Why I said no to silicon valley

So my story starts in Japan. I'm a third year university student studying mathematics and computer science. A nice nerdy combination but its a lot of fun for me. As I spend my very first night in Tokyo I'm chatting with a few friends back home. One of them has partially exciting news, for the case of this story his name is Alan. Alan is just like me but he is a programmer in training at my university, we have been friends for many years now and do heaps of hackathons and go to many start-up/ entrepreneurial events just for kicks (the free food and beer on top of amazing talks is just too good to pass). So Alan mentions that was was able to get internship to Silicon Valley! Which is amazing for him, as uni is nice for him for the social aspect but as a student not so much as he didn't have much luck in that department. As the days go by he is getting ready to go and sends me all the updates. I question his expenses for affording the trip as he doesn't have a stable job back home. I realised he doesn't need to pay for food, accommodation, flights or car. Basically he doesn't need to have any financial commitments. That is a bloody sweet deal and get a bit envious. Alan gets to be a jack of all trades and does a bit of coding and a lot of community involvement. I half-heartedly mention that I would love to join him. I am not a person who likes community events as so much as Alan does, is just that I am pretty technically inclined to I rather be in my chair for a couple of hours screaming profanities at a metal box and hammering down on some innocent keys. So I state that I would love to be a dev if he can arrange it. And Alan pulls through, eventually, but that would be skipping parts of this story. They didn't need me at the point of when I was in Japan or any time shortly after. Alan mentions that The Company is just popping out press release day after day and getting stuff for the press is very important. I figured that is fair enough, they just got Alan and they shouldn’t be forking out more money than they need to.

When I get back from Japan and back to my normal life, Alan mentions I should make a short video for The Company as an resume. I get a bit nervous about the whole prospect and its benefits and I am a very reluctant to make the video. I end up making a significantly longer than anticipated, poor quality video when I had some down time from my university studies. During this Alan thanks me for being to so many events with him as it felt that it helped him get there.

Alan tells me more stories of Silicon Valley and I question how long is there for since his visa would expire soon as he said he would be there for 1 month. Alan brushes it off like its no problem. I don't give it any more thought at this stage. At this stage its good to know that The Company is a young startup dealing with an interesting hardware problem of augmented reality. So lots of math and coding is involved, getting me super interested in the whole thing. Alan gets pretty serious about bring me to Silicon Valley. I say that I would like to finish up this semester of university before I consider going over there. Uni is a commitment I would like to get off my back, as much as I love learning, I also like doing stuff as well and working all day/ night of some mathematics or programming is part of the plan, but I rather doing math/code for a different project. So asking for me to not worry about uni and chase this internship. I get a bit iffy about that and keep at uni for the current time.

After putting off this video for too many weeks Alan calls me up again. Says The Company is looking for a bunch of sales people and he wants to fly a whole bunch of people over. But we all need to do an interview tomorrow. So my friends over here and I meet at the uni and after a 1.5 hour delay due to some media press interview something we finally get an interview. Its with the COO (Chief of Operations) and Alan is in the background. My interview is a breeze and i don't even get a chance to speak, Alan spoke quite highly of me. The COO mentions we need to do a mission impossible thing, next week. Okay this is my first red flag that goes up. Its a very tiny red flag but its a flag nevertheless. Why call it mission impossible? Why not just say what it is? If we pass the mission impossible we will have a chance to go to america and enjoy an amazing opportunity.

Afterward I  go to Alan and i say that sales is not my strong suit. Alan says "if you are making more sales that you are costing, you are worth our time" Thats always interesting. Very business-like of him, which is a bit uncharacteristic. It also sounds like Alan is directly in charge of who is coming and who is going. Thats interesting for The Company to give a 20 year old kid the power to do so. But whatever. I don't know The Company so I can't say.

I finally figure out what mission impossible is. We need to sit on an operator both, online, and answer questions about The Product that The Company is selling. This will happen, for 4 hours a day for 7 days a week for 3 weeks. HELLO RED FLAG. So I get super skeptical now. That is a stupid amount of work for just a CHANCE  to go to america. So I need to ask questions to can clear my head about this whole thing to make sure i'm not getting played.

Alan had mentioned that if i knew how to solder that would be good for my chances. I'm thinking, what the hell does soldering need to do with sales. His answer: i'll be helping making The Product. My next questions is "In writing, what is the outline of what is the terms of this internship? requirements, how long and so. Currently all I know is that you will fly us over to silicon and we do sales and everything is paid for". Alan could not produce anything in writing. (Another red flag).

The Product is going to start shipping in December, and its late august now. It would be amazing time for The Company to have a round the clock manpower to sit on the operator desk and answer questions for the this product to ensure that they have as many sales as they can. Of course its part of the "mission impossible" and we don't get paid for this. Well this is very interesting and is starting to sound too good to be true.

Then Alan sends me this message.
"I have to write a proposal as to why I'm bring you guys over
I'm going to be in charge of the sales team
aka you guys"

Okay then why the hell have we been assembled if we have not been approved by The Company that told you to assemble us. On top of this we have 5% coupons to "tie" the sales to us so The Company measure if we are productive units.

My feeling?
"Fuck this america bullshit. I smell so much amateur bullshit happening here and my friend is a unprofessional fuck that doesnt know shit all.

Yet, i'm still doing it."

I have 10 weeks to go until uni finishes as i would assume is the opportune moment for me to leave to go to america. I don't need to worry about bailing university for this "opportunity". Lucky for me, i have a 3 days to go before the I need to pay for my courses. So i tell Alan if he wants really me to go, please tell me in 3 days.

Alan says the COO is out of the office for a few days and is unable to arrange anything. He says nothing is confirmed as it "depends how hard you guys work from over there". I question how much is The Company expecting us to work as I have other commitments as well. 84 hours of unpaid work is way beyond what I am comfortable to commit for just a chance. He finally tells me I will be compensated for my work. Thats interesting to learn after a few days work, but as far as I know there is nothing in writing when he originally told me and there is still nothing in writing yet. So i don't quite count it to be fully truthful. I was ready to quit, there was too many red flags for me.

The next day i'm at my day job, ironically i am a programmer in an office and its not super exciting but overall it pays for my pi’s and keyboards and hard drives and such and the hours is nice. So i'm getting out some sql and my Alan begs for me to come on Skype so he can chat. I don't like not being dedicated at work but i reluctantly do so. He says I have the gig one day before my university closing date for course fees kick in. I didn't say yes or no at this point as I was too skeptical about the whole thing. So I send him some questions before i can confirm so I be okay with everything.

“So some questions i would like answered before final response.
What do i need to bring to america?
What my financial commitments (ie, food, living, travel)?
Do I need to get an international driver licence?
What is official role?
Do I get to develop(programming)?
Do I get to do math?
Can i get a contract?
Do i get paid?
How long am i there for/ how long can i be there for?
What happens if i am unsuitable for the position. (ie, i am super shit and you want to get rid of me)
Am i under an NDA or similar (ip / morals)?
How much free time to i get to explore?
 What happens if i get injured”

Alan response with

“
Clothes, laptop, if your phone is internationally unlocked bring it, passport, driver license, Esta visa waiver, travel insurance
The Company pays for living expenses including - food, - travel (gas + plane ticket + car rental) - accommodation (the hacker house) - You pay for fun weekend activities (unless they are a group company thing, like eating out for someones birthday)
Every foreigner here just uses their home license. The coo has been pulled over a few times, and he says being foreigner they go easier on him.
“Intern” for the first month.
There will be opportunities for you to, yes
Same as above
You will get it Sunday, email me your full name and address
 Not for the first month, your payment is in flights and the opportunity. From then on everyone is on the same rate (including the CEO) of 2k a month.
3 month.
We will know within the first month and send you home (The Company pays your way home)
Yes & Yes, that will come with the contact
I try and take the full weekend from Friday sundown. Sometimes I get caught up in work Sunday, that is my choice, others take the full weekend off.
get travel insurance. (The Company is not covering this yet)”

I finally get some straight answers from him after days and days of trying! The big one is 7. I need a contract. I can't run half way around the work without a contract. The Company wanted me to sign one when i got there. And I couldn't keep a digital copy before I left here. Which was so questionable. I asked 13 since i knew if i might be building The Product and if i injure myself american health care is expensive beyond all hell and i'm not happy to pay for that.

I also asked him about a visa as I am not an american and there is no way I can rock up to the border and be like. “Hi i'm coming to silicon valley for 3 months and i'm totally not gonna be working, i PROMISE, I AM A TOURIST”. Well in turn that is exactly what Alan/ The Company wants me to do. My country is in the visa waiver program and they want me to lie to the American Border and be on a tourist visa for 3 months. That was the biggest red flag and the final thing for me to say no comfortably. I’ve been to america once before and by far their border was pretty damn scary.

I get some sleep and try put this behind me.

Okay so i started the next day after sleeping on saying no to silicon valley. I woke up a bit pissed off.

I started my day contemplating to ruin their operator chat thing. This thing is piece of shit. It is not self hosted and there aren’t any logs. But i didn't. But the idea was fun to play with.

I start telling my story to people at home and the general consensus is that I dodged one hell of a bullet. The thing was too dodgy and I had to commit way to much to The Company without any security.

I get skeptical of who is profiting off all this, is Alan who is playing me or is The Company playing Alan. I finally get around to calling Alan up to explain why I declined and how I feel about the whole thing. I explain my viewpoint of how he treated me and my friends who he invited for the opportunity. My other friends are not so street-smart I guess and did not question this as much as I did as I'm the first one to talk to him straight about the whole thing.

The poor kid is fucking shell shocked like I dropped a bomb on him. He doesn't know what to do, and questioning why he is there and why no one else talked about it. I told him either you’re profiting off us or The Company is profiting off you.

So we finish the call up and he goes speaks to his ceo, in which he wants me to speak as well.
At this point i wait like 30 minutes for this call.

The COO and Alan (i don't know where the ceo disappeared to) finally call me up. He knew the situation already. I'm like “Look I don't like how all this worked out, there i really is a lack of information”.

His response is basically “Yeah we are moving really fucking fast. We don't have time to explain that minor details like the risks of coming here, the contract and if you get compensated for the ‘mission impossible’. So sorry. But its not a big deal.”

I think to myself. “GETTING CAUGHT AT THE BORDER IS NOT A BIG DEAL”
The COO says “It is just a ‘minor detail’. Sure you go back home and you need money and lawyers and shit, but its okay it will work out”.

Then the COO proceeds to tell me about the border doesn't care about people like us since we aren't making trouble and we are actually making money for the US. He explains he took so much risk and been jumping the border constantly, as he is not an America. I explain, I don't care. What does your risk mean for me. He says i'm sorry you feel like that but we are moving really fast here and we all take risks.

But there was nothing that The Company offers me in security that they can do since its “too slow” for them.
.
Overall i'm very content in my choice. To deny, these are obviously people who move “too fast” for me and don't need to worry about the law and stuff.

Alan is pretty shaken up right now and doesn't know what to do, but he is trying to be honest with everyone else now. He is thankful for me being honest with him when no one else did. I didn't do much but just be a mate and tell it to him straight and not beat around the bush about it.

Overall I guess its important to keep your wits about you when start-ups. Some will try to play on your inexperience. Having street smarts as well as book smarts is just as a valuable skill to have.