Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Alyssa Royse
I’ll admit at the outset that people, in general, confuse me. But I get really confused when I hear someone who is looking for work with a startup say, “I could never work for that, my time is worth more than that.”
Is, or was? Is, or will be? Is, or is like “Johnny Depp is sure to fall in love with me?” When it comes to assessing our own worth, people seem to be pretty out of line with reality. I think we need to take a real look at what creates “worth” in a person – whether you are hiring or looking to be hired.
1. A thing is worth what the market is willing to pay for it. That’s it. That’s why a basketball player can make millions of dollars while a teacher barely makes ends meet. That’s why a diamond is worth thousands of dollars but the environment and lives that were destroyed to get it are not. No matter what you did before, you are still only worth what the market is willing to pay for you.
2. Your value is not on a one-way upward trajectory any more than the stock market is. Do you remember how much a new betamax player cost when they came out? More than $2,000, which is probably close to $10,000 in today’s dollars. How much would you pay for one now, given its usefulness in handling today’s media consumption habits? Like it or not, the same is true of people. You may have been the top of your game a few years ago, but if the game has changed, it doesn’t matter much.
3. It makes no difference if someone with an equivalent position is making more. Every company of every size makes its salary decisions based on the money coming in vs. the money going out. That equation is applied to everyone and everything, and is then modified by how much “risk” there is in taking on new expenses. Further, you really don’t know the financials of all those other companies – where their money is coming from, at what rate, with what terms and conditions. Does it suck to be reduced to a line item? Not nearly as much as it would suck to work for a company that folded before making it to market because they overpaid everyone – that would leave you unemployed again. (The obvious exception to this rule is Wall Street, which has it’s own rules that no one can figure out.)
4. The value of your education and previous experience is not the same as its cost to you in time or dollars. There is no direct correlation between the cost and time of your education and the revenue that you can generate for an employer. It does NOT make you worth any more than anyone else.
So why on earth do we do this startup thing? I mean, that all sounds pretty shitty. We do it because as nebulous and confusing your “worth” may be, the “rewards” are just as nebulous and confusing, but they have great potential – and great value. (As, I should add, do you.)
1. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. The great thing about this screwed economy is that there is brilliant talent all around us that isn’t doing anything. Sure, some arrogant fool may pass on a fun opportunity because his time is worth more than what you have to pay, but there are many brilliant visionaries who would rather be engaged in something than mired in nothing. And those are the people you want to work with anyway. (I mean really, what is there to lose?)
2. Getting in on the ground level of something current will increase your value in the marketplace! Yup, nothing like relevant and current experience at the forefront of a market to make you worth more to everyone.
3. You’ll be like a kid again. That may sound like a stretch, but there is plenty of research to indicate that when you are on the steep side of the learning curve you are increasing both your mental and physical acuity. Learning keeps you young. So what else are you gonna do with all that time that no one is paying you enough for? Soduko? Porn? Get in there and learn everything you can, build something.
In the give and take equation that is ANY relationship, what you don’t get in dollars you will get in other ways. Some of them are personal – experience, growth, connections, perspective. Some may be closer to monetary – stock, ownership, titles.
Here’s what it gets down to for me. If there are three people standing in the same place at the same time, no matter what route they took to get there, they are all in the same place. The question is; what will they do from there? Sometimes it’s hard to tell what a person is worth until they’ve made the most of the opportunity they were handed.
But a person who can’t make the most of an opportunity isn’t worth much, in any market. And a person who is sure they’re worth more than anyone else? Well, they often have some problems with critical analysis that may make them worthless on the job as well.
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Alyssa Royse is the founder of JUST CAUSE Magazine, and is not worth any more than anyone on her team, or any less than the people who insisted they had to be paid more than her, on principle. Her personal musings can be found on her blog – they would be worthless, were it not them that kept her from going crazy.
