Josh Rieken joshrieken

What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining A Unicorn

Disclaimer: This piece is written anonymously. The names of a few particular companies are mentioned, but as common examples only.

This is a short write-up on things that I wish I'd known and considered before joining a private company (aka startup, aka unicorn in some cases). I'm not trying to make the case that you should never join a private company, but the power imbalance between founder and employee is extreme, and that potential candidates would

The setup

In my Elixir phoenix web app, I have a plug which handles requests made to an internal endpoint which forbids access to all users without a proper authorization in the request header.

Sounds simple right? Well it is, the below is my plug. It checks if the incoming request has a "simwms-master-key" field, and passes all users who have that key.

	defmodule Benchmarker do
	def run(title, module, function, size \\ 1024, iterations \\ 100) do
	times = for (_ <- 1 .. iterations) do
	data = :crypto.strong_rand_bytes(size)
	{duration, _value} = :timer.tc fn ->
	apply(module, function, [data])
	end
	duration
	end

	#!/bin/bash

	sudo rm -fr /opt/franz
	sudo rm -fr /usr/share/applications/franz.desktop


	# create installation dir
	sudo mkdir -p /opt/franz

	#install franz

	#!/bin/sh

	command="${*}"
	printf "Initialized REPL for `%s`\n" "$command"
	printf "%s> " "$command"
	read -r input
	while [ "$input" != "" ];
	do
	eval "$command $input"
	printf "%s> " "$command"

	#!/bin/bash
	set -e

	droplet=netflix
	interface=Wi-Fi
	us_regions=( nyc1 nyc2 nyc3 )

	random_region() {
	echo ${us_regions[RANDOM % ${#us_regions[@]}]}
	}

	#!/usr/bin/env elixir

	ecto_import = "import Ecto.Query, only: [from: 2]"

	mixexs =
	Path.join(["mix.exs"])
	\|> File.read!

	namespace =
	Regex.run(~r{defmodule\s+(\w+)\.}, mixexs)

	var Col = require('react-bootstrap/lib/Col')
	var PageHeader = require('react-bootstrap/lib/PageHeader')
	var React = require('react')
	var Row = require('react-bootstrap/lib/Row')
	var {connect} = require('react-redux')
	var {reduxForm} = require('redux-form')

	var DateInput = require('./DateInput')
	var FormField = require('./FormField')
	var LoadingButton = require('./LoadingButton')

	defmodule RegexCase do
	defmacro regex_case(string, do: lines) do
	new_lines = Enum.map lines, fn ({:->, context, [[regex], result]}) ->
	condition = quote do: String.match?(unquote(string), unquote(regex))
	{:->, context, [[condition], result]}
	end

	# Base case if nothing matches; "cond" complains otherwise.
	base_case = quote do: (true -> nil)
	new_lines = new_lines ++ base_case

	AllCops:
	RunRailsCops: true

	# Commonly used screens these days easily fit more than 80 characters.
	Metrics/LineLength:
	Max: 120

	# Too short methods lead to extraction of single-use methods, which can make
	# the code easier to read (by naming things), but can also clutter the class
	Metrics/MethodLength: