These guys are doomed.

To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call them?

wantrepreneurs? they desperately want to see themselves as entrepreneurs, but bring nothing to the table other than self-promotion skills :) I worked for one of those once... these guys sound positively sane compared to that guy.

What about "Free Lunchers"? They think that it's a hot market so they can easily create a company and then flip it for some cash?

Whereas you are in the market for the hard work, I suppose?

I prefer to think of it as being in the market because you've a passion to solve a problem. There's going to be hard work involved in solving a real problem that people are facing and solving it in a way that's pleasant for the average user.

Maybe a lot of startups also need to realize that an enthusiastic person with years of experience and an incomplete degree is better than most college graduates with no real-world experience.

Seriously. The amount of degree snobbery in these startups founded by Stanford (and other top-level school) graduates is ridiculous. They are turning down tons of great developers everyday, most likely.

It's one of those silver lining things. You end up doing your own start-up instead, which is usually what you preferred anyway.

I wonder how many top developers are vanishing from the workforce because their start-up succeeded. A year or three of hard work and then retirement.

Or they end up owning/running some other business, where they aren't using their most highly developed skill, programming.

They could also deal with learning that if top hackers wanted to work for mostly equity, they'd be doing their own thing and taking 100%

I'm not saying that equity compensation isn't worth considering, just that for every startup that flips and pays out a nice chunk, there are plenty that don't.

Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.

As someone who's looking for talent, let me ask you what you'd be looking for. Here's what I think high quality developers are looking for; I'd love your thoughts on whether I'm out to lunch or not: 1) Chance to be part of a great engineering team 2) Chance to solve complex problems facing users 3) Opportunity to push the limits of what's possible with technology 4) Ability to influence company's strategy and design

Let me know your thoughts.

I think your list cuts across the spectrum too broadly. Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats. Older, more experienced devs will want more influence on design (although maybe not strategy).

I think the solving complex problems part is not a real factor. Every business has its problems, and most of them are non-trivial (otherwise, everyone would be in the business), so while it's maybe your job to convince someone that your problems are worth solving, it's not necessary to prove that your problems are hard.

I also think most hackers get less joy out of pushing technology to the limits and more joy out of doing something well. Sometimes those may coincide (scaling Rails, for example) but often times pushing technology to the limits means you're not solving the problem elegantly/economically. Take Google for example; they've got the most powerful distributed computation system in the world, but it's done on some really crappy PC's.

> Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats

Do you know anyone who actually learned this way? I, and others I know, learned mostly from reading (docs, books, code, tutorials, etc.). Great developers who are actually working don't want to be interrupted every time some inexperienced person needs help.

I also find presentations at conventions to often be painfully slow at conveying information. I can read in 5 minutes what it takes a presenter 30 minutes to talk about, and further, I can get answers to specific questions that always pop up when a presentation glosses over the details. Plus, if I already know something about it, I can just grab the knowledge "diffs" rather than sitting through 15 minutes of introduction.

Google is the #1 tool I use when programming.

mentors are a great thing to have, and good ones are hard to find. It's not someone you bug every time you have a little problem with your code, but someone who's been where you are now and can give you advice over a few drinks after work.

I can think of two colleagues who were critical in me ditching wage slavery and becoming a freelancer, one is a programmer, the other is a CTO but started as a network guy. I didn't learn much from them about being a developer, but I sure learned a lot about being a professional.

You're a correct to a certain extent but as you can see from the comments, they also want to work with and learn from smart people and they want to be fairly compensated, (equity, stock options etc). I think Google has gotten the mix almost right. They're working on interesting problems that affect many people's daily lives, they've got smart people working for them which attracts more smart people, they offer fair compensation. They give employees the flexibility to try out different things (and pet projects). Mind you, Google's culture is not perfect and they'll have problems retaining and attraction top talent as they grow larger and more bureaucratic.

I'm looking for what the exit is if you're offering equity, or what the path to profitability is if this is going to be a salaried job.

If you can't sell me on your idea and business case, there's no point in talking about 1-4 above.

I'm interested that you'd even consider a salary-only job. Why would you ever work for a startup if it was only salary? (Honestly-I'd like to hear your opinion) Wouldn't you want equity?

Also, let me ask you why I'd ever want to hire you on as salary-only; you'd have no incentive to stay (I'm a big fan of splitting the equity pie to make sure everyone shares in the upside and have incentives aligned).

Thoughts?

Thoughts? That I can't pay the bills with equity perhaps? :) If there's no liquidity event on the near horizon, I have no incentive to even join, let alone stay.

Colour me bitter, but if I'm going to work for peanuts, I'd rather do my own thing and have more control than I would as an optioned employee.

Minor equity (as opposed to the founder's equity) in a company that isn't going to flip (something built 37signals style) is of limited use to me, unless it's wildly profitable and paying out a considerable share of the profits.

This is big shit

Elaborate