Ex-Google TechLead explains differences between working at a tech startup and a large company, and their pros & cons.
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Video Transcript:
Note: This transcript is auto-generated by YouTube and may not be entirely accurate.
00:00
hey tech leech here and welcome back to
00:01
another episode of the tech lead today
00:04
we're going to talk about a very
00:05
fascinating interesting topic startups
00:07
versus big tech companies it is coffee
00:10
time with the tech lead I am the tech
00:12
lead at Google tech lead by the way
00:14
let's have a sip here not bad not bad at
00:20
all now sunny cooler let me just clarify
00:24
something for you if you are working in
00:27
tech adult and I think that you're gonna
00:29
be doing great you're gonna be doing
00:30
good and no choice is really going to be
00:32
a bad choice and startup or big tech
00:34
company it's all good really now I have
00:36
worked in a combination of startups as
00:38
well as at Google as an X Google tech
00:41
lead and they're very different in some
00:44
ways but they're also very similar the
00:45
quality of life that you get your
00:47
overall standard of living it's about
00:49
the same really now we have a new
00:51
sponsor today and I would actually
00:52
highly recommend that you guys check
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them out
00:54
ting mobile if you live in the US and
00:56
you're using cell phone service and
00:58
you're paying like 50 60 bucks a month
01:00
for this service it's a contract you're
01:02
locked into one or two year contracts
01:04
you know that's just really not the way
01:06
to go there are far better options ting
01:08
Mobile offers you paper use cell phone
01:10
service and the cost is very cheap you
01:12
can figure out how much it might cost
01:14
you I would say for an average person
01:15
it's probably gonna be 15 to 25 bucks or
01:18
something like that and one of the best
01:19
parts is that there's no contract you're
01:21
not locked into anything you know I
01:23
remember when I was trying to become a
01:24
world citizen travel all over the place
01:26
and embrace that mobile lifestyle one of
01:29
the things I was really locking me down
01:30
was my cell phone service it was just
01:32
tying me to the u.s. tied me down there
01:34
with that one or two-year cell phone
01:36
contract and that was one thing that
01:37
kept weighing on me so with t-mobile you
01:40
get a no contract cell phone plan you
01:41
get voice messaging data all comes at
01:44
the very reasonable standard rate and
01:46
the great thing is it's so simple to
01:48
setup there's no contract you just send
01:49
them a dollar they send you a SIM card
01:51
back you plug that into your cell phone
01:53
and then you're off and running and when
01:54
you're gonna save so much money check
01:56
them out ting Mobile there'll be a link
01:57
in the description below and you can
01:59
thank me later you know no matter
02:00
whether you're working at a startup or a
02:02
big tech company you're gonna be having
02:04
a pretty sweet comfy job you're gonna go
02:06
and you work at the computer you do some
02:08
typing do some code spend some time
02:10
surfing the net surfing reddit play some
02:12
ping pong you may
02:13
have to pay for your online tour you may
02:14
get some lunch catered and by the way
02:16
the food that these large tech companies
02:18
are not necessarily better there may
02:20
simply just be more variety but it's all
02:22
going to be buffet style food and often
02:24
is quite easy to beat any of the sweet
02:26
just go to any restaurant and the food
02:28
quality is already going to be beaten
02:29
supposedly they like to advertise that
02:31
they've got all-star chefs but in order
02:33
to feed thousands of people it's just
02:36
going to cost way too much they're gonna
02:38
end up using more basic ingredients trip
02:40
ingredients and then do it buffet style
02:42
and you're not going to want to eat too
02:43
much food anyway it's not gonna be
02:45
healthy for you just gonna get
02:46
overweight essentially most of the time
02:48
no matter where you are you're going to
02:49
be working at the computer doing some
02:51
code across startups and big tech
02:53
companies is going to be similar now
02:55
let's talk about the main differences
02:56
here one is going to be compensation
02:58
compensation at a tech company a public
03:01
tech company is going to be well-known
03:02
it's going to be fixed
03:03
you're gonna know exactly what you're
03:05
getting is a public company and when you
03:07
get stuck you're gonna know for sure
03:09
that that's going to be worth something
03:10
when you go into a start-up you don't
03:13
really know what the value of that stock
03:15
is going to be and oftentimes it's going
03:17
to be a complete mystery it's going to
03:18
be completely obfuscated for you and
03:20
startups have a bunch of different ways
03:22
to screw you over they can dilute the
03:24
stock they can kick you out fire you
03:25
before they IPO they can delay their IPO
03:28
intentionally and force you to stick
03:29
around and stay at the company and work
03:31
longer they can tell you that you have a
03:32
million shares but it really there could
03:34
be a hundred trillion shares outstanding
03:36
and many companies simply aren't going
03:38
to tell you what percentage of the
03:40
company you truly own and even if you
03:42
were to somehow find that out which you
03:44
probably won't be able to find out most
03:46
companies I've seen they never quite
03:47
tell you exactly what percentage you own
03:49
even if you do find out they're just
03:51
going to devalue that when you finally
03:53
leave the company when you quit
03:54
oftentimes they'll say that you have to
03:56
exercise these stock options within a
03:58
certain amount of time like saying you
04:00
got three months to use that up and when
04:02
you do exercise those options you're
04:04
going to have to pay tons of taxes on
04:05
this stuff if the company never IPOs and
04:08
it could take ten years before the
04:10
company actually IPOs you've just paid a
04:12
bunch of money on stock and you've taken
04:14
a big risk you don't really know what
04:16
you're getting sometimes this stuff all
04:18
pans out maybe you'll get some money but
04:20
oftentimes it's not necessarily going to
04:22
be life-changing money I'm known
04:24
scenarios where I've joined companies
04:26
actually in other
04:26
people join companies and then the
04:28
startup eventually gets acquired right
04:30
acquisition happens more commonly than
04:33
IPOs and in an acquisition everybody
04:35
gets some payment for their stock it's
04:37
not all that much it's not really
04:39
life-changing money you might be like 50
04:41
K right 60 K something like that
04:43
if you're lucky it could be more if
04:45
you're not lucky it could be less one
04:47
thing that a lot of engineers don't know
04:49
is that even if your engineer number one
04:51
at the company you could already be
04:53
getting less than say 1% of the company
04:55
you would be putting in as much work if
04:57
not more work than the founders and
04:59
still the founders would have like 99%
05:01
of the company you would have one
05:02
percent or even 0.1% by the time your
05:06
employee numbers say ten or twenty your
05:08
ownership would already be point zero
05:10
zero zero one percent or something like
05:11
that
05:12
it would be a minuscule amount and
05:13
that's just a culture of startups
05:15
personally I got so disgusted by all of
05:17
this one time I remember I had the
05:19
business partner a friend and we were
05:21
going to start a company together and
05:23
then he said that yeah we would be 50/50
05:26
partners except he wanted 50.1% and I
05:29
would get 49.9% I just thought why why
05:32
not just 5050 and he was so insistent on
05:35
this point that it smelled fishy to me
05:37
and I backed out of the whole deal and I
05:39
didn't start the business because I
05:41
figured that he could just say well
05:43
let's take a vote should I get kicked
05:44
out of the company after I feel
05:46
everything yeah let's take a vote he's
05:48
got 51% ownership oh yeah he wins I mean
05:50
he could just kick me out he can do
05:52
whatever he wants now it's just our
05:53
pretty tricky and I remember there were
05:55
even times in my life when I just sort
05:57
of said to myself I don't like startups
05:59
I don't want to work at them and if I
06:01
were gonna work I would rather work
06:03
either for a large tech company or I
06:05
would found the company on my own and
06:07
those would be the options I would be
06:08
going for now having said that let's
06:11
talk about some of the good things about
06:13
startups because I've worked out a few
06:15
of them and there's some good things
06:16
about them one is the challenges are
06:18
going to be very different between
06:20
start-up and large tech company large
06:22
tech company you often work in a large
06:24
code base a lot of the challenges are
06:25
going to be organizational you're going
06:27
to have to deal with a lot of people
06:28
cross-functional teams and there's going
06:31
to be a ton of code and people blocking
06:32
everything that you're trying to do and
06:34
in a small tech company in a start-up
06:36
you're going to have a lot more freedom
06:38
and anything you want to do
06:39
anything you want to try just not going
06:42
to be a lot of people standing away you
06:43
want to try something you have the
06:45
flexibility to try that and that goes
06:47
for rolls as well so if you don't really
06:49
want to be an engineer let's say you
06:51
want to be more of a product manager or
06:53
designer or prototype or in a large tech
06:56
company it would be an entire shift in
06:58
careers you would have to get the proper
07:00
approvals maybe even do an interview
07:02
just so that you could do some p.m. work
07:03
however in its small startup you're
07:06
gonna have a lot more freedoms to take
07:08
on any role that you want and in this
07:10
sense I would say that there may even be
07:12
better career mobility for example if
07:14
you wanted to get into management it may
07:16
take a lot of effort to get into say
07:18
senior management at Google right that
07:21
would require you proving yourself and
07:22
everything but if you were to go to a
07:24
start-up you could probably get a
07:26
management role quite easily because the
07:28
requirements just aren't as strict you
07:29
can start building up your experience
07:31
and over a number of years you would
07:33
have that experience and then you can
07:34
transfer into large tech company like
07:36
Google and do management there and you
07:38
would already have built up a lot of
07:39
that experience if that were your
07:41
interest and so if there were areas in
07:43
your career that you want to do develop
07:45
more into a startup may be a good path
07:47
for that and that's really what a
07:48
startup is good for I would say it's
07:50
learning so I would recommend this if
07:54
you are a junior engineer or even if
07:56
you're not and you want to get some more
07:58
experience and learn and build your
08:00
skills in a certain technology there may
08:02
be a field that you're interested in
08:03
getting more until you think it's cool
08:05
and you want to do that then the startup
08:07
is a great way to do that the worst
08:09
reason to join the startup is because
08:11
you think as a library ticket and it's
08:13
going to make you rich and you hate the
08:14
work and you're not trying to learn
08:15
anything but you're just doing that
08:17
currently for the money because in that
08:18
scenario I would say I startup there's a
08:21
little chance it's going to work out for
08:22
you if I you curveballs money the other
08:24
thing I might mention here is that I
08:25
don't think money is the proper
08:27
motivation number one if you're a junior
08:29
engineer say either way your pace look I
08:32
know it sounds like a lot for you now
08:34
but it's not going to make a difference
08:35
for you in a few years when you look
08:37
back on that salary range that you're at
08:39
just spend your time trying to learn and
08:41
guide your career in the direction that
08:43
you want it to go to but trying to argue
08:45
and optimize for a few thousand bucks
08:47
here and there it's just not really the
08:49
right time to be doing that because
08:50
you're really splitting pennies at
08:52
point the other great thing about
08:53
startups is they can be a little bit
08:55
more closed now I remember I worked in a
08:57
start-up with one of my professors and
08:59
during the company holiday party it was
09:02
just us with our spouses or girlfriends
09:04
or boyfriends or whatever and there just
09:06
felt more like a family the office was
09:08
like the professor's living room you
09:10
don't really get this sort of dynamic
09:11
when you're in a larger company in which
09:13
it's an open door right people are
09:15
coming and going all the time and
09:17
there's tons of people that you may be
09:18
interacting with you don't really get to
09:20
know anybody really that well sometimes
09:22
people just get fired to just disappear
09:25
randomly and that just seems to happen
09:27
sometimes
09:28
so overall let me put it this way I
09:30
think that if you can get into a large
09:31
tech company then you might as well try
09:33
and it's good to explore your options
09:35
and see what you can get
09:36
but startups are great too you can learn
09:39
a lot there develop your skills and
09:40
experience there are some good
09:42
connections get to know some people
09:43
there and overall it's probably going to
09:45
be a pretty good time working there
09:46
because it's not like going to a large
09:49
tech company like Google you're gonna
09:50
have a 10 times better experience there
09:53
it's not quite like that it's more like
09:54
it's just bigger it's not like the food
09:56
is 10 times better it's not like the
09:58
computers are 10 times more powerful
10:00
it's still essentially the same stuff
10:02
the same environment that you're working
10:03
in maybe for lunch instead of having a
10:06
single item on the menu you may have 10
10:08
different items on the menu but you
10:09
still just pick one thing to eat when
10:11
you interact with people and self
10:12
interacting with five people you may
10:14
have to interact with 50 people when you
10:17
work on a codebase it would just be a
10:18
larger codebase and the office overall
10:20
may be larger instead of having a single
10:22
building there may be 10 different
10:24
buildings that are interconnected but
10:26
you still end up going to a single
10:27
building your small little desk whenever
10:29
you're going to work in that sense the
10:31
work environment is similar and often in
10:33
many scenarios a startups work
10:35
environment the facilities the bathrooms
10:38
the kitchens that stuff can actually be
10:39
better and higher quality than what you
10:41
may find that large tech companies I
10:43
will say that for a lot of people it
10:44
might make sense at some point once
10:46
you've learned enough once you've
10:47
developed enough experience that you may
10:50
want to prioritize compensation maybe
10:52
make sure that you've got some real
10:53
money on the table that you can lock in
10:55
there maybe tackle some different types
10:57
of technical problems and challenges
10:59
those that have to do with larger code
11:01
bases dealing with many different types
11:03
of people you know that
11:04
interesting challenge in itself and also
11:06
just add some more options to your lunch
11:08
menu those are all things that larger
11:10
tech companies will be able to offer you
11:11
so it may not be a bad idea to consider
11:13
those two at some point I mean the way
11:15
you think about startups versus large
11:17
companies in the comments below if you
11:19
liked the video give a like and
11:20
subscribe and see you next time right