How To NOT Get Screwed As A Software Engineer | Dalton & Michael Podcast

**Dalton** (0:00)
Funniest thing is this one of the technical person who does all the work is the one actually reading the analytics and like, hey, like, this, our launch bombed, what's the plan in the business? Don't worry about it. This is like, you need to be quiet. This is my department.
You know, stop asking questions.

**Michael** (0:18)
All right, this is Dalton plus Michael, and today we're going to talk about how to not get screwed as a software engineer. Interesting.

**Dalton** (0:28)
Yeah, we're going to get some tips, you know, we've noticed that a lot of the technical folks sometimes get exploited. They kind of get ripped off by other folks.

**Michael** (0:37)
Evil business people.

**Dalton** (0:39)
Yeah, it's kind of a bad pattern. And so we're going to talk about it. So who is this aimed at, Michael? Who is this video for?

**Michael** (0:45)
The folks we're talking to. So we're talking to maybe you're a technical co-founder at a startup right now.
Maybe you are a great engineer at a scaling up company. The guy that everyone comes to, the person who always gets fixed, the woman who's always up late getting those text messages and having to...

**Dalton** (1:09)
Or you're at a really early stage startup.

**Michael** (1:11)
Yes.

**Dalton** (1:11)
But you're not a founder, a co-founder. You're like a lead engineer or head of engineering or there's some title. Yes. And the whole company is like three people.

**Michael** (1:20)
Yeah.

**Dalton** (1:21)
But you're not a founder.

**Michael** (1:21)
You're not a founder. There is the college student who all the MBAs go to to build their prototype.
And then there's the Googler, right? How did you describe it?

**Dalton** (1:32)
It's the person that does the work that other people take credit for to get...

**Michael** (1:38)
Promoted.

**Dalton** (1:39)
Promoted in bonuses.
It's the person that does the... Actually producing the products that a lot of people stick their career on.

**Michael** (1:46)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. So that's who we're talking to.

**Dalton** (1:49)
Yeah.

**Michael** (1:51)
So I think the thing that we're trying to really help you with is to...

**Dalton** (1:57)
Yeah, we feel bad for you. So this comes up a lot for us at YC, where we read a lot of applications and we interview a lot of companies, and we see folks where it's pretty clear what's going on. We can see it a mile away in the application that someone is getting exploited or ripped off, and it's usually the technical person, right? And it feels bad to see just all of these applications come in, and it's crystal clear what's going on.

**Michael** (2:22)
Yes.

**Dalton** (2:23)
And so this is for you.

**Michael** (2:24)
Yes. We would like to give you some questions to ask yourself to figure out whether you're being treated well or not. And I think that to be clear, we don't want to presuppose, right? There are a lot of people who are in great situations. We just want to give you some tools. So let's talk about equity.
What are the questions people should ask themselves about whether they have enough equity, equity at all?

**Dalton** (2:47)
This comes up a lot. I know you are a big proponent of this, Michael, but in general, something like equal equity is pretty common for startups that apply to YC and is something we recommend. And sort of the anti-pattern we might see is say there's two founders and the non-technical business founder has 90% and the technical person has 10% or less.
And the explanation is basically just that the business founder had sharper elbows and was a better negotiator. There's actually no justification for this.

**Michael** (3:19)
It was my idea.

**Dalton** (3:22)
Right? And so there's really no good reason. It's just that the business guy gets more for whatever case.
And usually in those situations, you wind up with something much closer to even. Again, you give this advice. How do you explain this when this happens?

**Michael** (3:35)
I always just think that the vast majority of the journey is ahead of you, not behind you. And you want your co-founders to feel like owners and partners. And I always think about, in the early days of our company, on Sunday night, when the website went down, I couldn't fix it.
And so we're going to live in one of two worlds, the world where I get text and I have to cajole people to fix it, or the world where everyone feels like an owner, and they get text, and they wake up and they fix it. And I think a lot of people just don't understand that if you can make people inherently motivated, they'll do far better work than if you fucking yell at them. So that's the founder. Do you have close to equal equity?