Choosing A Company

How do you decide or discover which company to join?

• If you have a company in mind, apply there

• If you not, then you have a discovery problem.

  • Look for a rocketship company

  • Look at job boards

  • Talk to recruiting agencies to shop your resume around

Which Company?

In general:

• Join a rocket ship company

Eric Schmidt (as CEO of Google) to Sheryl Sandberg when deciding to join Google, and now COO of Facebook:

'If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, get on, don't ask what seat.' I tell people in their careers, ‘look for growth.’ Look for the teams that are growing quickly. Look for the companies that are doing well. Look for a place where you feel that you can have a lot of impact.”

Lists:

• Breakout List: List of companies with a breakout trajectory.

• Wealthfront 2017 Career Launching Companies List

I'm interested in companies with products I use, so I reached out to:

• GitHub

• Gitlab

• Reddit

• Bloombuilt (for their DayOne Journaling app)

As you will be someone who is going through the job application process, you could focus on companies.

Company Qualities

Rocketship Companies

Pros:

• Should be able to make amazing financial returns

• You will get more credit for just being there at the right time

• You can get lost in the growth

Cons:

• Rapid growth, could mean a lot of disorganization

• You can get lost in the growth

Note:

• Large companies can also have rocketship growth

  • Example: Amazon

  • Some teams may have rocketship growth, some teams not

  • Established teams, most likely will not have rocketship growth

  • New teams may have rocketship growth, looking to prove themselves

Lifestyle Company:

Pros:

• Potentially more comfortable pace

Cons:

• Don't expect rapid growth

Size: Small, Angel, Seed

Pros:

• You can contribute to other areas of outside of your domain

• Room for larger impact across the organization

• Easier to find meaning from your work

• Potentially high reward, also high risk

Cons:

• Don't expect much mentorship, or good mentorship

  • Unless the other people in your team have experience as well

• High risk, potentially high reward

• Most likely a Cowboy organization

Large: Series C+, Public

Pros:

• Large number of people you can potentially learn from

• Low risk, good pay

• FAANGs

  • Mature organizations

Cons:

• Just another cog in the wheel

• Glorified engineer

• Can be paid well for doing "non impactful" things

• Have to find meaning from it

• Different teams can have different cultures

  • Established teams may not have rocketship growth.

From ex Facebook Software Engineer:

The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.

Evaluating Companies

• How much risk are you willing to take?

• What is the company culture?

  • Do they have a work from home policy?

  • Do they allow anyone to take vacation?

• Who/what will you be learning at the company?

• Who is going to mentor you?

• What is the company's expectation of you?