How to (not) choose a startup to join: lessons from Fast

Check out other things I made:

Connect with me on other platforms:

00:00 - Intro
01:56 - The collapse of Fast
02:58 - How Fast hired from Big Tech
03:40 - Salaries and stock at Fast
07:00 - Visualizing equity & exploding offer
08:33 - Warning signs before the collapse
10:37 - The lack of customers
12:00 - The hiring freeze
13:32 - The annual burn rate
15:05 - The Series C delayed
15:55 - 1. Do your research on companies before joining
17:55 - 2. Ask for numbers
20:04 - 6. Talk with people who left
22:30 - Understand how businesses work

[darkwoodmovies]

A flashy CEO getting out of a car and putting on a pink coat is pretty much the only red flag you need. If your CEO behaves like this, minimize your losses and GTFO now.

[shoooozzzz]

really appreciating the increased cadence in new videos. Always quality content that supplements your newsletter. Pro tip to all: subscribe to the newsletter!

[stillbuyvhs]

Do any startups really get big overnight? I know it seems they do, but the main ones I think of spent years as small companies before becoming big. Google started as an experiment by some Stanford students; Yahoo started as a guy's homepage. Facebook started as a social network for colleges; AOL started as a game-download service for the Atari 2600.

Maybe all this "We'll get big overnight" stuff is the real warning sign.

[lordp]

this video is gold, really thank you man

[jasur]

This was a very informative video. Thank you for posting it. This can be an excellent case study for people who start their tech businesses. Maybe, if Fast changed their target audience or at least expanded it to big companies they could grow and get some funding. Having bigger names in your customers` list is very attractive for investors and also for small companies too who are thinking to use your services.

[dev]

Coinbase was begging me to apply and I’m happy I passed

[macavalli]

Funnily enough, Dominic Holland can be shortened to Dom Hol
In ouranguage that is based on Dutch, 'Dom Hol'iterally means dumbass😁

[Desperado]

“Hire people smarter than you and then utterly ignore everything they tell you.” - CEO of Fast

[AaronErickson]

In a world with decent serverless platforms, good unit economics, etc. - how the hell does a company spend that much on infra with such little traffic? Feels like a problem that happens when you bring big company people into a startup environment where people try to build borg when they really just need lambda.

[shantanushekharsjunerft]

This CEO sounds like sales guy with little engineering background

[vnphantom]

Uber was pretty smart in that in some markets that they had run the numbers, they realized that they would not be able to sustain their losses so they sold to their local competitors and got out quickly. Like Grab in Southeast Asia.

[Mutual_Information]

A friend of mine worked within the finance team at Fast. I got to hear about the collapse a week early. He described Domm, the CEO, as "completely delusional." What a clown.

[zshn]

The first engineer to quit was full of it. His tweet was sarcastic. He knew exactly what 'incredible things' were coming.

[Wyvernnnn]

Yeah this feels like the same circular logic that we used to determine the reasons why easter island went barren in the 1900s (which turned out false). We studied easter island, and determined criterions that made sense to predict deforestation based on easter island's properties, then used easter island as proof that the criterions made sense. You could apply this advice word for word and still give a passing grade to a failing company that managed to fail in other ways, or give a failing grade to a company destined for success because they just crushed it on a whim.

[vuxanov]

When an Uber employee thinks a CEO is too shady 😂

[alecstahl]

I just got a job in the third startup I ever worked (the previous two are defunct, and so will this one be). I joined the first one because I was desperate for a job, and while I knew I wouldn´t last (the salary was 30% less to what I was making before), it took me a while to realize that the company will go burst. Once I figured it out, I began looking for something else. After 3 months I tendered my resignation, and a year or so afterwards the company collapsed.

I joined the second startup because they offered me a lot of money. I studied the product and business model and I knew that the chances of success were slim to none. But they offered me a TON of money, so I figured that I would do my best work and try to stay as long as I could. Which I did. Until the company had to fire a bunch of people before collapsing.

I recently joined my third startup, again for a ton of money, again knowing full well it´s not going to work because the market is not there. My wildest dream will be me lasting two years before the company collapses, which I 100% guarantee it will.

I guess the questions are: 1) Why do I join them? 2) Why they pay me a ton of money? 3) How do I know they will collapse? 4) Why I don´t sound the alarm or prevent them from failing?

And the answers are:
1. In these startups I can make in one year a multi-year salary.
2. I am an expert in a very specific field that startups need. In fact, it actually helps me the fact I am building my reputation on failed startups because they think I have "startup experience".
3. Because I am an expert on the field, I know their obvious flaws.
4. I tried once and will never try again. When I left my first startup, as a goodbye gift, I wrote to the CEO a 18-page explanation of their flaws and how to fix them. I used data, not feelings. From ex-coworkers I learned that the CEO took my letter and parade it around the office, making a mockery out of it. When the company went bust, my letter was so accurate that one manager used it to explain the reasons.

Investing firms invest in 100s of startups hoping that one of them will be the next Google and pay for all the rest and some. CEOs keep pushing their silly ideas because after the startup is bust they already got paid big bucks, so the only people who lose are the investors of the firms, who live in hope and are ready for such failures. If I go to one of these CEOs who hire me and explain to them how their business will fail I will not even be hired. I will be punished for a good action, so why do it? I find it far more profitable to be a cheerleader for the dream, do my job the best I can, and simply wait for the inevitable collapse.

My partner tells me I should be a startup consultant, but I am not sure people would pay to be told why and how their company will fail.

[CmdrShepardsPie]

Almost every startup I’ve worked at made us work 50-60+ hour weeks, all-nighters, didn’t pay as well or the benefits they offered never panned out, and they went out of business pretty quickly. I’ll never work for another startup, it’s too much work with too much risk for too little reward.

[mwalters]

given that Uber is underwater from its IPO ... may want a new shirt to talk about the startup to join

[DerDudelino]

Can you explain why tech companies hire so many people? Fast was a fairly straight-forward, very focused product with little around it. Why hire 500 employees for it that create a huge burn rate? It's kinda like the biggest issue I see with a lot of startups that they create giant burn rates with little revenue to back it up.

[FueRent]

Honestly "Charismatic" CEO is the #1 warning sign.