I’m biased because I run a startup and have only ever worked at startups. But I’d say it basically comes down to different strokes.
If you’re in it just for the money AND you have the background and interviewing skills to get a job at a FAANG then you’re better off doing that, you’ll make far more money.
For me though, there’s not many salaries that don’t end in “million” that you could pay me to work at a FAANG. Not only because I mentally couldn’t deal with the people (see Apple’s latest debacle), but because your impact is essentially meaningless. Working on some tiny little fraction of a fraction of a feature means I’d basically have to not give a shit about my job.
At that point you’re just a wage slave. A well paid one, sure.
Additionally, building a successful company is one of the most rewarding things you can do. True American capitalism is a thing of beauty. Taking an idea, building a product, and creating value. Working at a startup is a good first step in building your own.
you’d be just fine at FANG. you are taking horror stories and thinking that is the way things happen at X. Your experience at a big company is mostly dictated by 1) your boss and 2) your team. There are good pockets in the worst places and there are really bad pockets in the best places. The exercise to how you figure this out is left yo the reader.
Regarding impact: you can have an impact at bigCo. It’s just that it’s not something that’s usually visible to the outside world (or sometimes not even internally). Hypothetically: if a change you make or a product you work on helps reduce the power usage of a datacenter or an android phone or a car by 1% you have made a gigantic impact. Even of only 1% of that 1% is your actual work.
You’re not interested in impact. You’re interested in stroking your ego. That’s all good and whatever but at some point you’re gonna realize that you’re gonna die and all your “accomplishments” mean jack shit. I have way more respect for someone that works at Google for example, puts in their time of focused work (even if it’s “only” 20 hours per week), invests in themselves and also invests in their families and is an exemplary mother/father and/or invests in the community they live in than I have respect for someone who “hustles” and works 80 hours per week.
FANG also has many lines of business where each one would be equivalent to a startup sized company. You can have way more impact than you think, on the specific product you work on. You'd be surprised how small many engineering teams are at apple for example, working on discrete products used by hundreds of millions of people.
My understanding is that he was referring to impact on the company. At FANG, there is no single product where your impact has a significant impact on the company as a whole.
Sure you can go to AWS and work on Lambda. And then you can work on a feature of Lambda. It's very likely that the feature is going to have an extremely minimal impact on Amazon as a whole company.
I'd imagine the same is for apple. You can join, go work on a secret feature of a feature on the iPhone, launch it, and then yay. You've now contributed to a feature of a feature of a product with 100s or 1000s of other features.
Wow and a startup employee is different? Not a wage slave? So many more compromises in work quality and delivery get made at a startup vs FAANG. Not building a quality product. Building an MVP that fools a few early adopters to part with their money. Then sell out and cash in (not you; the founders).
Ok not a wage slave, because the wage isn't worth it. To work overtime without compensation or really any hope of compensation, to help somebody else win the lottery. Just a sucker I think.
If you want to make the argument that working for anyone other than yourself is wage slaving I won’t fight you.
The difference to me though is that you typically own (or have the right to own given enough commitment) significantly more of a startup than a FAANG. Granted, your chances of owning anything of value is low, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take over making Bezos and Zuckerberg that much richer. Knowing I’m contributing to their wealth is not something I’d care to live with.
Forgoing the latter is worth not doing the former imo. Again, unless we’re talking millions per year, which 99% of FAANG employees aren’t making. The best one could hope for is high six figures, probably toping out around $800-$900k after 15 years.
As I said though, this only makes sense if your goal is money. I personally don’t value money over other things like mental health and enjoying my work. I know I would have much worse mental health, and hate what I do at a FAANG.
That's 900k per year. Their net worth in 15 years will be 5M or even higher (thanks to stocks growth). That's complete financial freedom at the age of 45.
If you’re in it just for the money AND you have the background and interviewing skills to get a job at a FAANG then you’re better off doing that, you’ll make far more money.
For me though, there’s not many salaries that don’t end in “million” that you could pay me to work at a FAANG. Not only because I mentally couldn’t deal with the people (see Apple’s latest debacle), but because your impact is essentially meaningless. Working on some tiny little fraction of a fraction of a feature means I’d basically have to not give a shit about my job.
At that point you’re just a wage slave. A well paid one, sure.
Additionally, building a successful company is one of the most rewarding things you can do. True American capitalism is a thing of beauty. Taking an idea, building a product, and creating value. Working at a startup is a good first step in building your own.