This past semester I actually took a class on entrepreneurship and startups. It was a very interesting class that gave me an insight into the mind of an entrepreneur and why startups are all the rage right now. The positives when compared to a standard job are certainly convincing. You have total control of the company, taking your startup in a direction that seems interesting to you. You’re not going to end up a “cog in the machine” where you feel that your work is pointless. And there’s much greater growth potential in terms of salary and wealth. You could see the excitement in the eyes of the entrepreneurs that came and spoke with us. They really believed they were making a difference day in and day out, something that you might be hard pressed to find in a large company employee.
However there’s the darker side of startups that we really weren’t introduced to in this class, the failures. We never had someone come in whose startup had completely failed (most likely because this person wouldn’t exactly want to speak in an entrepreneurship class); it would have been nice to remind us that the majority of startups fail. Some people, the true entrepreneurs, are willing to take this massive risk early in their careers. I am not.
Not everybody is an entrepreneur. Some people, like me, feel the negatives outweigh the positives. Having a secure paying job outweigh the chance of a startup exploding in growth. Having a secure paying job outweighs getting to run your own company and the power that comes with it. I also believe that some of these positives can be greatly overstated.
As shown by the danluu.com article, even if you join an eventually successful startup you could have been more wealthy joining a large company. There’s still huge inherent risks, even if the company becomes successful, based upon how an IPO goes or your individual contract. There’s also the idea that you will be performing meaningless, uninteresting work if you don’t work at a startup. I definitely disagree with this. If you join a large company you will always be able to find meaningful, interesting work. It’s on you to find that work and move toward it in the company or when job searching. The danluu.com article shows that large companies are often doing the most innovative work in the industry. It’s up to you to find this type of work in large companies, and it can certainly be done.
In my post-graduation job searching, I really didn’t have any desire to work for or begin a startup. At this point I don’t believe the risks outweigh the benefits for me, but I can certainly see why they would for an entrepreneurial type. I was looking for more of a balance between a startup and a large company. I was looking for a small company where you didn’t feel like a “cog in the machine”, but stable enough that it didn’t really have a chance of going under during my employment. However, in the future when I am hopefully more financially stable, I could see those benefits starting to outweigh the risks. Maybe if the right opportunity arises I will join or begin my own startup.
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