Announcing Work at a Startup

Alright guys, so we are here today to talk about work at a startup. Let's really quickly do some introductions. So Jared, why don't you start?

Hey, I'm Jared. I'm a partner here at YC. The way I got into YC was I did a YC company in one of the earliest batches, a company called Scribd. Then I joined YC 3 years ago, and I was a partner.

Go, Matt.

Hey, I'm Matt Long. I was a co-founder of a company that went through Y Combinator back in winter 2010 called Crocodoc, and now I'm a software engineer here at YC. I've been here for a little over a little under a year now.

Cool, and you guys, in addition to a few other people at YC, have been working on a product called Work at Startup. So Matt, could you describe what it is?

Yeah, so Work at a Startup is a common application for engineers that are interested in working at a startup, and in particular, a YC company. They'll go through a lot of kind of typical biographical questions about themselves and their experience and background, and then they're able to kind of choose their preferences for what sort of company and role they're looking for. We make all this information available to the founders of all of our YC companies, who can then kind of browse and search through them to find what they're looking for, kind of indicate their interest and start conversations with them that will hopefully lead to some hires.

Cool, and yeah, so why make this? Why make this instead of, you know, just relying on the existing infrastructure out there?

Yes, I guess hiring is notoriously hard among startups, and in Silicon Valley, you know, it's just so much intense competition, you know, the more established players in the tech industry. And sure enough, you know, just like internal surveys we've done with founders of YC companies kind of confirm that overwhelmingly hiring, and in particular hiring engineers, is kind of the number one problem they face following going through the YC program.

So we at YC decided we should take the same approach we've done with everything and try to apply software to this, help scale, and you'll find a nice scalable solution in just another way that YC could kind of help our portfolio companies. And kind of made our own kind of hiring portal that's a little bit kind of particular to the way and the types of companies that go through YC.

Mm-hmm. And so Jared, do you have experience with this directly, having hired quite a bit at Scribd before? And you were also part of Work at Startup before it was known as Work at a Startup conference in 2010, right?

Yeah, so it's actually not a new idea per se for YC to try to help its companies hire. Hacker News, from the very beginning, when we first created it back in I think 2009, part of the goal was to help companies hire. And so it had a job section from day one. I was at my startup; I used the Hacker News job section a lot and was incredibly helpful for hiring. I think probably half the engineering team that we hired came through that. And that's not atypical for YC companies.

So we have sort of a long history of this. We have also long had an internal forum for YC founders where they share candidates that aren't right for them but could be great for somebody else, and that's also worked extremely well. And so the origins of this project were kind of like we saw that this was working and that there is tremendous demand for it, and everybody wanted us to do more. And so the Work at Startup product is trying to build just a better, more efficient, more sophisticated version of the Hacker News jobs board and the internal forum that we've had for a long time.

Mm-hmm. In particular, what are the additions that differentiate it from, you know, HN job posting, for example?

Yeah, absolutely. So the way I think about hiring is like it's fundamentally a matching problem, right? There's a great company for everyone, and for every company, there's a set of people who would be perfect for them. But it's really hard to make that match happen. And it's especially hard for startups. For large companies like Microsoft, they hire people of all kinds, and so the matching just becomes easier because they're hiring for so many roles. A cloud at Microsoft, there's a good chance there's a role there that could be a good fit for you.

Yeah, but with startups who are only hiring for a couple of roles that don't have brand names, you don't know who they are, what they do, if you'd be interested, what roles they're hiring for. And so the matching problem is particularly hard for startups. And that's why we've been working really hard on it. Matt would be a great person to talk about some of the ways that we're trying to solve a matching problem. It's still early days; it's a really hard problem, but I think we have some interesting ideas.

Cool! Yes, I think kind of the main thing we're going to be looking at is just kind of around what sort of culture and company feel potential employees are kind of interested in. You know, anything from kind of more objective measures like size of the company, number of people in it, whether or not they're profitable or not—like how important is that to a potential new engineer? And then also, of course, kind of ranging in the sort of skills and technologies the engineers have mastered to various degrees, and kind of lining that up against, you know, the tech stack of the beginning company is using.

And then kind of, again, going more into the culture things—kind of looking for what's more important to them, you know, just in terms of—excuse me—are they interested in solving more kind of like product-focused questions or really digging in the, like, deep, kind of technical, hard technical problems? Just things like that—kind of just what's most important to them or what they're looking for. And then, of course, we can get all this, I'm for me, exact kind of sort of information from all the companies that are going to be in the system as well, you know? So that'll kind of give us kind of two sets of data to match against each other. And we think, you know, we're pretty confident this will be a nice way to kind of filter out the most interesting and the best matching companies to the top for these applicants and the founders as well of companies—just kind of show them which applicants might be, you know, right for them.

Yeah, how does that, how do the companies report and measure their own culture in these engineering problems? Like, what questions exactly are they entering?

It's, yeah, that's a good question. We actually haven't put these questions directly in their final form in front of founders just yet. But really, you could go, like, I kind of like the application that's on workatastartup.com, and you know, go through like the career and culture section. And then you can imagine there being a fairly similarly worded question that we're gonna pose to our founders, you know? And just to start with, you know, it'll kind of be kind of trusting them—they answer them honestly, you know, about, you know, what's—what the conditions are like at their office, and just kind of like the state of their company. Whether or not we're gonna have to sort of like editorialize that or curate it at all, or, you know, make sure everything lines up with reality, it's kind of yet to be seen. But certainly, like, the star will—this be self-reported from the founders themselves.

I'm curious about how you guys have been doing the matching thus far because this product has been around. When did—when was the initial like early beta launch?

So the very first beta was in the middle of December 2017, so just around six months ago.

Okay, and what did it look like back then? Because I think it might be interesting for people to find out like how this has evolved to this point.

Yeah, so back then it was just the other data we were gathering from advocates, and that wasn't nearly as much as we have now. And it's kind of a pretty simple, watered-down version of what you might, you know, be asked on other kind of hiring portals like Hired or AngelList. Back then, it was pretty basic stuff; you know, just kind of who you are, your email address, a few freeform questions like why do you want to work at a startup, things like that. And kind of purposefully, we steered away at that point from asking people for like a resume just because there's a lot of kind of thoughts internally that it may not be the best thing or, you know, the best way to kind of judge someone based on where they worked before. They kind of look at them more holistically, which is especially true at startups, you know? It's kind of finding someone that's gonna be kind of aligned with your mission can get on board with that kind of like the goals of the company much more, we think, then you know that might matter at a larger company with a much bigger headcount.

So it's kind of like a smaller and kind of different set of questions than you might normally see. And yeah, we didn't really focus on work history at all or even education especially. You know, what school you went to shouldn't matter nearly as much as kind of like what neat stuff you've done as an engineer, you know, more recently.

Mm-hmm. And it certainly has evolved a lot since then. We actually now do ask you for a resume just because, you know, after not having it for a long time, a lot of times the first thing founders would tell us, you know, when we ask them how they’re liking the product is, "Well, this is great, but I don't know anything about them!" And kind of the first thing I have to do all the time is just go look at their LinkedIn profile to kind of learn a bit more. So, you know, we're taking that feedback and kind of iterating on that quite a bit.

Hmm. Any other surprises that you've learned from founders who are getting, you know, all these applications come through their door?

One surprise is actually the diversity of candidates that companies are looking for. You know, when we first started, we worried that like it might be hard for us to find great companies for people who are not in the Bay Area because so many of the companies that we have are based here. It turns out that's not the case! We actually have companies now hiring in over 12 countries. We have a ton of companies who are hiring for remote-only roles and just the range of the different skill sets that people are looking for—everything from full-stack web, data science, to DevOps and sort of a whole range of experience levels as well.

As it turns out, we were able to find good matches for almost everyone who signs up.

Hmm. Okay, so I'm curious about—before we talk about the conference, I'm interested in talking about the recent HN thread and what were the learnings from that? So earlier this week, I think it was Jared, I think you posted it, right? Basically a question to the community, right? What are the pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018? What were the takeaways?

Yeah, so it was a pretty amazing Hacker News thread. We got about a thousand comments in response to the question, yeah, and they were really insightful. People shared some amazing experiences of working in big companies, of working at small companies, of founding their own company, of being a consultant, and how all of them compared. The reason that we did it was we wanted to really understand what people liked and didn’t like about working on a startup and, in particular, what YC could do to help because I think we're in a position to be able to help with some of the things that aren't working as well as they could be.

So some of the things people really like about working at a startup is for sure the autonomy—the feeling that you're able to really move the needle on an organization that, like, the company that you've worked at might not have been successful if you hadn't taken that job. The ability to bond with a small team—the ability to work on really interesting problems and with the newest technologies, the ability to have control over the technologies that you use rather than just inheriting a tech stack that's already set.

So certainly some interesting pros. And then on the cons, the most prominent was compensation, and what we heard is compensation is important. People, if you're going to take a job, you've got to feel like the compensation is fair. Startups have to be paying fair compensation in order to attract the best talent, and that's always been true. I think it's gotten a little bit harder recently as compensation for engineers across the industry around the world has gone up. But what some people may not yet know is that the compensation that startups have gone up a lot as well, and so I think we may be closer than they think.

But there's still more that startups have to do on that front. Transparency is also very important, where people need to feel like if a big part of the compensation package is equity in the startup that they really understand how to value that equity and how to compare it against other offers. That's, I think, a basic thing that all startups can really do better when hiring people. Job security is very important to people. Sometimes when you're working in an early-stage startup, it can feel less secure than working in a big company.

This startup can go out of business. I think this is actually something that YC and Work at a Startup can help with a lot because while working at any individual startup may not be as secure as working at a large company, hopefully working for startups in general can be even more secure. Because if the startup that you're working at now doesn't work out, there are going to be 20 other startups who are going to like value the great work that you did there and want to hire you immediately.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, especially within a network such as the YC community.

Yeah, another thing to be clear about, I guess if it hasn't been mentioned, Work at Startup is working at YC companies like startups around the world in general.

Yeah, Matt, did you learn anything from the thread?

Um, I think, yeah, just that compensation came up so frequently it was a bit surprising to me because I guess for me that was kind of already an unknown quantity. Yeah, going to work at a startup, you're probably, you know, in the general case going to be taking a somewhat lower salary than you might get at, you know, one of the larger FANG companies. So just that there is kind of so much is very black-and-white around that; like, you know, some of the comments like, “Why would you go work at a startup when you can make double the amount at a large company? This just doesn’t make sense.”

And to me, you know, like yes, you know, face value that might be true, but there's other kind of non-financial reasons you might choose or want to go work at the startup, you know, which I think is really important. That you have to have these other kind of issues, you know, like Jared mentioning—this kind of forming these close bonds of the small team can be really appealing to people. And, you know, certainly that was one of the big kind of things I look back on from my startup experience. The bonds I formed with them, you know, they're still to this day some of my closest friends.

And it's just things like that I think are kind of like one of the unique kind of things that startups have to offer.

Mm-hmm. And just so that wasn't kind of brushed over a lot in— a lot of it was a bit surprising to me, but it makes sense. Again, because, you know, finances are important. And if you're a software engineer right now, if it is possible to make, you know, a pretty nice salary at a lot of places with, you know, relatively low risk.

So for sure, did remote work play a big role in the thread? Were people looking for that?

It did! Yeah, I mean, a lot of the feedback centered on the insane cost of housing in the Bay Area and in a few other large cities and asked the question, why is tech so concentrated in this area? A lot of people suggested that one way that startups could compete with big companies for talent is to be more flexible on that—allow remote work to have offices in other markets where the housing is not so insane. I think that's really interesting feedback, and it's definitely a trend that we've seen among the YC companies; more and more of them are taking advantage of that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Zapier is a great example of one of those companies. They were paying people to relocate from the Bay last year, which was interesting.

Yeah, I think they got a couple people to do it.

Alright, let's talk about the conference. So you guys are doing a Work at a Startup conference in July, correct?

Yep! What are the details?

Cool, so the Work at Startup conference is actually not the first time YC has done it. We did it a long time ago back in 2010, and I know because I presented at it, and it was great! The only reason that we didn't keep doing it was that it was a lot of work, and YC was very short-staffed at the time, and so we just sort of like paused it for a number of years. But I'm really excited that we're going to bring it back, and YC has grown a lot since then—we're ten times the size, and so the conference is gonna be about ten times the size.

How did it go last time?

Yeah, it's gonna be really big! And so how it works is it's similar to YC's Demo Day, but for employees instead of investors.

So we're gonna start with a keynote. Justin Khan and Sam Altman are going to give keynote talks about working at a startup, why you should work at a startup, what kind of compensation you should be looking for, how to negotiate an offer. And then we're gonna have thirty-five rapid-fire pitches from the founders of YC companies.

We've got an extremely broad range of companies coming who are hiring a very broad range of roles. So we have everything from like established successful companies like Instacart, DoorDash, and PlanGrid, where founders are going to come and give a personal presentation. And then we have a whole bunch of really small companies that like just raised a seed round and are looking for engineers number one or two and are giving out large amounts of equity in return.

And then sort of everything in between. We have companies who are hiring for roles like the most common are probably like full-stack web and back-end web and front-end web, but there's a whole range of other roles as well. We have companies who are hiring for like co-founder/CTO roles. We have companies who are hiring for machine learning and AI and DevOps and robotics engineers and embedded systems design. So I found that particularly cool just how broad the range is.

What’s the experience gonna be like for an attendee? What can I expect?

So I think the most compelling reason to go as an attendee is if you think you might be interested in working in a startup but you're not really sure which one or how to think about it. If you come to the Work at Startup event, you'll get in a short period of time like a really compressed view of what's out there and the market, what your options are as an engineer right now in 2018. And you'll get to talk to the founders because after the talks, we're gonna have just like a mingling session where you can just walk up to the founders of any company and get to know them.

Hmm, okay. And so, as an engineer—Matt, you're an engineer right now—how do you think someone ought to prepare themselves to attend the event, or should they not worry about it and just show up?

Um, I think it kind of depends on your background, where you're coming from. If you're an engineer that's already worked at a startup or might be, you know, kind of familiar with what's going on and what employment might look like in a startup, then you don't need to do much. You might want to, you know, research the list of companies that are presenting. Anyone should do this, I guess, you know? Just so you kind of know what to expect and which ones you might be interested in listening to. Because I believe there is going to be a separate track of other talks going on at the same time, so sometimes you have to pick and choose between, you know, if you're gonna be listening to the presentations or something else that's going on.

So, you know, familiarize yourself with the companies. And then for someone that has never worked at a startup before, you probably have a set of ideas like what it would be like to work at a startup, you know, based on what you've read on Hacker News or elsewhere on the Internet. So I would say kind of try to push all those out of your head and kind of come with an open mind because, you know, we like to think that especially YC startups are gonna present you with like a kind of a nicer all-around kind of like employment offer. And no kind of, you know, try to ignore any like horror stories you've kind of heard before and how mad it might be.

But also, you know, kind of recognizing like we were talking about earlier that, you know, you may need to take kind of a hit on salary if you are coming from a larger company. And, you know, everyone else, everyone's going to have their own kind of take on whether or not that works for them in their current situation. I think I just kind of come in with an open mind and kind of be willing to think about working in an industry or for, you know, a size company that you haven't ever thought about before will be the best way to get ready for it.

Cool! And just in practical terms, like should they bring a resume with them?

That's a great—any—that's a great point! I guess, yeah, we didn't mention this, but actually, there is gonna be a sort of a selection process for who gets to attend since, unfortunately, we don't have unlimited space at YC’s office in Mountain View. And so everyone will be required to kind of fill out the normal application that's on workatastartup.com right now, as if you were going to be using the site online. There will be a special section where you can indicate that you're interested in attending the conference, which will kind of treat your application a little bit differently, and you know, we'll just kind of tell us who's all interested so we can then kind of go through where we're gonna have the very difficult job of, you know, selecting who gets to attend.

So that's the main thing. Whether or not you need to bring paper resumes, you know, like if you really want to, we're not going to stop you from doing that. But we are gonna try to have a little bit of a technological approach—it’s just kind of making it easy for people at the conference to indicate interest in companies.

And is it open to people not currently living in the Bay Area?

Yeah, anyone that wants to come! I think, you know, we're not going to stop you, of course. You'd have to pay your own way here and all that, but, you know, I think it's more about if you're willing to work in a location where most of these companies are located, you know, if you're willing to relocate there—that'll probably be the bigger kind of will drive the decision a bit more. But certainly, anyone from the Bay Area is very welcome to attend. We are also going to livestream the conference online for anyone who can't make it out here.

And I wanted to mention one other thing that I'm very excited about for the conference, which is for the first time we're gonna have hardware demos. So we do this for Demo Day for investors. And back in 2010, when we did the first Work at a Startup conference, we didn't have really any companies who were building hardware, but now we have a lot of companies who are building all kinds of cool stuff.

So at the conference, there's going to be a full-size self-driving truck from Starsky Robotics that will hopefully be self-driving itself around the parking lot. Nice! We're going to have an actual satellite from Astronomer Flocka of the one that's currently in orbit around the Earth. We're gonna have—well, we are working on getting permission to land a giant industrial drone in the parking lot of Mountain View that's a drone that's made by a company called The LAN Sea, and it's so large that we need to get permission from the city of Mountain View to have it land there.

Wow, cool! Yeah, I think that like reframing just the terms "startup" to be much broader than SAS companies is an important thing that you guys are doing.

Yeah, I think it's a great point. I think a lot of engineers don't realize just how many options there are in startups these days. We have several companies attending who are doing really hard science stuff. They're doing autonomous driving and mapping and hardcore machine learning, computer vision kinds of things.

Yeah, you guys have been working on this now for over six months. What are the metrics you've been tracking and how is it going?

Yeah, so far it's going extremely well. We haven't really announced it at all. We've just been running it very quietly. We added a link on the Y Combinator homepage, and so far we've already gotten over 3,000 engineers to sign up and fill out a profile. More exciting to me is that of those 3,000 engineers, the vast majority of them have gotten at least one message from a YC company. So companies are actually really using the product, and if you are an engineer and you sign up, like the odds are good that you will get in touch with a company. Over 80% of the YC companies who are hiring engineers are already on it; they've filled out their own profiles. There's a directory on the site where you can browse all the companies who are hiring engineers, so the response from the YC community has been great.

Awesome! Alright guys, thanks for making time. And so what's the URL if people want to sign up or apply to go to the conference?

Yes, you can find all this at workatastartup.com.

Great, thank you!

Thanks!

Great, thanks!