Hooked on Career Arcs: From Startups to FAANGs and Back Again – Part 1 (Issue 43)

“Working at startups represents a significant phase within an individual's non-linear career arc. The experience and knowledge gained from being part of a startup are essential for success in larger companies, other startups, or even when founding your own business." - Venky?Ganti , SVP of Product and Engineering @Numbers Station

Surprise! You just got a phone call from the leader of a FAANG . They want you to come to work on their AI technology, which feels like landing a spot on the first Apollo mission with a chance of being on the team that cracks the General Intelligence code and much more. But you're in a conundrum. As the principal AI engineer at a startup, you are touching every aspect of the product, impacting hundreds, thousands, and even millions of customers, and you love it. But you find yourself drawn to the FAANG because of the scale, access to unlimited resources, and a compensation offer that even Don Vito Corleone couldn’t refuse.

What’s going on?

Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Anthropic, Cohere, OpenAI, and many others are surgically recruiting talent from each other and innovative AI startups. This week, we have four confirmed “sightings” of their top leaders calling startup superstars and offering them jobs, money, and status without interviewing them. This kind of thing happens constantly and is especially common when the race to develop new technologies creates demand for a small number of people with specific skill sets who can figure out how to build these new technologies. This targeted strategy relies on the laws of magnetism at scale; theoretically, they get the most beloved, influential, and impactful AI person at an innovative startup to defect to the FAANG, and the rest of the superstars will follow. There are thousands of examples of how this strategy works in practice; it’s a tried-and-true playbook.

But this strategy works multi-directionally, and now is a great time for startups and talented folks to reverse engineer this playbook. We’ll address both below.

Why does it matter?

AI startup talent getting calls from other companies’ leaders and CEOs is distracting and stressful for startup founders and their AI employees. It feels like the Wild West, maybe even a crisis, but it’s not a crisis. Predictable talent swapping and consolidation will naturally occur in the AI innovation ecosystem, just like at every major technology inflection point in the past. FAANGs will acquire talent by recruiting aggressively and making targeted acquisitions . The talented people themselves, whether working at startups or other big companies, will weigh career and financial decisions that may impact their well-being for years and their career trajectory for decades. AI startups will go through a tumultuous time trying to decipher signals to know if their teams are stable and wondering if their products can meet milestones if a key person on their team defects. ?

But startups need not be sitting ducks! Now is a great time for startups to recruit out of FAANGs because the revolving door goes both directions. It’s also an excellent time for AI talent to depart FAANGs, spread their wings, and take calculated risks. Some folks like Erik Meijer are seizing the moment and departing from big companies to experiment, found, or join startups.

What do we think?

If you are an AI talent, the world of work is your oyster. Almost any innovative startup will do everything they can to hire you, but joining a fledgling or even growing startup is not a cakewalk. You’ll want to ensure your values and motivations align with the founders and others with whom you’ll be in the trenches. On the other hand, you can pretty much write your ticket to any FANNG, maybe even without interviewing. Going after title, money, and prestige will work great if you can sustain interest and energy in the problems. But if you don’t deeply understand the work you’ll be doing, with whom, how, and why (by interviewing and doing due diligence), then you might end up on a 4.5-year death march while you wait for the highest % of your equity to vest on the latter half of that cycle. If you take the time to examine all aspects of your motivations and interests and ensure that a FAANG opportunity is the right step in this phase of your career journey, then maybe you go for it. ?

If you are the founder or leader of an AI startup, you already know that everyone on your team is a target, including you. Two years ago was the best time to prepare for when the AI wars would start draining your talent, but today is the next best time. Don’t put your head in the sand and hope nothing else surprising happens. Get ahead of this situation. Go on the offense and do your own surgical recruiting out of the FAANGs.

What do others think?

“Given the incredible competitive pressure in the field, there is really no advantage to being inside a large corp if you want to build cool stuff on top of LLMs.” – Erik Meijer announced his voluntary departure from Meta on 3.26.27, ironically two days after The Information reported on personal recruiting calls to startup engineers from Mark Zuckerberg.

“It is very difficult to get up and leave a comfortable, well-paid place where I’ve learned how to be successful, built many professional relationships and connections, and can navigate with my eyes closed. Yet I felt that if I played it safe and did not jump into the unknown now, I might regret it for the rest of my life. So, I decided to take the plunge, break the proverbial golden handcuffs, and go all in on Temporal.” Sergey Bykov , SDE @ Temporal Technologies

What do YOU think?

TAKE ACTION

For AI talent

Be intentional. We all have a career problem that we are constantly working to solve. Your problem is the difference between your ultimate goal and current activities. Make a game plan to bridge this gap over time. Recognize that startups, growth-stage companies, and large tech corporations can each contribute to different phases of your career.

Always be auditioning. Every meeting, project, and recruiting call you take is an audition for your next role (which is why it’s essential to have a career game plan; see point above). If you work at a FAANG and get a cold call from a startup founder, take it. If you work at a startup and Zuckerberg calls, it’s probably worth chatting.

Money and “prestige” aren’t everything. Keep your wits about you, and don’t get carried away by money and the ego of it all (or lack thereof!). ?Your future happy self and career depend on thinking clearly about what matters to you.

Safety is an illusion. If motivated by the safety and stability of joining a big company, you are delusional. Remove this thinking from your decision-making algorithm. ?Companies in CA, WA, NY, and many other states are “at will” employers, meaning they can let you go at any time, for any reason, with almost no warning. No one, not even AI talent, is protected from this reality, no matter how big or successful the company is.

For founders

Be Intentional. Right now, sit down 1:1 with everyone on your team and have a “career problem” ?(see resources) conversation with them, followed by “stay interviews” every three months. These conversations will help you and your team members ensure their roles align with what they want to do and learn, who they work with, and how work gets done.

Pay competitively, but don’t throw money. Review your compensation and equity strategies to ensure you are competitive with other startups and that you can explain the value of employee options given various scenarios. We’ve heard of startups countering FAANG offers by allowing their employees to get secondary market liquidity. We don’t recommend this because the person will probably churn anyway after a FAANG leader calls again, leaving you with a cap table mess.

Double down on non-monetary retention strategies such as leadership, speaking or publishing opportunities, and promoting your team members on social media to show appreciation for their contributions (and to attract other superstars to your brand – see next point).

Your team is a magnetic force. As a founder, you can’t rely on a shiny product, significant rounds of VC funding, or unicorn valuations to be your talent magnet. Differentiate why you and your team are the reason someone should invest a phase of their career arc with your startup. When a key person joins your team, consider publishing their story to attract others like them. ?

Always be Recruiting. Surgically recruit talent from the FAANGS—plant seeds by introducing yourself (now) to people you’d love to recruit in a year. And don’t go dark with people you already know. These people can be recruited, but they aren’t going to say “yes” the first time you call. Consistency breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds confidence—more on how to do this in Part 2, which we’ll publish soon (subscribe here ).

Tools, Resources, Events

• Why I Joined Temporal , by Sergey Bykov Hooked on Career S-Curves , inspired by Sumit Mehrotra
• Turn Your Career Problem Into a Game Plan , Shannon Anderson
• Can You Startup? ?Always be Recruiting and Recruiting Starts Now , Audra Aulabaugh
• What You Should Know About Your Startup Stock Options , by Kieran Snyder
• Levels.fyi – Compare and negotiate public company offers.

Madrona is a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs build companies of consequence.

Hooked, by Madrona is a series about startup talent, careers, and founder stories, interpreted by a curious and skeptical VC + playbooks, tools and templates…and other stuff company builders need to know about how to hire.

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Who creates Hooked? The Talent Team @ Madrona Venture Group Shannon Anderson -Executive Talent Networks and Talent Director, Audra Aulabaugh - Company Builder and Talent Manager, and Matthew Witt - Company Builder and Talent Manager