Quote:
Originally Posted by kaby
also, streamliner, i'd def get in on that startup. it sounds like a really cool job and playing poker fulltime isn't really a long time plan for almost every poker player. if this great opportunity presents itself now i'd go for it
You guys have to realise that working for a startup will likely end in failure. The vast majority of them have an amazing idea/business plan/marketing idea, but most of them just don't pan out for the basic reason that its hard to run a successful business. The failure rate for the first 3 years is very high. It's one of those things like "i'm gonna start my own business" or "i'm gonna buy property because it always goes up in value", where people don't really know about the downsides or what factors go into making a successful decision.
Now, thats not to say that Steamliner hasn't researched the company or that its actually one of the minority which has huge potential to be successful, its just that people should be aware of the risks and know that getting into a startup isn't necessarily a great opportunity. I am all for people diversifying their skill set and am of the opinion that a lot of poker players would be better off in the long term getting out of poker now (rather than at a later stage) and starting to gain skills that will help them in the corporate world, but imo working at a startup will likely hamper that ability, just because there's not as much supervision and they're not up to date or can't afford the latest technologies.
Just my 2 cents, i say this having spent the first 3 years of my professional life working for 2 IT startups. The offering of stock options/IPO is pretty standard too, there actually IS massive upside there, as previously stated though, the majority of the time you're going to be using them to wipe your ass.