startup life

I've been working at a small fin-tech startup. I won't say exactly how large it

is, where it's headquartered, or how long I've worked there. I'd like to stay

anonymous. For context, it's funded by prominent investors, employs many

smart[1] engineers and PMs, and is building something that is obviously useful.

The writing style in this post will be stream of consciousness, wordvomit. I

don't have a goal. I want to document my thoughts, and maybe unpack some things

that have happened.

anyway. onward.

joining

It's hard to evaluate an early stage startup. Being inexperienced in the world

of tech startups, I mostly used heuristics:

[+1] if smart people, who would be paid handsomely elsewhere, are working at

this place

[+1] if the leaders of the business have domain experience, and are well

connected

[-2] if the company is working on speculative (meme) technology

My decision wasn't based on the fundamentals of the business. I suspect any

attempt at understanding it deeply wouldn't have provided much more predictive

power than my heuristics (for me. someone more experienced in the space would

obviously have better predictions).

Looking back, given the information I had, and how much my shares have

appreciated, I made the right call. But mostly, I got lucky.

work

politics

in groups.

misaligned incentives.

~~~

[1] Smart meaning 1) effective engineers, and 2) have the credentials that

people often use as heuristics to examine competence (ivy league degrees,

selective prior employers, etc.)