Jumping from a corporate job to a startup can be a risky move.
But if you're passionate about the company's mission, like 25-year-old Deepa Talwar was, it can be well worth it.
Talwar gave up a job at Visa to join hot transportation startup Uber in March. While Visa pays its typical manager more than $100,000 per year, Talwar tells Glamour magazine that she's now making $70,000 as a Process Manager for Uber.
"I had a corporate job but took a pay cut to go to Uber, an app that helps you summon cars," she told Glamour. "What I'm making now is perfectly fine. I'm passionate about this job -- it was worth the risk."
Other tech companies pay their managers nearly double that amount. The typical manager at Netflix or eBay, for example, makes between $100,000 and $130,000, according to Glassdoor.
Still, Talwar is smart to team up with a company like Uber. When we spoke with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick last year, his company was already profitable in five of the eight cities it was operating in.
It's been fighting laws in almost every city it launches in, but the source says the ultimate plan for Uber is to IPO. Which could make Talwar's new gig worth much more than $70,000, assuming she was given stock options.
Here's what Uber's client revenue chart looked like as of September, per Kalanick's YC talk. Kalanick said then that the average active client was spending $105 per month:
For Talwar, Uber was a company to bet her career on. Looking to do the same? We recommend you land a job at one of these rising startups:
16 Startups Worth Risking Your Career For >
*Update: We originally printed a source's estimation on Uber's margins while we waited to hear back from Uber's Travis Kalanick. We were told Uber keeps an estimated 40% for every black car its customers hail via the app, and less -- about 10% -- to hail a non-luxury car. But that seemed optimistic. It was. Kalanick said the margins are far from those percentages, "laughably" so. But from the chart above, it all looks to be trending the right way.
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