First of all, risk adjusted reward/liquidity almost always favors just doing really, really well as an engineer -> engineering leader at a FAANG or a tier or two down. You'd have to really knock it out of the park with a company you start for it to be financially better for you than simply building and riding out a great career at a FAANG.

Second, many parts about starting and running a company run in different directions or even directly counter to the kind of fulfillment you can achieve by being a good engineer at a strong engineering organization. This is probably the much more important point. If running a company well is something that truly makes you happy -- happier than all the other things you could be doing, and you can stomach the intense resource investment it takes to become successful, then it's worth it.

But that's rarely the case. If you ask a lot of people who run companies who are more on the honest/humble side of things why they run companies, they'll tell you the same thing: "I'm not very successful at working for other people." That's not just them being humble. There's a lot of truth to that. And the other side of that truth, is that for people who are a little better at doing that, there's an enormous amount of very well compensated and highly intellectually stimulating work that can be done in the world of big tech.

For most if not all of the best engineers I know, they have great deals at great companies being well compensated ICs and player-coaches. Why start your own company when you could just walk in making a guaranteed low to mid 7 figures TC with the same level of autonomy at a sure thing?

A skilled engineer who focuses solely on engineering will produce much better work than a skilled engineer that also has to focus on /marketing /sales /investors /accounting /facilities /IT /management /HR

Either a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond.

Edit: Also consider that you may be a person that can produce a lot of value specialized, but practically no value when juggling all the above items. You'll find that if you can produce a lot of value at any level then you can negotiate from a position of power.

The author is just giving you advice for doing those things.

The ones who are in it just for the money rarely become the best engineers.

Of course some random idiot nagging the engineers won't be worth much, they need to be experts at the specific business and domain to bring value in this situation. Which also makes them harder to replace.

Certainly, companies with engineers who are capable and independet problem-solvers, and who are experts at the company's needs and the domain it operates in, are the most valuable. These are not uncommon either. But a fast-growing company in a fast-growing industry has zero chance of solely hiring such people. They need to widen their net to people that require managing.

The reality, though, is that businesses themselves enable substantially all of the value they create through engineering. Google can't drive billions in revenue without engineers, that's true. But the Mets can't play in Shea Stadium without the janitors cleaning up after games, too.

I think that this is an excellent observation, but I also think it's worth noting that many good engineers don't care if they get "there". If you're naturally inclined to find reward in problem-solving, then trained in how to solve progressively more complicated (and therefore rewarding) problems, the value comes from that activity, rather than in accumulating wealth.

Many engineers I've known are anything but "grounded," especially when it comes to their opinion of their own technical prowess, but that doesn't necessarily make them money-motivated.

You may be the best engineer in the world, if you don't know how to find customers and get paid, make good investments, and do all the bookkeeping, or, alternatively, hire the right people to do it for you and manage them, then your business will fail.

However, if the only thing you know is how to do business, then all you need to do is hire a competent engineer and you will succeed.

>An engineer who can adapt their output based on constraints and requirements deserves to be well compensated for that flexibility.

Yes, but somebody that is not motivated by money will have no incentive to adapt to the constraints and requirements. Which is what the whole thing is about.

Except perhaps if they are motivated to make the rest of the team happy I guess.

Most businesses exists to make money. I think having everybody in the room on the same page is very valuable.

Group 1: The first group is not the target of this discussion, because they're more interested in being employed and having a steady income -- they'll work for you if you have an interesting problem to solve and you pay them market rate for their skills. And companies should value their risk aversion, because it's good to balance insane entrepreneurs with realistic detail-conscious normal people.

Group 2: I've been in the second group, and now am in a founder's position bootstrapping a company with my own piggy bank. I have no problem with the way things are. I've worked not only for low pay to do something that was interesting, but also for free to learn the ropes or have a chance at gaining experience at something new. There are very few opportunities to do that in the big corporate world -- especially to have a chance, based much more uniquely on who you are and what you want, to do something very different from your career past or something for which you have little experience. This is especially true if you don't have a stellar academic history, which most of us know means nothing but which the corporate and academic world value so much it prevents group 2 engineers from getting into a lot of doors. And there are other benefits. New ideas come along the way when you're concentrating in the fast-paced smalltech world, along with new friends and knowledge that come in handy regardless if you decide to ever found or be an early executive team member of a company. It's not just about the net monetary gain between today and exit.

As an engineer with an entrepreneurial core, I definitely don't despise those who happen to have greater persuasive skills and use those skills to build a productive workforce that's less expensive and adds more value than the next guy. Isn't that one of the reasons they're successful? And isn't it one of the reasons an investor is more likely to give that entrepreneur capital to grow a business? If that guy can convince me to work for his company for less overall monetary gain between now and when I leave his company than if I had gone for some other option (in a wildly imaginative world where engineers have lots of options every time they look for work), then who am I to be upset later over what's in the bank? If he was a better salesman than the next guy (or an i-bank, or Google, or your dad's friend's tire company who needs a web dev), I'm happy to be aboard as the collateral benefits will be great. In addition, if I'm worth something more than the next guy, being a group 2 entrepreneur-engineer, I take it as a test of my own maturity in the entrepreneurial world to bargain for and be able to convince others of what I'm actually worth to them.

QUESTION: What about profit sharing instead of equity? I've always wondered if this an option explored by any software startups.

The only way to really excel as engineer or scientist is to move out of the role into a position that is people oriented, like manager. Even if you choose the entrepreneurial route, it is not the engineering that pays the bills, it is the interacting with other people. If you want your business to be successful, you will have to eventually delegate out the engineering so that you can focus on building the business.

With that, if you are only driven by financial gains (as opposed to the love of doing), why would anyone bother with the science/engineering step when you can put all of your focus on people-oriented jobs from the start?