Most people think being a receptionist at a tech startup in San Francisco is all free kombucha and ping-pong breaks. Sure, the perks are nice—stocked snack bar, occasional happy hours, a great health plan—but the reality is a little different when you’re the one manning the front desk.
I’m not an engineer. I don’t write code. I don’t pitch to VCs. But I’m the first face every investor, customer, job candidate, and delivery guy sees when they walk through our glass doors. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about startup culture from this seat.
Some mornings I’ll buzz in a founder from some hot YC company—hoodie, backpack, and all—coming for a partnership meeting. Ten minutes later, it’s an anxious college grad in a suit who’s sweating bullets for their first-ever job interview. By noon, it’s three separate Doordash drivers dropping off lunch orders because no one can seem to align on what they want to eat.
Our engineers shuffle in late, noise-canceling headphones in place, often forgetting to say hi. The sales team breezes by with way more energy—loud, confident, already caffeinated. The marketing folks are usually debating the latest social post or some new campaign. And then there’s the founder—rarely in the office but when he arrives, it’s a whirlwind of investor calls, abrupt meetings, and last-minute calendar changes I scramble to accommodate.
Some days, it’s quiet enough for me to catch up on reading between check-ins. Other days, there’s a product launch or an all-hands—and suddenly, I’m coordinating visitors, restocking the kitchen, printing name tags, fixing broken badges, and making sure the AV setup works (even though I’m no IT expert).
And yes, the kombucha flows. But the real currency here is energy: the constant buzz of ambition, late nights, Slack pings, and big dreams of changing the world—or at least getting that next funding round.
I’m not building the product. But I’m part of this place, this odd little universe where 23-year-olds become millionaires overnight and where the front desk—my desk—is the one constant in a sea of chaos.
Some days, that’s exhausting. Most days, it’s fascinating.