Silicon Valley is the undisputed hub of innovation in the world today. It's well known for its ecosystem of startups, entrepreneurs,venture capitalists and a skilled workforce. It is also home to many of the largest high-tech corporations.

Silicon Valley is a nickname for the San Francisco Bay Area, which is located in Northern California in the Unites States.

In the past couple of years there has been a significant increase in the number of professionals and new graduates moving to San Francisco/Bay Area in search of the next "Google". There's tremendous energy and excitement among the workforce and it's well founded based on the recent valuation of some of the high flying startups like Uber , Airbnb , Snapchat, Pinterest etc.

Most of us in the Information Technology industry have to choose between the stability and security of a well established high-tech company like Google, Amazon or Oracle and the uncertainty and growth of upstarts like Uber.

I was in this situation in 2008-09, I was working at Yahoo and I had to decide whether to stay at Yahoo or look for other opportunities. The financial crisis had hit the markets hard and we were officially in a recession. Yahoo wasn't doing great, but my job was relatively safe. I had started interviewing, and had gotten offers from LinkedIn ( a start up with 350+ employees) and large tech companies that were doing well despite the financial crisis.

I wasn't sure how to evaluate these opportunities, especially the startup's. Unlike public companies the information about startups is scarce. there's little or no track record and the future is all about potential. Statistically,the odds are stacked against startups.

 90% of all startups fail with-in the first 3 years. - CB Insights

While I was looking for answers online,I discovered a memo written by David Henke ,who served as senior vice president of engineering and operations at Linkedin from 2009 to 2013

I had known of David Henke since my days at Yahoo; like many engineers at Yahoo I was one of his fans and greatly admired his leadership style.Henke is a colorful personality and a Silicon Valley veteran. Prior to LinkedIn, he was the SVP of engineering and operations at Yahoo for over 4 years. He led a team of 500 engineers in Panama (ad system) to overhaul the company's search marketing platform.He ran engineering and operations at AltaVista, an internet search engine company, from 1998 to 2002.

In the memo titled "So you want to join a startup ?" Henke and his colleague Buena Suerte provide a checklist to evaluate startups as potential employers. I collected a lot of material during my research, but I found this memo to be the most comprehensive and practical.I share my checklist in this post.I also share the process I follow to evaluate startups. I used the same checklist when I was evaluating LinkedIn as a potential employer; I decided to join LinkedIn in 2009.

So you want to join a startup ?

If you've read through the post this far, I assume you're interested in startups, or you might already have an offer from one. I hope you find my checklist helpful.

If you decide to join a startup,you'll be investing a significant amount of time so your decision process should be similar to that of investors or venture capitalists.

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