FAANG vs Crypto Careers

I came across an article written by a talent specialist at Paradigm Research (one of the foremost companies in crypto at the moment). Here is a little background on him:

Dan McCarthy is a Talent Partner focused on helping Paradigm’s portfolio companies build world-class teams. He began his career in engineering recruiting at Google before joining Clever (YC S12) as its first recruiter and later its head of talent. Most recently, he led Lime’s executive recruiting team across operations in San Francisco and Shenzhen. — Dan McCarthy, Talent Partner

From “The Community Garden: The Case for Leaving FAANG Companies for Crypto”

TL;DR:

  1. The existing equity compensation model drives people away from startups. Token-based compensation gives startups an additional tool to create incentive alignment with their employees, which can meaningfully change candidates’ risk/reward calculus when they’re considering joining a small company. Crypto companies have been the first to adopt this model.
  2. All our content is controlled by a handful of platform companies, which exert enormous control over what reaches eyeballs and rely on invasive tracking of user behavior to make money. Most engineers share ideological values that aren’t compatible with this model, but there hasn’t been a viable alternative for some time. Crypto can help facilitate a return to the decentralized, open web.
  3. Engineers want to work on groundbreaking technologies with the potential for real-world impact. Over the past decade the most cutting-edge research has taken place in secretive labs within the FAANG companies… except within crypto, where research is built on open-source principles and public experimentation.
  4. The FAANGs have historically enjoyed a built-in advantage with any candidates who need visa sponsorship to work in the US. This will continue to be a major challenge for all startups, crypto and otherwise, but in 2021, residence in the US is less important than ever before.