But it means that the application used in the big screen have different ergonomy than those with little screen. (maybe hosting the data “in the cloud” is a solution cool enough and we don’t need a dockable phone ?)

However, Microsoft has a very big portfolio of activities, and the success as a company cannot be correlated with the success of workstation anymore.

Media center, Xbox, Windows 8, Azure, they have really great stuff coming and have a brilliant community of developers. (The problem is that these developer are more enterprise developer than “mainstream” one, this is why there is so few apps on windows phone)

Microsoft teams are becoming very receptive to the market and become to some extent non-Microsoft. (Bing team)

My view may be biased since I’m a .NET developer, but I respect the path they take, they are less “mainstream” than other companies but it does not mean they are doing worse.

thanks much.

I’m at a crossroads now. I really don’t want to offer an equity stake to developer for phase 2 which amounts to about 1/10th of work already completed (he’s already rec’d lots of cash for core SaaS product dev’t), yet I don’t want to bring in someone else.

Not sure which direction to go…leaning towards offering a limited %, but not overly thrilled about it.

I did that once and it was quite a learning experience. I traded sweat equity for a shot and ended up better than most. I didn’t recover the lost salary I would have made in a safe job but I made enough to pay off the credit card debts I accrued while I was working without salary for the “Founder”.

First it’s much easier to iterate and grow as a start-up when everyone is in close proximity, Communication is instant and includes the social element, something that is missing with chat. Also having a beer after work is an important part for start-ups which is where a lot of great ideas come up and where everyone gets the necessary team spirit to work at hundred percent.

In addition to that start-ups are a stressful environment, and people easily panic. The further away people are the more they rely on outside influence. As the old saying goes, you either sit at the table or are part of the menu, and people tend to feel that way.

Finally, selling a team is always a fallback option. This however is much easier if you have a packaged team in one place that can be easily integrated into a larger organization.

That said there are amazing opportunities out there to hire especially developers who work remotely, possible on the other side of the planet. Smart companies do that, despite the drawbacks listed above.

Yet there is a glut of founders and a lack of developers.

Engineers that work night and day and christmas and new years when a project depends on them… and don’t worry about making payroll, have skin in the game and deserve founder status. Don’t give it to them and you suddenly have no product. Good luck with payroll then.

Giving them 0.2% cut is an insult when “entrepreneurs” can’t achieve shit without a great engineer behind them.

The market has spoken and @naval is simply explaining why.

~ Supply. Demand. Life isn’t fair. The end.

To the founders posting in the comments about “skin in the game,” consider opportunity cost. A developer who signs on to your startup is working for a company with an uncertain future, with one motivating factor being the potential value of an equity stake. This individual believes that your vision will succeed, and is actively working to further that goal rather than accepting a certain (likely higher) paycheck at a more well-established competitor (developers are in demand, remember?). If the startup collapses or fails, this developer has invested considerable time and isn’t even left with a deliverable product to point to on his or her resume.

The bottom line is if you offer someone equity because they bring a UNIQUE skill to your team and fills a much needed gap, they still need to have skin in the game in the form of a cash investment. Then you know they are really committed. Otherwise, you may give someone equity who still has an employee mindset. The minute things gets tough, as they most certainly will at some point, they will go looking for a job. Now you have a guy who has equity in your company who isn’t even a full time contributor. Been there, done that. Be very stingy with equity folks.