30> My experience has been that jumping from employee to any level of executive is the absolute hardest step, at least for me.

I think once you are a team lead and have some number of direct reports, you can then start jumping your way up that ladder. But going from 0 to 5 direct reports has often seemed impossible. I'd be open to tips on how to do it.

<comment><USER31> A manager isn't an executive. In addition to new skills, there are also mental shifts necessary at various stages in your career, as you climb to increasing levels of leadership.

You can see this on the IC track as well for top-tier tech companies - <USER2> is a step-function difference in mindset at certain levels.

Jumping from IC to line manager, as you suggest, is one; you need to recognize you are no longer shipping code but are shipping your team - they are your output, and their performance is how you are measured.

At director it switches again, you are responsible not precisely for the people but for your organization as a whole. There is an adage that you know you're a director after your first re-org and are moving people's names around as cells on a spreadsheet.

It changes again at VP, as an executive of the company you are responsible and accountable for an entire function. Excuses cease to matter, even external forces - you should have accounted for them. You are optimizing for the company's overall future and not your org or people.

This is a vastly simplified explanation, obviously.

<comment><USER30> You're saying what's necessary to do the job, not what's necessary to get it - which is my bigger problem. I don't feel that I want to remain an IC forever; become a true technical expert and honing that skill further is not a path that I personally want to focus on

<comment><USER24> The way to break free from the IC mold generally takes a combination of a few things:

1\. Interest in growing which you make known to those above you.

2\. Available positions (hard to grow into a manager when there is no manager role available or budget to support one)

3\. Understanding the difference between "strategy" and "tactics." They mean very different things, and as a manager, depending on the size company, you may be responsible for setting the strategy while your team executes on tactics.

4\. A demonstrated willingness and ability to put the company first and protect it. There is a lot of debate on this one and what it means, but generally those who do this get ahead faster than ones who don't, regardless of your viewpoints on whether that is right or not.

5\. A growing focus on process and where you team fits in with the rest of the company. By focusing on this, you can find ways to improve team efficiency and performance, and better interface with other departments. As a manager, your job is literally to improve the efficiency and performance of your team and be the glue to other teams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My dad refused promotion at CERN several times. He continued to work as a testing engineer, and would not climb the corporate ladder into management roles. That reduced his paycheck.

When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers. He learned an important lesson - working at a low level with only machines below you is a safe and stable job.

I want to do the same. I'm now 28, so I have plenty of flexibility. But I'm worried that as I get older, there will be more pressure to go into management instead of staying in engineering. Companies want fun, young engineers who know all the latest tech - they don't want experience at the technical level.

<comment><USER33> _When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers_

The truth is that most layoffs don't work like that, unfortunately. Members of the management class will generally try to protect their own, and they see engineers as mere blue-collar workers, no matter how skilled or qualified those engineers are. Yes, even software engineers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > The last thing I'll say is it takes time to be good at each role. When > you're in college there is this idea that you should take your 20s to > discover yourself and the find the work that is most enjoyable to you. The > problem is that if it takes 5-10 years to truly get good at something and > you spend 10 years discovering what you want to get good at…it's going to > take a long time for you to feel like a highly skilled productive person > (and to recieve the rewards that come with this). It's not that you > shouldn't explore, it's that you need to understand the costs of that > exploration and plan accordingly.

\---

This is an understatement that I see many new or junior developers completely missing. You don't magically become a rockstar. Working with rockstars is helpful, but it won't make _you_ a rockstar. Company name/brand is irrelevant to becoming a rockstar. It is all about practice solving hard problems, which takes lots of time and concentration. This is the only factor that separates the amazing developers from everybody else, and honestly most people don't have the discipline or personality to get there.

Actually, now that I think about, becoming an awesome developer is similar to the advice for becoming a successful founder. You, counter-intuitively, have to spend a lot of time doing things that don't scale. A good example is ignoring all those frameworks and abstractions so that you can really learn how the code actually works. If you expect tools to do your job for you or grow reliance upon some temporary artifact you aren't as strong or self- reliant developer.

In order to be a great executive you have to be a great employee. The military flavor of this is that you have to learn to follow before you can learn to lead. You have to know what your people are going through and be willing to step in and assist your people if the situation calls for it.

At some point a founder has to transition from _founder_ to _executive_ if their company is to grow or they are to keep their job. Promoting, building, and marketing a new production or solution is great, but at some point other people will do that for you. You must be able to lead these people, build confidence in the team, and provide proper direction. You have to be a leader.

</comment><comment><USER35> > • Often don't get a voice in major decisions – even when you "know the right > answer"

I'm not sure if the use of quotes here is intended to imply one doesn't actually know the right answer, but only feels that way. It's a particularly important point, I feel in my career I've met so many managers insecure in themselves that they would never consider listening to an idea from a report, not unless you can convince them it was their own idea.

<comment><USER36> There are a lot of insecure managers who don't want to be challenged on the merits of their decisions. There are also lots of individual contributors on teams who are strident in their beliefs even though they might be informed only from a narrow perspective.

If you're a manager, you can address this by inviting thoughtful debate and sharing information. But if you're a non-manager employee, you can't always rely on managers (even when they're good and capable) to have _time_ to deeply consider your ideas and share relevant info. Therefore, sometimes you have to accept that major decisions get made without your input.

Ideally you have managers you trust even when they make decisions you don't understand. In practice, getting that requires a willingness to move and enough social acumen that you're likely moving into management yourself.

<comment><USER35> What you're saying is true, you can't rely on your manager to always have time to listen to what you're saying.

But at the same time that doesn't mean what you're saying isn't something the manager should have made time to listen to.

Of course it's easy for me to criticize management when a lot of the startups I've worked at have gone out of business and a lot of the features I've been asked to build get canceled.

<comment><USER36> True. At the same time, even well managed startups are risky enterprises and we can't always be sure a feature is right before we ship it. (But we should try pretty hard.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Missed the all important contractor. More money, more control over types of projects taken but little control over actual project.

<comment><USER38> If I had to recommend any path, contractor would be at the bottom of the list. The stress, constantly shifting from one company to another, not knowing when you're going to land another client or if your contract will be extended, having to constantly look for new gigs, etc. Finding a new job is like moving. It just sucks all around. Being a contractor is like constantly having to find a new job.

<comment><USER39> I'd agree in theory. But if you're a good engineer in some tech hub like SF or London then finding new contracts will be very easy so it might be worth it in that case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of the Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. A great read: [https://www.amazon.com/Rich-CASHFLOW-QUADRANT-Robert- Kiyosak...](https://www.amazon.com/Rich-CASHFLOW-QUADRANT-Robert-Kiyosaki- ebook/dp/B00BFHV90W) You can either be an Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner or Investor.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think that the tech industry is unreasonably obsessed with A-list 'brand name' corporations.

I haven't worked for any A-list brand name companies (no Googles or Facebooks) but I've worked for quite a few B-list and C-list corporations and also some B-list startups as a software developer/engineer (including a YC startup) - The startups which I worked for the longest have grown very fast and are profitable.

In spite of this, the last time I was looking to switch companies, the only thing that prospective employers were interested in was my open source work. Nobody was interested in hearing more about the small startups I worked for which ended up becoming successful because they're not A-listers.

I know engineers who work for A-list companies (I've worked alongside some of them in the past), they're very good; but not different from engineers who work for B-list companies; maybe they're better at taking technical tests.

</comment><comment><USER42> There are paths to founder that do not require it to be "incredibly stressful".

Another pro for founder is that you can remove yourself from echo chambers if you choose. Maybe this falls under "Choose the people you work with".

<comment><USER43> My experience is that to be a successful founder you have to be "on call" pretty much 24/7 as you never know when either a major opportunity or a major crisis will arise. People handle situations and stress differently, so this may be more of a burden for some than others.

<comment><USER44> This was my experience. I had a relatively successful period as Startup founder, and was able to put away some retirement money.

Then instead of doing another startup, I took a less stressful job for less money, and enjoyed my family time.

As a founder I never really had a day off for 5 years. Even if I was "taking a vacation", my laptop was never always in a backpack within 20 feet from me for emergencies, and my mind was always focused on the consequences of failure. For me it was living in fear, even during success.

Some people are more optimistic. They don't feel stress in the same way. I think that is a KEY ingredient in being a successful founder long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> What about the world of contracting? You can also be someone who has flexibility on where/ when they work and for who, and it's probably a more viable 'path' in tech than in any other industry.

Since the vast majority of founders fail, having significant financial cushions from your family or years working prior is probably the top pre- requisite if 'founder' is your path.

<comment><USER46> Contracting is good, but there is a trap. If you find yourself as a contractor and the market crashes, finding new contracts is much more difficult. At least I experienced this during the dot bomb / 911 collapse in 2001. Also, you have to pay for your health insurance, which is getting crazy expensive, and only gets more expensive as you get older. Make sure you adjust your rate accordingly.

This may or may not apply to all locations and all collapses, but expect collapses to happen every 8-10 years.

<comment><USER47> It's possible to switch to _not_ being a contractor.

I'm also not all that certain that down markets don't hit all categories with similar force. Contractors may be cut slightly earlier (discretionary spending), but that depends on contracting terms and duration (there are set- length contracts), and as a bonus might be hired back earlier.

Much depends on whether or not you have a specific skillset that's in demand, and know how to market it effectively. And that's regardless of your employment terms.

<comment><USER48> > _It 's possible to switch to not being a contractor._

Sure, but during an economic contraction is typically not a good time!

<comment><USER47> It depends, much of that on your relationship with clients and their own savvy.

If you're a valued contributor and your client is aware of that, they may be able to swing things. That may end up being a zero-sum game, with existing headcount being eliminated. Much depends on the organisation's own policies and savvy.

It's an argument for maintaining good relations, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a > company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably > the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money

I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will _reduce_ your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing costs out here in the Bay Area, the long commute (wear and tear on vehicles) and the massive local and state taxes, it's almost impossible to save.

<comment><USER50> 80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k

Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'

<comment><USER51> Pre or post-tax, and at what standard of living? Weather aside, you can get significantly better housing/schools/daycare/whatever for that 80k elsewhere than you can for 160k in the Bay Area. If you're young and single this is probably a non-factor, but for people >30 it can be significant.

<comment><USER50> Very true on the having kids part. But you typically have 7 years of your life before you reach 30.

Probably contributes to the logan's run effect you see in SV tech companies ;)

What I've seen from colleagues with kids is the spouse also works some sort of 6 figure job and they either commute a lot or bought a house before it got extra crazy. Like one who bought a $600-700k TIC around the Haight ~4 years ago. Or they sacrifice their living standard somehow. The current family set you see today bought when it was more affordable.

<comment><USER51> Good points on how families in the Bay Area are setup today or established themselves a few years ago. To be fair, though, you have 37 years of employment after you reach 30... It's kind of scary to think about the Bay Area being a good place to establish yourself for only 15% of your career. Logan's Run effect indeed.

<comment><USER52> Good developers can make way, way more than 160k total comp without much effort in the Bay Area. Not at startups, so if you want to earn lots of money, don't join a startup.

You have to be good, and work hard, but I know lots and lots and lots of tech workers who are single earners with kids and a house they didn't buy before the boom.

<comment><USER50> I agree, but people would of started coming out of the woodwork and giving me even more exceptions to the rule and how it's unrealistic, so I did the startup lower bound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> A good read. What about very stable high paying non-tech jobs in very techicnal companies? That is the advice i looked for.

Sales/marketing, finance, investor relations, training/ hr, event planning, etc

For me back 25 years ago, the thought of being in my 40s & 50s learning the latest version was tiring.

CEOs back then came from finance or marketing.

</comment><comment><USER54> Needs a consultant path. I think once you drank the koolaid too many times, you just get apathetic.

</comment><comment><USER55> > Executive (Senior Manager at a Large Company)

> A higher likelihood of having a huge impact (given that most startups fail).

I think it's important to note that regarding money, starting a company does have a very high _expected value_. It's just that it's high risk-high reward, which makes it a bad fit for people with lower risk tolerances. But if your goal is to have as big an impact on the world as possible, risk doesn't matter too much.

[https://80000hours.org/2012/01/salary-or-startup-how-do- good...](https://80000hours.org/2012/01/salary-or-startup-how-do-gooders-can- gain-more-from-risky-careers)

</comment><comment><USER56> Lately I'm getting less emotional about this stuff, and realizing that the market is probably smarter than me. If skilled businesspeople, politicians, and people managers are more rewarded by the market, they are probably more valuable to more of society, or at least the parts with money to give. The elite probably choose to have their children educated in the humanities rather than the sciences for a reason. Given that an entry level software development job will give me enough money to sustain myself indefinitely while saving a lot, I'm investing in these areas rather than being upset. My logical reasoning skills (as I can observe them through my performance at chess or math, two of my hobbies) seem to be improving anyway.

</comment><comment><USER57> I am an ambitious employee at a large tech company and I think about this a lot.

I am living my dream life. I'm 26 and about to break 200k base salary. I have been programming for fun since I was 13 and I enjoy most of what I do every day. I feel myself growing both technically and in soft skills. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week but I still feel very productive. I'm receiving excellent feedback and am being groomed for engineering management. I walk to work, the grocery store, and the weed store. I have time outside of work to focus on self improvement, fitness, and side projects.

But then my acquintance tells me he bought a house in cash after earning XX million from their startup and I feel I'm completely off track.

</comment><comment><USER58> How about the good old humble entrepreneur? You have a little bit of each category. In contrast to the founder of a startup, you are not going for exponential growth or a buy-out, but for a steady income. You'll have both technical and business tasks, but you can offload some to employees or contractors, so you can choose where your focus is to some extent.

</comment><comment><USER59> You forgot outsourcer/contractor. The company I work for has no one that can code iOS or Android apps, we outsource everything on Odesk and mark up the price, of course the quality is crap too. But since we can delete Google reviews and push down Yelp reviews and disable reviews on Facebook, everything is fine :/

</comment><comment><USER60> I've worked for startups for 30+ years. I've seen this industry from before the dotcom era into the cryptocurrency era (and I work in crypto now.)

Here's my perspective-

\-- Experience is undervalued by people who don't have it. It is critical for a startup. You don't all have to be experienced, but get someone who has experience. One of the real killers of startups is bad management, and one of the causes of bad management is management by instinct, especially terrible is "type a" CEOs (to pick a stereotype for succinctness sake only) whose management history was being president of a frat in college, telling software engineers how to build product, but he knows nothing about software.

\-- Experience as an executive who didn't start out as an individual contributor is not experience. If you cannot do your subordinates jobs, you cannot manage them effectively, unless you have a subordinate who _can_ do the jobs (like a lead) who you manage.

\-- Your CEO needs to be proficient in the unique value of the company. EG: If you are a sales organization you need to have a CEO who is a proficient sales person. Apple needed a proficient CEO when it was an engineering / product organization (and Steve Jobs was that- not as a good an engineer as Woz but he knew electronics and software development) ... but now Tim Cook is a proficient supply chain master and that's what Apple needs to thrive now. As a startup your CEO needs to be able to build the product. Or he will make bad decisions.

\-- Founders give investors way too much power. They seem to think that investors are an old boys club that decides who wins and loses. In the valley for BS startups that's maybe true- you can get BS money until you make it. But if you're not a Golden Child then you need to get traction and revenue, and you always, always, want to be in the drivers seat for investment. You never want to need it.

I've seen so many VC and even lately angel deals with terrible terms that I'm convinced the reason being a founder is not as remunerative as it should be is founders signing bad deals desperate to keep the company going.

Always keep your burn rate low.

When I was making minimum wage in college I was ecstatic because I could afford to go see a movie in the theater every week. That was "luxury" for me. As my income grew, I kept my definition of "luxury" well below my income. This produced savings. Those savings helped greatly in lean times.

Run your business that way. You may be able to grow to 100 people now, but don't, grow to 70 or whatever, so you have more cushion.

If your hiring is ahead of your traction you're probably not hiring the right people anyway.

</comment><comment><USER61> I am curious if anyone has gone from employee(engineering) and then to founder and failed and if you were able to seamlessly go back to engineering where you left off career-wise and pay-wise. Is it a concern?

</comment><comment><USER62> "Founder" path focuses on start-up. What about small business, as a consulting shop or a dev shop, that has a very different risk/reward ratio?

</comment><comment><USER63> What if you had executives that actually understood the tech behind it? Isn't that also the point of the CTO being an important role in a company?

</comment><comment><USER64> _Employee (individual contributor / middle manager) Pro: More work and fewer meetings_

LOL, IF ONLY!

Another example that people in silicon valley (and yc in particular) have no idea what goes on in the real world.

(HN reply in one window, with skype and webex open in 2 other windows, my 5th and 6th meetings today. I've been on HN for 10 years with over 5,000 contributions, almost all while in meetings, ignoring talking heads and engaging you guys. You don't actually believe I'd be here if I had meaningful work to do, do you?)

<comment><USER65> Individual contributors where I work have significantly fewer meetings than people who choose the leadership route.

What makes my company less real world than yours?

<comment><USER66> As soon as I indicated I would try exploring the leadership path (I had originally intended to only progress as an individual contributor, but I'm bored and I'll learn any skills I can at this point), my managers gave me the role and immediately I was swamped with meetings. I don't resent it, but I'm going to see if I can push to streamline the behaviors that lead to this. My time is now even more precious than ever and I have to find ways to reclaim it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Can't help but this Comma in "Founder, Executive, or Employee " after " Executive" bugs me...

<comment><USER68> Welcome to the wonder world of the Oxford Comma...a source of debate perhaps rivaled only by the great Emacs vs Vim wars...

[https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma- and-...](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do- people-care-so-much-about-it/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> You can easily be all three in the course of a single lifetime. It's not a choice between those three.

</comment><comment><USER70> In this life you're either a soldier for someone, a leader for someone, or a dead man.

</comment><comment><USER71> the dao of SV - a colleague/peer of mine in employee trenches couple jobs back become CTO in his next gig and a co-founder of the next gig after that, already a unicorn just in a few years ...

</comment><comment><USER72> What would you say maximizes your expected financial returns?

<comment> FLUX-YOU Safe is being an employee. Risk is the other direction. How much risk you can tolerate is up to you and how much you have in assets, savings, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> And independent consultant. Which I guess is founder?

</comment><comment><USER74> So why aren't there any tech co-ops?

</comment><comment><USER75> what about...

• freelancer • advisor • fractional cto • performance consultant • various other vendors

</comment><comment><USER76> What about the consultant path?

</comment><comment><USER77> Consultant.

</comment><comment><USER78> Where is the freelance path?

</comment><comment><USER79> Missing from the strategies for the first two (really all three): come from wealthy background.

<comment><USER80> not really.

my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the dollar store was where we went shopping. today, i'm somewhere between employee and executive [limited only by personal preference of work/life balance] thanks to my parents; my children will certainly have it easier than my folks or i ever did. but to say that it was because of some innate wealth misses the mark.

<comment><USER81> > but to say that it was because of some innate wealth misses the mark

I'm not sure it misses the mark. All data show that wealth carries over multiple generations. That doesn't mean that non wealthy can't make it, just that wealthiest will, on average or even probably some p95 and up metric.

And wealth should be put into perspective, its often more to do with the surrounding education of the wealthy. If your surrounding growing up ran businesses of their own, knew how to manage people, understood finance, investments, calculating risks, knew about markets and business, had connections, that's a great environment to learn the same from. You mentioned both your parents had technical university degrees, so you had some advantage there.

Everyone can give it a shot, we have equal opportunity, but not equal challenges to face. You making it out of less is double awesome to you, even if maybe you felt it was easy, dunno, its still a hard thing you did, harder then if you had come from a more supportive environment.

<comment><USER80> certainly i'm not saying that prior wealth does not play a major factor or isn't strongly correlated, but it is not a prerequisite by any stretch, which was my interpretation of the comment.

<comment><USER82> I have the same background as you. Crimea, not Moscow.

Americans will never understand. Our parents stood in breadlines. We are making six figures in America.

It's not about wealth. It's about a culture that respects hard work, education, and opportunity.

<comment><USER83> Same background here. China, not Moscow or Crimea

I worry about the next generation. They say that wealth skips every other generation, because if a child grows up in a well-to-do family, they will not value hard work as much.

<comment><USER84> > They say that wealth skips every other generation

Strangely, in all the empirical studies of socioeconomic status and its relations to family and environment, I've ever seen one detect that effect.

I suspect that the popular saying really just reflects that parents and children have high contact and lots of friction, and grandparents and grandchildren less so, and nothing about the reality of wealth or hard work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> As an Executive, I find the other two to be painful to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER86> مصطفى عبد الله

</comment><comment><USER86> Rayed

</comment><comment><USER86> ايمل

</comment><comment><USER87> For the OP, I see some good news:

Generally there is better advice!

=== Startup Big Point

Here is a big, huge, gigantic point about doing a startup and owning 100% of it: In broad terms, that's the American way!

Or, it's obvious; just look: All across the US, east to west, north to south, from an isolated house in the woods to a crossroads up to the largest cities, sole, solo entrepreneurs start and run successful businesses. No biggie. No tech. No MBA. No venture funding. No team of co-founders. By the millions -- wrong, by the 10s of millions. If that was so difficult to do, then there wouldn't be tens of millions of people doing it.

=== US Mainline Business

What do they do?

Mow grass -- the ones on my street show up with $100+ K of capital equipment counting the truck, the trailer, the mowers, etc.

Note: Now $100 K will pay for one heck of a powerful Web server farm; if you can keep that farm busy, then just at standard ad rates you have nearly a license to print money. Or, for computing, $100 K in capital equipment is now a LOT.

Do auto body repair.

Do other auto repair.

Sell car tires.

Add asphalt to driveways.

Do landscaping, architecture to grass mowing, for good customers, e.g., any company with nice grounds.

A dentist.

A CPA.

A pizza carryout.

A Chinese food carryout.

An Italian red sauce restaurant.

A manufacturer's representative.

A local wholesale plumbing, electrical, building materials supplier.

A wide range of what can be called _big truck, little truck_ businesses -- buy stuff delivered in a big truck and sell it out of a little truck.

Run several fast food restaurants, gas stations with convenience stores, etc.

And on and on.

Generally these businesses have one of the most powerful advantages in all of business -- a strong barrier to entry. That barrier is, and may I have the envelope, please [drum roll], geographical, that is, the businesses are not in competition with anyone more than 100 miles away. In particular they are 100% immune to competition from China. If they are in Tennessee, then they have no competition with anyone in NYS or CA. Etc. So, if they can do comparatively well in a radius of 100 miles, then they can do well for their career.

A huge fraction of the people who pay full tuition for their children at private universities did not take venture capital, did not have co-founders, didn't get an MBA or a STEM field college degree, were nearly never an employee, and were not close to any of the scenarios in the OP.

Okay, that, my friends, is American Business 101 Facts of Life. That's the overwhelmingly popular version of US business and, indeed, US careers. Nothing else even comes close. And the OP is far away from that.

So, take that US business 101 and, with computing, try to do more -- the computing should be an advantage.

=== Being an Executive

Okay, briefly, for being an executive: No security. None. Zip, zilch, zero. No matter what. Instead are an _at will_ employee that at any time can be fired for any reason or no reason. Biggie reasons for getting fired: (A) As in the OP, office politics. E.g., there's gossip (you get accused, tried, convicted, and fired all while knowing nothing about it). (B) The company does poorly. (C) The company does fairly well but gets bought out by another company. (D) The owner has a son and wants to give him your job. Etc. The crucial point is, you don't own the business.

Just as an _executive_ , your skills, alliances, knowledge of your current job, etc. anywhere else with a dime usually won't cover a 10 cent cup of coffee.

Is there a way? Okay, be in sales and have a nice list of your accounts that do well. You don't really want to be the sales manager, just a good sales guy. If your employer goes out of business, gets bought out, etc., then take your customer list to whatever company in the industry wants to server your customer list. Be sure the industry will be solid even if your employer might not be.

There's just no magic to being an executive. And there's nearly no power; instead your job is to get along, go along, and hope nothing bad happens. If you sponsor a new project and it fails, then you have a black mark on your record, and everyone else has an excuse to gang up to fire you. If the project is successful, then you have jealous enemies all the way to and including the BoD.

Part of this is the fact that currently the US economy has about 94 million people out of the labor force. So, mostly, there's no shortage.

Currently it's too common for Mr. Big CEO to wake up, have a bad day, look at his budget and organization, draw a big X, and say "Off with their heads." In this way big, famous companies have suddenly fired dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people. E.g., at one time, as computing was roaring ahead, IBM suddenly went from 407,000 employees down to 209,000. They cleaned out rush hour traffic over big parts of NY, CT, and NJ.

Another time, at IBM Research, a group of about 100 people got into serious political trouble, and when the dust settled a lot of managers were demoted or fired and a about half of the rest, about have high-end Ph.D. holders, were fired. It was all about work-place politics, cliques fighting each other, etc.

Sure, decades ago lots of people could join a company and work until a nice retirement. Things changed slowly. E.g., could work for Sears for decades and retire. Sears? It's about to go belly up, totally. No more; that's rarely the case now. If you really want that, then: (A) Work for a company, e.g., a public utility, where the employees have a strong union and join the union. E.g., at one time could do that with the Bell System. Alas, even Ma Bell didn't last. A local water company might be better. Be careful about a local electric utility since that industry might change a lot before you get to retire. (B) Work for government, local, state, or Federal. Remember, though, even working for government have to be careful about the slot. E.g., don't be a civilian Civil Service employee for the US military: Then some military officer is running the place; they likely have their job changed each two years or so; so a new guy comes in and quickly doesn't like you or your job, and you are OUT. So, each two years you have to sell yourself to another person you never met before. That person can make a big mistake firing you, but, then, you are still fired. So, for a 40 year career, you have to sell yourself to 20 people you never met before, and you have to be 100% successful in all 20 attempts. That's not good job security. (C) Work for, say, some very solid, stable financial institution, maybe The Ford Foundation.

Officer in the US military? Every now and then you are up for promotion, and if you get passed over three times or some such, then you are out. So, as time goes on, the many lower level officers become many fewer upper level officers. It's not at all clear which lower level officers will leave; it is totally clear that nearly all of them will.

Net, it's better to be a non-commissioned officer, e.g., a sergeant where you can keep your job. Even if you get 4 stars, like General Mattis, you can be out because someone up there didn't like you.

Some private companies have personnel policies similar to the military for their officers: They hire lots of people in their 20s, and by age 35 they are in management or out the door. It's not at all clear who will be out the door, but it's totally clear that nearly all of them will be. A lot of those people would be better off in their 20s starting and growing a grass mowing service, quite literally: There's a good geographical barrier to entry, and the grass will keep growing. Commonly in the US, a Ph.D. in electronic engineering will have a better long term career as a licensed electrician. No joke.

I know a guy, bright enough, who got a Master's in environmental engineering. His real career was as a plumber and installer of home heating systems.

=== Being a Founder

What the OP says about being a founder is quite narrow.

I have a high school friend. His father was selling beer for a small brewery. The brewery went out of business, but he knew a lot of people in the beer business. He went to the NW corner of his state, arranged to distribute about six brands of beer (right, the beer came to his warehouse on a railroad siding via railroad freight car) and sold out of little trucks. Somehow people still like beer! He passed the business down to his son. People still like beer! Good business. Darned good business.

If want to go into computing, then be sure you have an even better business than selling beer.

The OP wants to say that the business idea in computing is not very important. IMHO, that's mostly nonsense.

Sure, if want only routine technology, then the OP comments about employees, teams, etc. are important. But a business with only routine technology tends to have a darned small barrier to entry. Sure, one of the best barriers to entry was virality from a social network with a strong network effect, but that's path seems to be about saturated.

Again, there are 94 million people out of the labor force. So, if you want a job as founder of a successful business, then, IMHO, need to do something new and powerful with a good barrier to entry. Basically you have to plow new ground in US business, have to do something those 94 million don't know how to do.

</comment><comment><USER33> _Producing results isn't necessarily how you move up the corporate ladder. Internal politics are usually as important, if not more so_

For those kinds of people, that should be listed as a pro rather than a con. A job you can do purely by schmoozing and not producing is exactly what they want!

</comment><comment><USER88> The lack of even a nod to diversity issues (race, gender, class, etc.) that the tech industry is dealing (or not dealing with) is tone deaf and insulting to the extreme.

<comment><USER89> This insistence that everything always has to be about diversity is both insulting and counter-productive. Maybe some of the time we can talk about things that work for all people?

<comment><USER90> That's exactly what diversity is about -- taking the status quo and changing it to something that works for all people.</comment></comment></comment>


Gawker Media Employees Vote to Form a Union, and the Bosses Approve - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/business/gawker-media-employees-vote-to-form-a-union-and-the-bosses-approve.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe they'll also vote to create well done and actual journalism and the content which goes with such commitment and resist the urge for click-baiting and taking sides...

I don't really care how they self organize and how they decide to do labor bargaining.

As a reader I care if they can be actual journalists, people who can take time to collect the major facts or aspects of a story and not intentionally by ideology stress one aspect over another or ignore one aspect over another. If you want to have opinions do that in the editorial section -where I'd expect a mix of views, some I agree with some I disagree with.

I don't want their "narrative" or anyone else's.

<comment><USER3> Why should the Gawker network do "actual journalism" if that need's already met by major outlets?

Granted, there are listicle happy properties (Lifehacker), but Gawker et al. filled a void with it's meta-criticism of news. It's not rare for Gawker to cover topics that are too risky for major outlets. Take for example the sports property, deadspin. I read deadspin and the deadspin writers broach newsworthy topics that would get an ESPN writer not only "banned from the clubhouse" but suspended by HQ in order to appease the team/league. Deadspin provides signal that major outlets would otherwise avoid or over-cook.

Not to over-shill for Gawker, but the commenters are pretty educated and won't let the authors off the hook if the author leaves holes in their argument. I submit that your poop should flow further down the news hill to sites like Vice.com where NYT super-journos call them out for looking at poop[1].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLmkec_4Rfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLmkec_4Rfo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm always surprised about the strong feelings about unions in the US. Coming from Sweden which have 70% of the workforce belonging to a union I have a hard time understanding why unions is a bad thing.

Isn't it easier to handle one union that represents your workers than having to deal with all workers one on one?

Why are US companies afraid of unions?

<comment><USER5> I've never been to Sweden, so I don't know what Swedish unions are like, but unions in the US are usually terrible. Typically, they're structured as one worker, one vote, and I think what typically happens is:

\- The union asks for workers to be paid above market rate. The company, of course, has limited resources. So the company agrees to pay union members more, but at the expense of newly hired workers, who aren't in the union and so don't get a vote. The end result is that, after a few decades of this, pay is based entirely on seniority and no one has a reason to do good work.

\- The union asks for more benefits. The company, again, has limited resources. So the company and the union agree to lavish retirement plans, which will only have high costs decades later, after the majority of current workers have retired. When the company goes bankrupt and restructures retirement, the newer workers get screwed, but they weren't working there at the time and so didn't get to vote on it. The management who agreed to the expensive plans is sitting pretty, despite having bankrupted the company, since they are typically older and are now retired too.

\- A lousy worker's vote counts just as much as a good one's. On the other hand, a good worker who might replace the lousy worker isn't employed at that company, and so doesn't get a vote. Hence, the union gradually creates protections that make current workers almost impossible to fire, while good workers who might replace them remain out of a job.

(Examples available ad nauseam.)

It's what you'd expect from democracy, really - if you give the vote to everyone in a group and nobody outside, that group will enrich itself at the expense of everyone not currently in it. (This is, I suspect, why most Western countries have such horrible immigration policies.)

If Sweden's found a way to fix these problems while still having unions, that's great, but I don't think Americans have yet.

EDIT: There are American unions, like the Screen Actors Guild, that seem like exceptions to this. However, actors don't work for the same company for 45 years, which you'd expect to make all the above problems much less bad.

<comment><USER6> That's a bit like' saying only bad people benefit from lawyers in court. The point is you have to defend every one equally even if they are as guilty as sin.

And of course employers are saying they cant afford it that is the "line" they have to run in public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _It was very simple things like severance if you get fired, things like > having clearer salary minimums for each position, a clearer way to talk > about raises, promotions_

That's what employers should pay attention to. It seems like simple stuff that _every_ employer should already have.</comment>


LESS CSS - Ruby gem to do more - <AUTHOR> http://lesscss.org/

<comment><USER2> I started using Less for a new project. It worked great until a new version came out with some nice new features that I immediatly used, but also with a bug where it replaced all the plus signs in my base64 data strings with spaces, totally breaking them. Since then I've been doing line by line commits to get around the problem, but hopefully it gets fixed soon!

</comment><comment><USER3> Could someone who has used LESS and SASS compare the two?

<comment><USER2> You can do all the important things that Sass can do, but with the added benefit that CSS is also valid Less.</comment></comment>