Month: October 2012

There is an “old” saying, when the MBA’s moved to Silicon Valley in the late 90’s the end was near.

The rationale: they were in it for the money, not the mission.

The reality is that MBA-line was a bit simplistic.

I was in SV and I saw it first hand. Everyone wanted to work in a startup. And many had the wrong intentions. Not just MBAs. Hiring became very tricky because you were trying to figure out people’s true motivations.

The labor market became so tight companies were giving BMW’s as a hiring bonus.

Fast forward thirteen years and I’m concerned we are heading back in the wrong direction and the mercenaries are showing up in droves. As far as I know Randy Komisar was the first one to point out the difference between mercenaries vs missionaries in startups. And it’s true today as it was when he made the point. Fred also talked about it earlier this week.

For example, we have execs joining companies with massive guaranteed compensation. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with people holding out for what they feel is their worth. And I’m not even suggesting that he doesn’t deserve this package. My question is whether it’s missionary or mercenary. Can you build a leadership team at a place like Yahoo without a guaranteed windfall?

It’s sort of reminds of when a RIM or MSFT pays third party developers to build apps for Blackberry 10 and Windows 8. Can you truly buy love? Can you buy inspiration?

And it’s not just executive pay either.

Every single startup I work with is having a tough time hiring engineers. I routinely hear of starting salaries for new grads (from the best schools) with zero work experience at over $100k and experienced ones are much higher.

And we now have things like Developer Auction where engineers get salary and stock bids from companies first, even before they meet each other.

I don’t know how companies feel good about bidding on engineers they haven’t met. And I don’t know why candidates want companies to make an offer before they hear about the gig, meet the founders and understand the mission.

My advice to startups is to remain highly selective. Don’t get into this bidding war. First of all you will lose that game to big companies. Your natural advantage is that you are small. Find people that sincerely believe in your vision. Find folks that want to make an impact and not just a cog in the machine. Find people that want to be part of a team that has an opportunity to change the world and believes in the work.

My advice to engineers thinking about their next job?

Ask yourself: are you happy?

If not, take your time and make sure your next job is a place you truly love. When you find that place, I assure you, it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. And I don’t know what’s worth more than that feeling.

The apps and communities that give me goosebumps are the ones where the more you give, the more you get. It’s a two way relationship and that really resonates with me.

Yesterday, Foursquare released a new homepage experience. TechCrunch wrote about it yesterday and the headline tells it all — “Meet The New Foursquare, The One You Helped Build and Continue to Power”.

That’s exactly right. We, the users, help build Foursquare. We give it tons of check in data and other social signals and in return Foursquare gives us back this incredible local experience.

The other thing gets me pumped besides the give/get nature of Foursquare, is seeing a founders vision turning into reality.

This is something Dennis Crowley has been thinking about and working on for a long time. I’m so happy for Dennis and his team in getting out this amazing new version of Foursquare. Well done.