Health insurance and housing instability is a huge risk. Not to mention the weaker pay and corporate structure.
If company explodes within 4 years (like most startups), I'm off interviewing again, and my family relies on my health insurance for substantial coverage, as well as paying housing costs. Obamacare is getting gutted as we speak, so it might as well not exist.
if you want to change the game, set up a standard small company health insurance group and offer entrance to all employees and their families, regardless of pre-ex condition or whattever. So long as you find work for a company signed up with that group within, say 12 months from company collapse/being fired/whatever, you keep coverage. Effectively decouple employment from health insurance. Give me the ability to lose employment for whatever reason (remember, Fire Fast is a popular creed) without putting my family at risk of bankruptcy or losing our house, and I'll be far more interested in working for a startup.
Similarly, YC needs to contemplate pushing remote work hard on its companies. The amount of money I would have to ask for to live in the SFBA with, again, hedging the risk of company collapse or being fired is absolutely absurd.
There's extremely little upside for me to take the enormous risk of being poorly managed, company doing wrong decisions, market not being there, etc. The liklihood is that I lose money, my bosses are very inexperienced, and the business doesn't fly. Maybe I am a reasonably early stage employee and walk out with a $0.5m check (this is a reasonable ballpark for an IC). That's cute... RSUs from major employers equal that for reasonably senior ICs. Without the risk.
For comp, you will need to jack up equity substantially - probably some kind of preferred share not subject to clawbacks (I remember well how Skype took advantage of ICs) - as well as meeting the cash salary of the big players. This hedges the risk of the company exploding.
These days, I generally only talk to startups who are past their A round, have paying customers, and reasonably experienced engineering management. And I expect market comp as well as a well seasoned benefits plan.
If company explodes within 4 years (like most startups), I'm off interviewing again, and my family relies on my health insurance for substantial coverage, as well as paying housing costs. Obamacare is getting gutted as we speak, so it might as well not exist.
if you want to change the game, set up a standard small company health insurance group and offer entrance to all employees and their families, regardless of pre-ex condition or whattever. So long as you find work for a company signed up with that group within, say 12 months from company collapse/being fired/whatever, you keep coverage. Effectively decouple employment from health insurance. Give me the ability to lose employment for whatever reason (remember, Fire Fast is a popular creed) without putting my family at risk of bankruptcy or losing our house, and I'll be far more interested in working for a startup.
Similarly, YC needs to contemplate pushing remote work hard on its companies. The amount of money I would have to ask for to live in the SFBA with, again, hedging the risk of company collapse or being fired is absolutely absurd.
There's extremely little upside for me to take the enormous risk of being poorly managed, company doing wrong decisions, market not being there, etc. The liklihood is that I lose money, my bosses are very inexperienced, and the business doesn't fly. Maybe I am a reasonably early stage employee and walk out with a $0.5m check (this is a reasonable ballpark for an IC). That's cute... RSUs from major employers equal that for reasonably senior ICs. Without the risk.
For comp, you will need to jack up equity substantially - probably some kind of preferred share not subject to clawbacks (I remember well how Skype took advantage of ICs) - as well as meeting the cash salary of the big players. This hedges the risk of the company exploding.
These days, I generally only talk to startups who are past their A round, have paying customers, and reasonably experienced engineering management. And I expect market comp as well as a well seasoned benefits plan.