A good job there is less than 8h/day. Keep the job, work on the side on the business and when the business shows promise (e.g. makes a bit of revenue with hopefully a path for more and you have enough savings, or the business makes enough to support you), then leave the job... Quite simple to me. If the job is TERRIBLE, then change it. If you have skills you can always go back to a job if needed.
I was in this situation!!! I left the job, found my startup, work on it 6 months, launch my product, didn't succeed to raise money, and now going to work on FAANG again (need to support a family with 8 children...) to save more money to continue my startup, and also working on it on my free time. I believe that I will succeed if I will focus, continue and not give up!
Keep up your commitment to your family and your dream of creating a successful product. It requires double work, yes, but you won't be happy otherwise. Your post shows a great need for a sense of purpose: perseverance is key.
My first job out of college at Amazon was the job Dalton described. My next job at Microsoft was actually incredibly high impact and helped me learn and grow my career exponentially. That opened doors to my current role at Stripe. The one thing that is heavily missed in this video is that sometimes people don't really have a choice. Some of us come from financial hardships, some of us are on highly volatile visas, some of us have giant student loans to repay. The FAANG jobs might not be what we dreamed of doing to change the world with our tech skills, and we know that it's often fairy dust in pretty marketing wrappers, but those jobs offer a level of stability and security that allow many of us to afford our families a slightly higher and more comfortable life than they have ever experienced, they help us remain in the country at least long enough to repay our debts. I'm not disagreeing with any of the points in this video, I honestly wish I could have made different decisions in my early career; but unfortunately not everyone can take that plunge when their risk appetite has the potential to cause collateral damage to their near and dear ones.
I think Dalton and Michael are more talking to the tech founders and the mindset of "I have to have FAANG experience to succeed" or "My startup has to have people from FAANG to be successful and legit." A bit different from what you described. But I absolutely agree with your points.
Totally agree. I think the points alone are kinda right, but in the context of privileged people who can choose where to work. I almost destroyed myself (financially) with 2 unsuccessful startups; joining a FAANG kinda saved my future tbh. It feels like a healthy break. Successful bias here blinds you to the fact that majority of founders fail.
Totally agree, all of us from the start up that we are starting are from average or slightly disadvantage family. We could not afford to quit our job while working on our start up. One of co-founder while working on our startup tgt got poach by google and decided to go. We never blamed him because not everyone could say no to 200k of compensation. Not all of us could afford the risk.
PREACH! This is everything I've ever felt that's wrong about faang and have had trouble articulating. Potentially unfulfilling projects (ads), potentially evil projects (psychological manipulation), potentially canned projects after spending a ton of time on it, and golden handcuffs.
Just want to add a point: people outside tech place tremendous value on FAANG experience. So when you have to talk to customers, partners etc, suddenly FAANG brand value shines. Sure those of us in tech know it's all BS, but that's not how 99.99%+ of the world thinks.
As time goes on, most projects at FAANG will be about maintaining and updating legacy applications and projects, and the number of cutting edge projects will lessen as FAANGs become more concerned about maintaining shareholder value than they will be about creating the next big thing. This happened to IBM and MS. When I was a kid, getting a job at IBM was the epitome of career success.
In a new regime of higher interest rates for longer, FAANG is no longer such a great place to work These big companies are already past their growth phase, so less potential for career growth. The only growth for these companies can come from share buybacks and cost cutting in the form of employment benefits. Not to mention AI can replace mediocre devs, and any Anti-Monopolgy legislation will destroy the company. It's like the Finance industry in the 2000s
It really depends on the kind of role you take on at a big tech company. I worked in a small team that had been acquired by a big tech company. We got to operate like a small company while having all the perks and access to scale that big tech provides. Research the role and not the company! Worth noting that I was recommended this role by a former colleague and not a recruiter.
I think this needs to illustrate whos its marketing towards more. "Most FAANG employees work on things like ad servers" is not a justification for not gaining experience with a scaled company. One example is, I could learn ElasticSearch in college, but who here can say they worked on an ElasticSearch cluster with 7+ nodes of 1tb data each in college? That's something I got to do in the real world, and it helped me understand the needs and consequences of that scale without affecting the customers in my startup.
Adding onto this, if you're new to the field and looking to gain experience, LOOK FOR IT. It is true you are likely to get trapped in a bad role, but you have the chance to use your position with a big company to learn as many roles as possible to achieve your dreams down the road.
My advice to graduates joining Amazon is to dive into AWS. Most new services an Amazon was built on AWS and this gives you skills that are useful outside of Amazon. :)
Would add in Fang you have a much higher chance of working for an incompetent manager, than in a startup. Been there, done that, much happier in my startup now, without waiting 4 years for vesting and maniacly observing the ticker price
I know the focus of this video was on FAANG but it feels a bit biased since it seems to be taken for granted that if you found or work at a startup that you can be doing something interesting. Most startups also don’t do anything particularly interesting, especially since to get funding your startup needs a path to profitability. So most startups boil down to “we are doing something similar to large tech company X, but worse.” Even if you are able to found a company that you consider interesting, in order to hire employees you will need to attract talent. It’s so hard to compete with FAANG in that, so it’s hard to keep a team that has the same quality as FAANG companies. That creates downward pressure on your ability to recruit and on your ability to maintain a clean code base.
@@eightyeightdays everybody has their own definition of what is interesting, but I don’t think that recent successful startups like instacart or Airbnb are inherently doing more interesting things than Google or Amazon. And at the end of the day, you have to get funding for your syrup as the founder. So ultimately your idea needs to have a path to making money, which to me immediately eliminates a lot of the most interesting options.
@@prestonrasmussen1758 this what you said didn't age well. FAANG is not safe. You can be fired anytime. I think they were talking about people who want to start company not those who want to resign FAANG to work for startup.
@@billievoo2107 why don’t you think this aged well? Because of the recent tech layoffs? They mostly targeted non-technical staff, and in any case nearly every FAANG company still has more employees right now than it did when I wrote that comment. There are layoffs, but after an unprecedented period of growth. And even if FAANG companies are tightening the belt a bit by laying off 2-5% of their employees, that pales in comparison to how much harder it is now to get funding for a startup given interest rate hikes, inflation, and the recession. So I think my comment aged quite well. Also, I thought it was clear from my comment but maybe I need to spell it out a bit more. Even if you’re starting your own software company, you can’t just do whatever work you want. You have to start a company that you can get funding for. That puts a lot of restrictions on the problem space if possible companies, as you need to have a path to monetization and a compelling reason why there is a good product market fit. Furthermore, many of the most interesting problems in tech are very difficult and very expensive to get off the ground. Two examples include AI research and cloud services. If you want to work in those fields, you can’t get funding for those types of companies unless you’re already a world class expert in the relevant area. Working in startups isn’t necessarily wrong. I work in a startup, and I enjoy the outsized responsibility that I have relative to my years of experience. I also find the work I do interesting, but it’s not like the ratio of interesting jobs to mediocre jobs is higher in startups than in FAANG. It’s about the same distribution, with the caveat that FAANG also has a lot more highly specialized teams that startups can’t really afford to support.
Yes! The Retention Trap! That is where I am at. Im a 46 year old 20 year construction worker (laborer) who desperately wants out. I have a business idea and have been doing my research and am ready to move forward which brought me to you. I am glad to have found you.
what you fail to mention is not everyone wants the stress of running a company, some people value security over anything else. a FAANG job provides securty
Tech is inherently volatile. There are no guarantees except your own tenacity and skills. Apple almost went out of business in the 90s. Yahoo was once the dominant search engine. MySpace used to rule social media. They were all considered safe bets too.
False.... I've worked for two FAANG companies as an engineer and was fired from both because of org changes and politics. The most secure thing you could do for yourself is to learn how to be independent.
I usually I enjoy all your videos but this felt personal to me. Here is my completely subjective opinion based purely in my experience and I could totally be wrong: YCombinator, and "startup talk" in general, makes you forget about successful bias: MOST STARTUPS FAIL. Most founders fail. And if you don't have the backup money (savings or family support), you risk stalling your finances , making them worse or even going bankrupt. I did the stupid thing and I almost destroyed myself. My first startup failed completely, my second one "fail" by staying as a small business (10-15 employees). I'm sure I'm going back for a third one, but for now a FAANG job is giving me lots of value and I'd totally give the advise of joining one, specially if you need it for financial stability. If you don't, there is still plenty of technical value! After years here I keep learning and there is a bunch of stuff I will totally transfer to my next endeavor. The point about internal tools is just wrong, because (1) I can build versions of those tools if I need or (2) I can get alternatives open source or commercial. Exposing myself to those internal tools and see real applications has been super valuable and makes me think about the ones I used to have. And also not just technical skills, soft skills as well. Seeing how a company works on the inside also made me realize all the things I got wrong, and I definitely transferring that knowledge back. But hey, don't listen to me. I'm just another failed founder :) .....for now! PS. Final thought, maybe this video is addressed to **young** people who have ONLY work for a FAANG. If that's your case, then yeah probably thinking about quitting your comfort zone must be a scary thought. EDIT: The more I think about this video, the more I disagree: Another unknown fact about FAANG workers is that a lot of engineers actually quit to start a startup. Like the jump between founder to Eng/EM is well known. Examples: 1) My manager was also a founder (at a YC COMPANY!) before he joined and I’m sure he’s also going back at some point. 2) Another of my teammates revived his apps after he got the green card (you can’t work on side projects on work visas :c) and he actually made them so successful with what he learned at the company that his big salary with stock wasn’t competing anymore with his other income, so he quit. 3) And another friend from Stripe went from unsuccessful founder to Angel investor with the money he made! Like… of course there is PLENTY of value you’ll get from a FAANG. And the work itself is not bad at all, there is actually pretty cool and challenging projects. EDIT 2: Final edit, i promise. How many startups are out there by Ex-Facebookers, ex-Googlers, ex-whatever: Stripe is one of them. Wizeline, Kueski, SevOne, etc. All the Tesla killers by ex-Tesla engineers!
@@abhis9353 yeah exactly. You actually made me remember a friend who implemented those alternative versions to his own apps and he made them so successful with the optimisations that the revenue he got was so much bigger than his salary/stock that he just quit without thinking too much into it. And his case is not even exceptional, plenty of folks jump between FAANG job and startup life.
I work at a named Tech company, but it isn't in FAANG. I didn't go to a target school a more known state college. Do I need a FAANG on my resume for those credentials to improve my chance of funding?
This episode helped me before falling down the rabbit hole. I just graduated my bootcamp and have a startup idea that I've been working on fulltime with my team but the question of how long you gonna stay for long enough to get the value without getting trapped? inspired me to make a better decision of continuing to build my startup and to bet on myself.
@@moviesynopsis001 to give you more context I have 6+ years grinding saas / fintech startups in more operational roles. This bootcamp was more to amplify my technical experience I already had.
From the video on why you should start a start up! This is when your jobs exhausts you, when you get more excitement from your side project. Also when your side project gets traction and finally if you meet a cofounder you enjoy working with...
I've worked as an engineer at two FAANG companies. I loved working with intelligent people and networking, BUT Dalton and Michael are right about people misinterpreting the value of working at FAANG. The irony is that I'm not the kind of person that FAANG would generally want as an employee. I'm an impulsive, ADHD visionary that gets fired because I tell my manager how to do things. I'm happy to say that I was fired from Apple last week and am now working on my startup full-time, and I'm having a blast using the Elixir with the Phoenix framework!! Finally, get to do things my way!!
Wow that's a great conversation that young software engineers should watch! I quit my job at Intel after 3 years to start my own business and leaving the corporation was the most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. On the other hand, many friends of mine are stuck in the traps you're talking about and they are not aware of it.
I worked at Amazon for four years. I get the point this video trying to convey but some of them is misleading in a way. It is true that you only work on small part of the system. However it is not as easy as button clicking or pixel tweaking. Piles of historical and technical reason was on top of that small part which takes people to deep dive to understand. It is shitty to understand all the historical context but it is not irrelevant to improve your reasonable thinking. As for internal tools, the principle behind those tool is transferrable. It is true though you will never know how to get funded in FANNG, but truthfully, it is not something you can learn in any company as a programmer.
" ... they are not happy about the work that they did in the universe ..." Yes, and the reason is that a sense of purpose is essential for happiness; and even more so for people who have the "entrepreneurial factors"
I'm 43 and I just went to a cliche FAANG after spending my career in startups. I was the 11th engineer at Zendesk for instance, tho I unfortunately left too soon to cash in on that. In any case, my STRONG advice to people, especially my children, is to FIRST GO WORK FOR BIG COMPANIES AND MAKE LOTS OF MONEY. Do that until you've got at least 4 million in the bank, roughly enough so that you can live on the interest. We call this "escape velocity". Only then should you be thinking about insane risks like starting a startup. This is because wealth has decreasing marginal utility, roughly "utility = log(wealth)". There's just no reason to take risks until you're flush. Life will get so hard if you don't have enough money. ESPECIALLY when/if you have kids. You don't want to be forced to work when you don't want to, at a job you don't want just because you "need the money", etc. Get rich first, then take risks. Trust me.
This is sensible advice. While at my FAANG job, I'm limiting my entrepreneurship goals to small-scale projects, just to build up my wealth faster while keeping the job.
Wrong, working at a big tech till 4 mil will take you at least a decade… by then they would be bogged down with relationship and other commitments. Therefore, it should be the other way around, take risks in your 20s and in best case scenario they won’t ever have to work again if the venture is successful and worst case scenario is the venture fails however, they’d still have an incredible project to talk about on their resume.
4:00 Try weekend maintenance shifts as an operations analyst at a data center for a large sector of the financial industry. If you really want to see scale, and the power SLAs bring to making things happen.
There’s more out there in big tech than just FAANG, but most large tech companies operate this way too. The one big career role that might give you a good stepping stone into entrepreneurship (and the one I chose for my eventual transition) is technical presales. If you’re out solving interesting problems for real customers, you’re more likely to get something out of it. But, beware the golden handcuffs get stronger for you in this kind of role too.
surely a weird problem to have for workaholics and people who derive meaning solely from work, but working on a meme project remote has been amazing for me
Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - When you should quit? 01:00 - What value can technical founders extract from a FAANG job? 03:21 - Assumptions - Why working at FAANG makes sense? 03:48 - - Reality of the job 06:01 - - Transferable Skills 08:35 - - Path to get funded 10:55 - - The retention trap - What's the company trying to do? 15:31 - - When to get out? 17:31 - FAANG Optimization 18:56 - Plan at the start
It would have been nice to get an opinion from a successful technical founder/early engineer during this talk. Both of you have stated that you aren't primarily technical, so I wouldn't really expect you to fully appreciate what a programmer can gain from working at a FAANG company. Having said that, I agree with a lot of what you said, especially the "golden handcuffs". I also work at FAANG and I can relate to a good portion of the content in this episode, lol.
@@intellectbykinshukdudeja8921 Residence permit is not about getting the accommodation but it is about having the permission to work in that country as a foreigner. Such residence and work permits are commonly bounded to the working contract until to get a permanent residence and work permit (e.g. to get Green Card in the US). The process is usually time-consuming and makes it almost impossible to leave the job and start a business for the first generation of immigrants.
We used to call it “golden handcuffs”. Almost 10 years at Facebook. “Retired” two years ago for a change of pace and to work on personal projects and open source.
You can work at a FAANG and build your MVP at the same time. This is what I did in 2021. I’ve spent 8 months working from 9pm to 3am in my own product and launched in Dec. Four months later I’ve quit my job to pursue my dream with 50 customers already using my product
A lot of this is not relevant if you work in sales/channel. So much of what I've learned at FAANG has increased my skill level to apply at any company id start or work at in the future.
Spot on saying this will resonate with some small percentage of "FAANG" folks :) (or is it MAANA now) As an ex-FAANG myself starting to build my own startup
Very well explained of the thought process. I am that 1% group and recently escaped from the trap by living below the means. I felt hard to stand out the herd who aims for promotion and lifestyle upgraders
My last company just called it LTIP (long term incentive program). It wasn’t a secret. Also, it’s a treadmill that never ends. Even if you retire, you’ll never get it all.
Really nice content, l especially like the place of having a plan from the start and knowing what you came to accomplish and when to live. Wonderful video
I have been told by VC’s that they only fund teams that have “ex” FAANG on their resume because of the caliber of the engineers… Watching this took that notion out of my head and I’m starting to feel a lot better about this hahaa!
I spent 3 years building a product just to have it scrapped before it was even released. It was at that moment where I realized im not meant to be an employee.
Hi guys, I really like these videos, but I feel they are mainly targeted to people in the US. As an aspiring founder from Spain, landing a job at FAANG is much harder than for the average american - many of my ex coworkers are working at Google though, but I've no interest in pursuing a career there. Does this advice only apply to FAANG jobs or to any company? I work in tech for an European consulting company and I want to quit too, even though the salary and the conditions are good. Most young people my age would kill for my job, but I'm simply not cut out for corporate.
Why do you have a discrimination against FAANG? Nothing wrong working with big companies, I'm work with one myself. The difference in working in a really big company with interesting projects and collaborating with architects it they are all engineers. Being Software Engineer is not just about learning how to code, but also being an architect, knowing when to code, and what to code. Solving interesting solutions.
Pretty inspiring, im working on AI businesses now full-time which really gets me excited to get out of bed. Frugality is real though, running most of it from my home GPU/CloudFlared tunnel
Consigning the reality of the Job you said something about a FAANG employee not really getting a good experience about how start ups work but what if someone who worked in Google. wont it be a google it was still a startup. Don't you think doesn't he/she have a good experience on how startups work?
@ycombinator , do you believe this advice applies to a person who lives in developing nation like Pakistan (which does not necessarily have a great startup/funding ecosystem but has a great job right now)
The topic of this video does not really make sense. I’ve worked both for FAANG companies (2 of them) and a startup, but it actually does not matter where you work at, whether it is a large corporate or a small company, unless your passion, love, and profession sticks with you. Of course, there are small different merits and demerits to both sides, but that from my experience was not much of the major problem. Working at FAANG gave me the authority and flexibility to work on interesting projects just as much as I did with a startup. It’s more of your mindset that matters most. Don’t blame the environment.
Putting our time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for. Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it.
Starting early is the best way of getting ahead to build wealth, investing remains a priority. The stock market has plenty of opportunities to earn a decent payouts, with the right skills and proper understanding of how the market works
You see in trading cryptocurrency, one requires more than just a primary knowledge of crypto. It is best to trade with an expert to avoid unnecessary losses. It's advisable to have a professional trader/broker who is an expert in the field to help you manage your account.
Can you do a lecture on how to start a company as a 40+ engineer that's done well as an employee, but has always wanted to be founder? Founder curious, but not a 20 something.
Just to add to that; we’re the ones with a lot more on the line in terms of house, kids, real demands on our time. Not to be rude but youth is wasted on the young (Myself included). But wondering if there is a way out into a YC style start up as a 40+ with a family or if maybe it’s too much of a time burden to be really successful (at either of the company or the family life).
@@bamboograssburned What a 40+ has is: skill, network, domain expertise and money. Money should not be considered an advantage because it can and will go to zero pretty quickly if diverted to entrepreneurial endevaours. Domain expertise could be utilized to find the problem you can solve, build the initial prototype without spending any money.
Rylac nailed it. I founded my first company @ 20. Did well, now doing it all over again but this time it’s so much better - I’m turning 30 in a few months. Time is the consideration. You have more of an edge. How badly do you want it? Money isn’t the issue, and age (unlike in sports) isn’t a deciding negative factor
some people (myself included) work to live. We want to make as much money as we can to support our hobbies, relationships, etc. -- ie, the things that really matter. From that point of view, taking a FAANG job, even if the work is sort of boring, makes complete sense. 99% of jobs are boring af - might as well make a lot of money doing it!
On the subject of unlearning FAANG, one of the silliest things start-ups do is emulating FAANG hiring practices, rather than tailoring their own. I am thinking of those silly white board exercises....
Is working at FAANG or a comparable big tech company really that strong of a signal for VCs? I’m working at one rn. Should I mention I work at such a company when applying to YC or other investors?
My biggest problem with working for other people is that as I soon as I find inefficiencies, I want to find a better way. That is a very quick way to get yourself boxed out in a corporation. I wish I had started earlier, but I'm glad I started when I did.
I always wanted to work in a faang (I currently do) so I can network with likeminded people and find potential co-founders. That can be one plus point for people like us who don't have tier1 educational background.
Great discussion, thanks for sharing! One thing that can be added is that not only FAANG people struggle this issue.We had this struggle as well, but we finally took the decision to quit our jobs and never looked back. Now we realize we should have quit earlier. We now can focus all our time building something that can change the world of coffee.
When do you know it's time to leave your job to start a company?
when the bank approves your credit line 😁
When you make an MVP and you have a Product market fit and you cannot keep up your paying job then its time to get full timè into your startup
A good job there is less than 8h/day. Keep the job, work on the side on the business and when the business shows promise (e.g. makes a bit of revenue with hopefully a path for more and you have enough savings, or the business makes enough to support you), then leave the job... Quite simple to me. If the job is TERRIBLE, then change it. If you have skills you can always go back to a job if needed.
When you have a new plan to start, leave FAANG
After the MVP is shipped, need money for that 😀
I was in this situation!!! I left the job, found my startup, work on it 6 months, launch my product, didn't succeed to raise money, and now going to work on FAANG again (need to support a family with 8 children...) to save more money to continue my startup, and also working on it on my free time. I believe that I will succeed if I will focus, continue and not give up!
._. Wow!
Keep up your commitment to your family and your dream of creating a successful product.
It requires double work, yes, but you won't be happy otherwise. Your post shows a great need for a sense of purpose: perseverance is key.
Can you share what's the product?
@@quasa0 currently it is availabale only in Israel. I'm working on English version and than I will publish it worldwide
8 children?1
My first job out of college at Amazon was the job Dalton described.
My next job at Microsoft was actually incredibly high impact and helped me learn and grow my career exponentially.
That opened doors to my current role at Stripe.
The one thing that is heavily missed in this video is that sometimes people don't really have a choice. Some of us come from financial hardships, some of us are on highly volatile visas, some of us have giant student loans to repay. The FAANG jobs might not be what we dreamed of doing to change the world with our tech skills, and we know that it's often fairy dust in pretty marketing wrappers, but those jobs offer a level of stability and security that allow many of us to afford our families a slightly higher and more comfortable life than they have ever experienced, they help us remain in the country at least long enough to repay our debts.
I'm not disagreeing with any of the points in this video, I honestly wish I could have made different decisions in my early career; but unfortunately not everyone can take that plunge when their risk appetite has the potential to cause collateral damage to their near and dear ones.
I think Dalton and Michael are more talking to the tech founders and the mindset of "I have to have FAANG experience to succeed" or "My startup has to have people from FAANG to be successful and legit."
A bit different from what you described. But I absolutely agree with your points.
@@HawkinsZhu - Very fair point.
Totally agree. I think the points alone are kinda right, but in the context of privileged people who can choose where to work. I almost destroyed myself (financially) with 2 unsuccessful startups; joining a FAANG kinda saved my future tbh. It feels like a healthy break. Successful bias here blinds you to the fact that majority of founders fail.
That's why they said this advice is for the 1%, not everyone.
Totally agree, all of us from the start up that we are starting are from average or slightly disadvantage family. We could not afford to quit our job while working on our start up. One of co-founder while working on our startup tgt got poach by google and decided to go. We never blamed him because not everyone could say no to 200k of compensation. Not all of us could afford the risk.
PREACH! This is everything I've ever felt that's wrong about faang and have had trouble articulating. Potentially unfulfilling projects (ads), potentially evil projects (psychological manipulation), potentially canned projects after spending a ton of time on it, and golden handcuffs.
Just want to add a point: people outside tech place tremendous value on FAANG experience. So when you have to talk to customers, partners etc, suddenly FAANG brand value shines.
Sure those of us in tech know it's all BS, but that's not how 99.99%+ of the world thinks.
As time goes on, most projects at FAANG will be about maintaining and updating legacy applications and projects, and the number of cutting edge projects will lessen as FAANGs become more concerned about maintaining shareholder value than they will be about creating the next big thing. This happened to IBM and MS. When I was a kid, getting a job at IBM was the epitome of career success.
100%. You end up working at a major mega-corporation maintaining their assets, not developing your own priorities. Facts.
Yeah this is why large corporations care so much about merger and acquisition. It’s basically their R and D team.
In a new regime of higher interest rates for longer, FAANG is no longer such a great place to work
These big companies are already past their growth phase, so less potential for career growth. The only growth for these companies can come from share buybacks and cost cutting in the form of employment benefits.
Not to mention AI can replace mediocre devs, and any Anti-Monopolgy legislation will destroy the company. It's like the Finance industry in the 2000s
It really depends on the kind of role you take on at a big tech company. I worked in a small team that had been acquired by a big tech company. We got to operate like a small company while having all the perks and access to scale that big tech provides. Research the role and not the company! Worth noting that I was recommended this role by a former colleague and not a recruiter.
I think this needs to illustrate whos its marketing towards more. "Most FAANG employees work on things like ad servers" is not a justification for not gaining experience with a scaled company.
One example is, I could learn ElasticSearch in college, but who here can say they worked on an ElasticSearch cluster with 7+ nodes of 1tb data each in college? That's something I got to do in the real world, and it helped me understand the needs and consequences of that scale without affecting the customers in my startup.
Adding onto this, if you're new to the field and looking to gain experience, LOOK FOR IT. It is true you are likely to get trapped in a bad role, but you have the chance to use your position with a big company to learn as many roles as possible to achieve your dreams down the road.
Reality hurts dont it
My advice to graduates joining Amazon is to dive into AWS. Most new services an Amazon was built on AWS and this gives you skills that are useful outside of Amazon. :)
Would add in Fang you have a much higher chance of working for an incompetent manager, than in a startup. Been there, done that, much happier in my startup now, without waiting 4 years for vesting and maniacly observing the ticker price
I know the focus of this video was on FAANG but it feels a bit biased since it seems to be taken for granted that if you found or work at a startup that you can be doing something interesting.
Most startups also don’t do anything particularly interesting, especially since to get funding your startup needs a path to profitability. So most startups boil down to “we are doing something similar to large tech company X, but worse.”
Even if you are able to found a company that you consider interesting, in order to hire employees you will need to attract talent. It’s so hard to compete with FAANG in that, so it’s hard to keep a team that has the same quality as FAANG companies. That creates downward pressure on your ability to recruit and on your ability to maintain a clean code base.
Spot on. Finding a good startup company to work basically is like buying a lottery. FAANNG companies are way safer bets.
If you're the founder of a startup that isn't interesting then you're doing it wrong.
@@eightyeightdays everybody has their own definition of what is interesting, but I don’t think that recent successful startups like instacart or Airbnb are inherently doing more interesting things than Google or Amazon.
And at the end of the day, you have to get funding for your syrup as the founder. So ultimately your idea needs to have a path to making money, which to me immediately eliminates a lot of the most interesting options.
@@prestonrasmussen1758 this what you said didn't age well. FAANG is not safe. You can be fired anytime. I think they were talking about people who want to start company not those who want to resign FAANG to work for startup.
@@billievoo2107 why don’t you think this aged well? Because of the recent tech layoffs? They mostly targeted non-technical staff, and in any case nearly every FAANG company still has more employees right now than it did when I wrote that comment. There are layoffs, but after an unprecedented period of growth.
And even if FAANG companies are tightening the belt a bit by laying off 2-5% of their employees, that pales in comparison to how much harder it is now to get funding for a startup given interest rate hikes, inflation, and the recession. So I think my comment aged quite well.
Also, I thought it was clear from my comment but maybe I need to spell it out a bit more. Even if you’re starting your own software company, you can’t just do whatever work you want. You have to start a company that you can get funding for. That puts a lot of restrictions on the problem space if possible companies, as you need to have a path to monetization and a compelling reason why there is a good product market fit. Furthermore, many of the most interesting problems in tech are very difficult and very expensive to get off the ground. Two examples include AI research and cloud services. If you want to work in those fields, you can’t get funding for those types of companies unless you’re already a world class expert in the relevant area.
Working in startups isn’t necessarily wrong. I work in a startup, and I enjoy the outsized responsibility that I have relative to my years of experience. I also find the work I do interesting, but it’s not like the ratio of interesting jobs to mediocre jobs is higher in startups than in FAANG. It’s about the same distribution, with the caveat that FAANG also has a lot more highly specialized teams that startups can’t really afford to support.
Beginning from scratch or almost from scratch, one of hardest thing in life. But when you achieve it, it's a new life
Yes! The Retention Trap! That is where I am at. Im a 46 year old 20 year construction worker (laborer) who desperately wants out. I have a business idea and have been doing my research and am ready to move forward which brought me to you. I am glad to have found you.
This content is HIGHLY valuable. Love these videos.
what you fail to mention is not everyone wants the stress of running a company, some people value security over anything else. a FAANG job provides securty
Tech is inherently volatile. There are no guarantees except your own tenacity and skills. Apple almost went out of business in the 90s. Yahoo was once the dominant search engine. MySpace used to rule social media. They were all considered safe bets too.
False.... I've worked for two FAANG companies as an engineer and was fired from both because of org changes and politics. The most secure thing you could do for yourself is to learn how to be independent.
@@djcardwell independence is key
They do say a couple times, that this video is not for everyone and only the ~1% of people who are very disgruntled with being an employee
@@Epicer95 exactly lol. They said it explicitly.
I usually I enjoy all your videos but this felt personal to me. Here is my completely subjective opinion based purely in my experience and I could totally be wrong:
YCombinator, and "startup talk" in general, makes you forget about successful bias: MOST STARTUPS FAIL. Most founders fail. And if you don't have the backup money (savings or family support), you risk stalling your finances , making them worse or even going bankrupt. I did the stupid thing and I almost destroyed myself. My first startup failed completely, my second one "fail" by staying as a small business (10-15 employees). I'm sure I'm going back for a third one, but for now a FAANG job is giving me lots of value and I'd totally give the advise of joining one, specially if you need it for financial stability. If you don't, there is still plenty of technical value!
After years here I keep learning and there is a bunch of stuff I will totally transfer to my next endeavor. The point about internal tools is just wrong, because (1) I can build versions of those tools if I need or (2) I can get alternatives open source or commercial. Exposing myself to those internal tools and see real applications has been super valuable and makes me think about the ones I used to have. And also not just technical skills, soft skills as well. Seeing how a company works on the inside also made me realize all the things I got wrong, and I definitely transferring that knowledge back.
But hey, don't listen to me. I'm just another failed founder :) .....for now!
PS. Final thought, maybe this video is addressed to **young** people who have ONLY work for a FAANG. If that's your case, then yeah probably thinking about quitting your comfort zone must be a scary thought.
EDIT: The more I think about this video, the more I disagree: Another unknown fact about FAANG workers is that a lot of engineers actually quit to start a startup. Like the jump between founder to Eng/EM is well known. Examples: 1) My manager was also a founder (at a YC COMPANY!) before he joined and I’m sure he’s also going back at some point. 2) Another of my teammates revived his apps after he got the green card (you can’t work on side projects on work visas :c) and he actually made them so successful with what he learned at the company that his big salary with stock wasn’t competing anymore with his other income, so he quit. 3) And another friend from Stripe went from unsuccessful founder to Angel investor with the money he made! Like… of course there is PLENTY of value you’ll get from a FAANG. And the work itself is not bad at all, there is actually pretty cool and challenging projects.
EDIT 2: Final edit, i promise. How many startups are out there by Ex-Facebookers, ex-Googlers, ex-whatever: Stripe is one of them. Wizeline, Kueski, SevOne, etc. All the Tesla killers by ex-Tesla engineers!
@@abhis9353 yeah exactly. You actually made me remember a friend who implemented those alternative versions to his own apps and he made them so successful with the optimisations that the revenue he got was so much bigger than his salary/stock that he just quit without thinking too much into it. And his case is not even exceptional, plenty of folks jump between FAANG job and startup life.
These conversations are gold mine. More people should watch it.
I would be happy to just be given the opportunity to work at a FAANG company.
As someone who quit Facebook to start a startup, and then publicly explained my decision on TH-cam, so much good advice here!
Thought of you when I started watching!
I work at a named Tech company, but it isn't in FAANG. I didn't go to a target school a more known state college. Do I need a FAANG on my resume for those credentials to improve my chance of funding?
are you technical?
@@AdamPazzi what does that mean?
@@nikita2560 can he code?
Wish me luck, I said goodbye to my big company for those reasons
Goodluck!
This episode helped me before falling down the rabbit hole. I just graduated my bootcamp and have a startup idea that I've been working on fulltime with my team but the question of how long you gonna stay for long enough to get the value without getting trapped? inspired me to make a better decision of continuing to build my startup and to bet on myself.
experience and emotional intelligence is important, which you can get from getting a job first
@@nickiwoa7948 ive worked at 2 medium sized startups already i think I’m set
You wont be making anything decent if you only have bootcamp knowledge. Bootcamps are bare bones as is especially if you have no prior experience
@@moviesynopsis001 to give you more context I have 6+ years grinding saas / fintech startups in more operational roles. This bootcamp was more to amplify my technical experience I already had.
From the video on why you should start a start up!
This is when your jobs exhausts you, when you get more excitement from your side project. Also when your side project gets traction and finally if you meet a cofounder you enjoy working with...
I've worked as an engineer at two FAANG companies. I loved working with intelligent people and networking, BUT Dalton and Michael are right about people misinterpreting the value of working at FAANG. The irony is that I'm not the kind of person that FAANG would generally want as an employee. I'm an impulsive, ADHD visionary that gets fired because I tell my manager how to do things. I'm happy to say that I was fired from Apple last week and am now working on my startup full-time, and I'm having a blast using the Elixir with the Phoenix framework!! Finally, get to do things my way!!
This is so cool Derek
ADHD ❤
I quit FAANG 4 years ago and am not looking back
Wow that's a great conversation that young software engineers should watch!
I quit my job at Intel after 3 years to start my own business and leaving the corporation was the most freeing thing I've ever done in my life.
On the other hand, many friends of mine are stuck in the traps you're talking about and they are not aware of it.
Sounds like you may have a story. Congrats.
I worked at Amazon for four years. I get the point this video trying to convey but some of them is misleading in a way.
It is true that you only work on small part of the system. However it is not as easy as button clicking or pixel tweaking. Piles of historical and technical reason was on top of that small part which takes people to deep dive to understand. It is shitty to understand all the historical context but it is not irrelevant to improve your reasonable thinking.
As for internal tools, the principle behind those tool is transferrable. It is true though you will never know how to get funded in FANNG, but truthfully, it is not something you can learn in any company as a programmer.
I normally like the videos of these two even before watching.
" ... they are not happy about the work that they did in the universe ..."
Yes, and the reason is that a sense of purpose is essential for happiness; and even more so for people who have the "entrepreneurial factors"
Insightful talk, Dalton & Michael! A must-watch for anyone at the FAANG crossroads.
I'm 43 and I just went to a cliche FAANG after spending my career in startups. I was the 11th engineer at Zendesk for instance, tho I unfortunately left too soon to cash in on that. In any case, my STRONG advice to people, especially my children, is to FIRST GO WORK FOR BIG COMPANIES AND MAKE LOTS OF MONEY. Do that until you've got at least 4 million in the bank, roughly enough so that you can live on the interest. We call this "escape velocity". Only then should you be thinking about insane risks like starting a startup. This is because wealth has decreasing marginal utility, roughly "utility = log(wealth)". There's just no reason to take risks until you're flush. Life will get so hard if you don't have enough money. ESPECIALLY when/if you have kids. You don't want to be forced to work when you don't want to, at a job you don't want just because you "need the money", etc. Get rich first, then take risks. Trust me.
This is sensible advice. While at my FAANG job, I'm limiting my entrepreneurship goals to small-scale projects, just to build up my wealth faster while keeping the job.
Wrong, working at a big tech till 4 mil will take you at least a decade… by then they would be bogged down with relationship and other commitments. Therefore, it should be the other way around, take risks in your 20s and in best case scenario they won’t ever have to work again if the venture is successful and worst case scenario is the venture fails however, they’d still have an incredible project to talk about on their resume.
@@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384 tate university is a mostly a scam. Watch lex fridman and coffeezilla talking about it on a podcast
"Just trust me bro" LOL JUST SAVE 4 MIL
@@epiklizard yeah good point i totally agree
4:00 Try weekend maintenance shifts as an operations analyst at a data center for a large sector of the financial industry. If you really want to see scale, and the power SLAs bring to making things happen.
Thank you so much. You’ve given me the last bit of encouragement I needed to walk away.
There’s more out there in big tech than just FAANG, but most large tech companies operate this way too.
The one big career role that might give you a good stepping stone into entrepreneurship (and the one I chose for my eventual transition) is technical presales. If you’re out solving interesting problems for real customers, you’re more likely to get something out of it.
But, beware the golden handcuffs get stronger for you in this kind of role too.
surely a weird problem to have for workaholics and people who derive meaning solely from work, but working on a meme project remote has been amazing for me
Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - When you should quit?
01:00 - What value can technical founders extract from a FAANG job?
03:21 - Assumptions - Why working at FAANG makes sense?
03:48 - - Reality of the job
06:01 - - Transferable Skills
08:35 - - Path to get funded
10:55 - - The retention trap - What's the company trying to do?
15:31 - - When to get out?
17:31 - FAANG Optimization
18:56 - Plan at the start
It would have been nice to get an opinion from a successful technical founder/early engineer during this talk. Both of you have stated that you aren't primarily technical, so I wouldn't really expect you to fully appreciate what a programmer can gain from working at a FAANG company.
Having said that, I agree with a lot of what you said, especially the "golden handcuffs". I also work at FAANG and I can relate to a good portion of the content in this episode, lol.
It can be hard, especially when the job contract is bounded to your residence and work permit.
Are there specific locations where having a job is necessary to get an accommodation?
@@intellectbykinshukdudeja8921 Residence permit is not about getting the accommodation but it is about having the permission to work in that country as a foreigner. Such residence and work permits are commonly bounded to the working contract until to get a permanent residence and work permit (e.g. to get Green Card in the US). The process is usually time-consuming and makes it almost impossible to leave the job and start a business for the first generation of immigrants.
We used to call it “golden handcuffs”.
Almost 10 years at Facebook. “Retired” two years ago for a change of pace and to work on personal projects and open source.
I absolutely love this format guys! Please do more of this!
One thing I noticed too is Toxic Positivity in the tech space. That s*@% pisses me off so much...
Well that was a much needed pitcher of ice-cold water on my FAANG obsession. Thanks!
You can work at a FAANG and build your MVP at the same time. This is what I did in 2021. I’ve spent 8 months working from 9pm to 3am in my own product and launched in Dec. Four months later I’ve quit my job to pursue my dream with 50 customers already using my product
A lot of this is not relevant if you work in sales/channel. So much of what I've learned at FAANG has increased my skill level to apply at any company id start or work at in the future.
How to get that job
The grass is always greener
Spot on saying this will resonate with some small percentage of "FAANG" folks :) (or is it MAANA now) As an ex-FAANG myself starting to build my own startup
There is so much value in these videos!
Very well explained of the thought process. I am that 1% group and recently escaped from the trap by living below the means. I felt hard to stand out the herd who aims for promotion and lifestyle upgraders
With 25 working for Google was all I wanted but I failed at the interview… Now I cannot imagine doing something more fun then being a founder. 😃
How are you doing, buddy? Still afloat?
I can feel that you are talking about TechLead at the end.
My last company just called it LTIP (long term incentive program). It wasn’t a secret. Also, it’s a treadmill that never ends. Even if you retire, you’ll never get it all.
Really nice content, l especially like the place of having a plan from the start and knowing what you came to accomplish and when to live. Wonderful video
"If they warehouse you on the Android setups team" 😂😭🤣
Super helpful! Appreciate you guys.
So work for the Matrix (big gov/tech) or
Create your own Matrix (startup)
AGREE!!! - NO PLAN - BONUS WIN!!!! LIVE YOU'RE LIFE THE WAY YOU WANT!!! 100%
Thank you for sharing gentlemen.
Targeted by YT algorithm pretty hard with this one
I have been told by VC’s that they only fund teams that have “ex” FAANG on their resume because of the caliber of the engineers… Watching this took that notion out of my head and I’m starting to feel a lot better about this hahaa!
"Only" is not accurate. But they do heavily favor ex-FAANG and top school students.
Why am I watching this even when I don't have a FAANG job?
😅
"If you give someone something and then threaten to take it away they will irrationally value it to avoid a loss." - I've been there.
I spent 3 years building a product just to have it scrapped before it was even released. It was at that moment where I realized im not meant to be an employee.
Them feels
Them feels
All I can say
*virtual hug*
Thank you guys for this video! I think this your advice also applicable for MBB with 99% accuracy.
Wow… more engineers need to watch this
Hi guys,
I really like these videos, but I feel they are mainly targeted to people in the US. As an aspiring founder from Spain, landing a job at FAANG is much harder than for the average american - many of my ex coworkers are working at Google though, but I've no interest in pursuing a career there. Does this advice only apply to FAANG jobs or to any company? I work in tech for an European consulting company and I want to quit too, even though the salary and the conditions are good. Most young people my age would kill for my job, but I'm simply not cut out for corporate.
Why do you have a discrimination against FAANG? Nothing wrong working with big companies, I'm work with one myself. The difference in working in a really big company with interesting projects and collaborating with architects it they are all engineers. Being Software Engineer is not just about learning how to code, but also being an architect, knowing when to code, and what to code. Solving interesting solutions.
Pretty inspiring, im working on AI businesses now full-time which really gets me excited to get out of bed. Frugality is real though, running most of it from my home GPU/CloudFlared tunnel
I previously worked for Microsoft. How do I come back but working remotely?
Consigning the reality of the Job you said something about a FAANG employee not really getting a good experience about how start ups work but what if someone who worked in Google. wont it be a google it was still a startup. Don't you think doesn't he/she have a good experience on how startups work?
Put this on Apple Podcasts pleeease
@ycombinator , do you believe this advice applies to a person who lives in developing nation like Pakistan (which does not necessarily have a great startup/funding ecosystem but has a great job right now)
Can I hit more than 1 like ? :). Thank you Dalton & Michael.
The topic of this video does not really make sense. I’ve worked both for FAANG companies (2 of them) and a startup, but it actually does not matter where you work at, whether it is a large corporate or a small company, unless your passion, love, and profession sticks with you. Of course, there are small different merits and demerits to both sides, but that from my experience was not much of the major problem. Working at FAANG gave me the authority and flexibility to work on interesting projects just as much as I did with a startup. It’s more of your mindset that matters most. Don’t blame the environment.
Putting our time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for. Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it.
Starting early is the best way of getting ahead to build wealth, investing remains a priority. The stock market has plenty of opportunities to earn a decent payouts, with the right skills and proper understanding of how the market works
Venturing into the bitcoin without an adequate orientation with a professional broker for accurate signals, you might lose all your hard-earned money
Binary trading is a good and reliable way of building wealth which also create opportunities for crypto Believers.
You see in trading cryptocurrency, one requires more than just a primary knowledge of crypto. It is best to trade with an expert to avoid unnecessary losses. It's advisable to have a professional trader/broker who is an expert in the field to help you manage your account.
After watching several TH-cam tutorial videos about trading I am still making losses, please I seek for a better website.
Can you do a lecture on how to start a company as a 40+ engineer that's done well as an employee, but has always wanted to be founder? Founder curious, but not a 20 something.
Just to add to that; we’re the ones with a lot more on the line in terms of house, kids, real demands on our time. Not to be rude but youth is wasted on the young (Myself included). But wondering if there is a way out into a YC style start up as a 40+ with a family or if maybe it’s too much of a time burden to be really successful (at either of the company or the family life).
@@bamboograssburned What a 40+ has is: skill, network, domain expertise and money. Money should not be considered an advantage because it can and will go to zero pretty quickly if diverted to entrepreneurial endevaours. Domain expertise could be utilized to find the problem you can solve, build the initial prototype without spending any money.
Rylac nailed it. I founded my first company @ 20. Did well, now doing it all over again but this time it’s so much better - I’m turning 30 in a few months.
Time is the consideration.
You have more of an edge. How badly do you want it?
Money isn’t the issue, and age (unlike in sports) isn’t a deciding negative factor
FAANG? What about everyone else?
some people (myself included) work to live. We want to make as much money as we can to support our hobbies, relationships, etc. -- ie, the things that really matter. From that point of view, taking a FAANG job, even if the work is sort of boring, makes complete sense. 99% of jobs are boring af - might as well make a lot of money doing it!
Disagree
99% is a very large percentage if out of 100%
But I understand your sentiment and general perspective, and it makes sense
On the subject of unlearning FAANG, one of the silliest things start-ups do is emulating FAANG hiring practices, rather than tailoring their own. I am thinking of those silly white board exercises....
What’s your opinion on a business guy, age 25. Going back to school to get the technical component. Recommended?
Super true! thanks for the ideas
I don't know about people at faang thinking to quit,,
But I every single second think, plan work hard just to Quit my Institute.
hi bro how are you
can you tell me
what kind of video record you are using?
I needed this clarity, thank you. I am quitting my Investment Banking job next week to go all in on my tech startup.
How can outsourcing BPO company serve FAANG clients better?
Hey! How can I suggest a topic for a video?
Me watching this being unemployed 💀
The bonus wins 👏👏
Great content, please keep it up!
title could basically just be "don't work for evil corporations/bosses"
Man yt hit me hard. Would love to know more about startup failure. Prevent swimmer body illusion
Looks at channel name YCombinator.. Okay that makes sense
Dam I can't even get in FAANG 😂
Is working at FAANG or a comparable big tech company really that strong of a signal for VCs? I’m working at one rn. Should I mention I work at such a company when applying to YC or other investors?
Absolutely. That's like leaving out of your resume that you got a BS at Harvard or MIT or Stanford.
can you also talk about ageism in startups
Very interesting points.
Thanks for the content!
me watching this after the rejection email
My biggest problem with working for other people is that as I soon as I find inefficiencies, I want to find a better way. That is a very quick way to get yourself boxed out in a corporation. I wish I had started earlier, but I'm glad I started when I did.
How did you deal with that?
@@nikita2560 I started my own company and left my corporate job
Lovely talk! Thanks a lot!
I am tehnical but I need a cofounder, where i can meet cofounder
I always wanted to work in a faang (I currently do) so I can network with likeminded people and find potential co-founders. That can be one plus point for people like us who don't have tier1 educational background.
My life exactly…
Great discussion, thanks for sharing! One thing that can be added is that not only FAANG people struggle this issue.We had this struggle as well, but we finally took the decision to quit our jobs and never looked back. Now we realize we should have quit earlier. We now can focus all our time building something that can change the world of coffee.