Offer checklist: checklist for deciding whether to join a specific company
Are there people in this group that I want to be working with in 20 years? (Before evaluating this question, make sure you give people a chance to show their interestingness, either by looking up their profiles/websites online, or asking them many questions when you meet them)
Would I buy the product if I was the customer? (Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway along with Warren Buffet, in my opinion one of the best investors in history)
Do I respect and admire the people I’d be working with/for? (Charlie Munger)
Do I enjoy hanging out with the people? (Charlie Munger)
Is my future manager stellar? (Keith Rabois)
Is the CEO a learning machine?
Is this valuable (to the world), and going to remain valuable over the next 10+ years? (Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir, Clarium Capital, Founders Fund, Mithril Capital)
Does the world/people want this, and will they continue to want it over the next 10+ years? (Big difference between what is valuable and what people want. i.e. perhaps reading for two hours a day is more valuable than spending two hours on Facebook, but looking at the numbers would indicate most people ‘want’ the latter more)
Am I going to be able to perform the job (well), and maintain/improve my ability to perform over the coming years? (Peter Thiel)
Are other people not doing this, and not going to start in the next few years? Note, this question is less relevant for a mid or later stage company. (Peter Thiel)
Is this something that I feel I am slightly unqualified to do? (Marissa Mayer) Please don’t use this to justify taking an impressive role at an unimpressive company.
Would it be fun to work on this and with this group? (Paul Bucheit, employee #23 at Google, creator of Gmail, YC partner)
Is this either a mid-stage high growth company, or an early stage company with an extraordinarily strong team and network? Obviously, if it’s something that just seems really fun and interesting to you, that’s great too. (Joe Lonsdale, Marc Andreessen, Andy Rachleff, etc)
1. Network
2. Market and Growth Rate
3. Optionality (does it build new career capital/skills for you, or is it more of the same)
4. Brand (more important if you don’t already have 1–2 strong brands like MIT CS or Google Engineer on your resume)
— Elad Gil, co-founder of Color Genomics, early investor in many past breakout companies, e.g. Airbnb series A, Optimizely seed
Does the company have at least one of the above attributes noted by Elad?
Are you less focused on both role and compensation (because even in a less important role where you earn less, if the company ends up being a far more important company you will have far more future opportunities)? (Elad Gil)
If they have impressed you with revenue numbers, are you aware of how they are reporting revenue and the differences between for example GMV and net revenue, or revenue and bookings? (http://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/)
Have you read some/all of the pages on understanding offer letters? If not, re-read the sections on ‘Understanding options and equity’ on BreakoutCareers
If this is a pre-breakout company, have you read some/all of the pages on thinking like a VC? If not, check out the section ‘Think like a VC’ on BreakoutCareers.
There are three types of start-ups:
1) Ones that are so young that it’s difficult to tell if the dogs are going to eat the dog food.
2) Ones where there’s clear evidence of market pull.
3) Ones that are unfortunately stuck in a push market or have a very difficult product to sell. The trick is to say away from #3. You only go to #1 if you are a domain expert and you have an informed opinion on a product/market, but this is a rare trait. The real trick is to end-up in #2.
— Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital
Does this either fit #1 with you being a domain expert, or #2?
Is this a ‘tribe’ you want to be a part of? (John Lilly, Partner at Greylock)
Struggling to decide between two options that both fare well?
Ask: ‘Where would I be spending the most time with people that I admire the most?’ (If you don’t know who you admire the most, consider looking for people who are energetic, smart, independent minded and curious)
