I've worked in startups my entire adult life and, please take my word for this, there is nothing magical about startup bosses that change the dynamic between employer and employee, and there are no special obligations startup employees shoulder.
If you give 12 months notice, you should prepare to be marginalized in your last year at the company. If you give 2 weeks notice, you should not expect to be blackballed in the industry. If someone gives you a bad reference for giving "only" 2 weeks notice, you should urge your friends never to work for that person again; if a prospective employer makes a stink about that kind of reference, you should avoid working for that employer.
Tech startup employers are fond of a "third-prize-is-you're-fired", "reward for just OK is a severance package" mentality. They don't feel like they owe you a year's advance notice about their plans. Stay professional, but don't bend over backwards for an employer unless you have a specific, personal reason for doing so. "That's how it works in startups" is not a valid reason.
And please, please remember: it is a seller's market for talent.
If you give 12 months notice, you should prepare to be marginalized in your last year at the company.
I gave 12 months notice when working for a startup before leaving for graduate school, and I wasn't "marginalized" at all. Giving my employer plenty of notice gave us time to talk about whether I really wanted to go to grad school (I did); to find a replacement (which I helped with); and to transition projects to other people. It also helped my employer plan: if you have a small technical team and a major contributor leaves, most startups would like more than two weeks to find a good replacement.
Any startup that "marginalizes" an employee who gives extra notice would be petty and small-minded: the employee is doing you a favor. Besides, by marginalizing you, they'd just be wasting the time you have remaining at the company.
If you love your current employer and want to do them a favor, give them lots of notice. I'm not saying you're a crazy person for doing that. I'm saying it's a poor rule of thumb. You are not obligated to give huge amounts of notice to your employer.
I'm an employer. I've had people give me 2 weeks of notice at extremely inopportune times. I am good for a solid recommendation for all of them. You don't dick around with people's careers.
Consider also the flip side of this issue. If you give me 2 months notice, and I need someone for a solid 4 months to execute a project, I may have to start recruiting now to fill that slot in time. We can talk all we want about the sacred bonds of trust between startup founder and startup employee, but none of that competes with the requirement to keep feeding and providing health care for the families of everyone else who works at the company.
No one (certainly not the original article) has suggested that employees should be "obligated to give huge amounts of notice" to their employers. Dixon's point is just that the legalistic, "by the books" approach that is orthodox at a big faceless corporation isn't always the best strategy in a startup.
I'm an employer. I've had people give me 2 weeks of notice at extremely inopportune times.
Right; I certainly wouldn't expect a bad recommendation if I did that. On the other hand, if I recognized that only giving two weeks notice would be inconvenient for my employer, and if it wouldn't be problematic for me, I think giving more notice is just a decent and honest thing to do.
For this reason, if you are an employee working at a startup where the managers are honest, inclusive and fair, you should disregard everything you’ve learned about proper behavior from people outside of the startup world.
For example, let’s suppose you are a two years out of college and have a job at a startup. You like your job but decide you want to go to graduate school. The big company legalistic types will tell you to secretly send in your applications, and, if you get accepted and decide to attend, give your boss two weeks notice.
What you should instead do is talk to your boss as soon as you are seriously considering graduate school.
He states in the article that giving your boss advanced notice is based on the relationship you have with him/her.
ITA: "(Now don’t get me wrong: if you work for bosses who have a legalistic, transactional mindset, by all means give two weeks notice. I gave 4 months notice once to a boss with that mindset and was duly punished for it. But hopefully if you are at a startup you work with people who have the startup, relationship-centric mindset.)"
I've worked in startups my entire adult life and, please take my word for this, there is nothing magical about startup bosses that change the dynamic between employer and employee, and there are no special obligations startup employees shoulder.
If you give 12 months notice, you should prepare to be marginalized in your last year at the company. If you give 2 weeks notice, you should not expect to be blackballed in the industry. If someone gives you a bad reference for giving "only" 2 weeks notice, you should urge your friends never to work for that person again; if a prospective employer makes a stink about that kind of reference, you should avoid working for that employer.
Tech startup employers are fond of a "third-prize-is-you're-fired", "reward for just OK is a severance package" mentality. They don't feel like they owe you a year's advance notice about their plans. Stay professional, but don't bend over backwards for an employer unless you have a specific, personal reason for doing so. "That's how it works in startups" is not a valid reason.
And please, please remember: it is a seller's market for talent.