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Silicon Valley's Tech Employees Are Getting Nervous (vanityfair.com)

Posted by msmash on from the impending-future dept.

An anonymous reader quotes an article on Vanity Fair: Private tech companies are feeling a contraction in Silicon Valley. The funding that venture capitalists have thrown at start-ups is dwindling, in small seed rounds and mega-rounds alike. There's a new postmortem written weekly about a start-up that's run out of cash and shut its doors. Start-up executives are sobering up, realizing that their companies actually need a path to profitability. Now, not wanting to be stuck on a sinking ship, tech employees are thinking about the bubble, too, as they plan their career moves.

10 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. GOOD. by Thud457 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give those special little snowflakes a taste of what everybody else has been living with for the last eight years.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:GOOD. by convolvatron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      sure, maybe the snowflakes deserve some blame. i mean who wouldn't want to bathe in money in
      exchange for working on something trivial like an instant messaging service that doesn't scale or an
      ad distribution network.

      its just that they were so smug and self important about it

      but really, the blame lies in the investment community. they get to bathe in alot more money, and
      ostensibly their job is to direct some fraction of the collective social resources towards efforts that
      will further enrich themselves, and indirectly society as a whole. at least that's my guess as to
      what this whole 'weath creation' narrative is.

      except that they dont seem to be very trustworthy, seems like we get dutch tulips all the time. loans,
      electricity, tech, loans, tech, tech.

    2. Re:GOOD. by Aighearach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it is funny people automatically assume that it takes a "bubble" to cause this.

      Venture Capital management strategy is to run each startup so that it has a less than 1 in 10 chance of surviving. They usually target 1/14th or so. They want to maximize the size of the ones that succeed, not the percentage that succeed.

      People go to work for a startup but don't know that, they should learn about who they work for before taking a job IMO. They just figure they're special and the world should be fair to them, even if fairness would call on them to understand their own part in it.

      There is no bubble, because there isn't extra money getting invested. Duh. And most startups are supposed to fail. It is the system. What a dumb story. Also true: if you work experience is just at failed startups, you get harder to hire because those companies are seen in the market as having different culture than the more traditional businesses that care about surviving. And most tech jobs are in other places, not just in one small part of California. For people with non-startup skills, there is even still usually a worker shortage.

    3. Re:GOOD. by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Give those special little snowflakes a taste of what everybody else has been living with for the last eight years.

      Apparently you don't have facebook. My Democrat friends post another fake graphic every day showing how the economy is doing just *great*, better than ever! and everybody has a job and Obama has saved us. Except for Bernie Sanders supporters, who say Obama did a great job in recovering the economy but the rich people are making life bad for everybody.

      By the way, everybody now also has health insurance! Yes, because the IRS will fine you a couple thousand bucks if you don't - which somehow means everybody has it. Don't ask how to get from point A to B there.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    4. Re:GOOD. by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This, right the hell here.

      As an aside, I've found that during the interview with a startup, you *always* begin discussing the business' long-term plans, discuss their financials, discuss their profit strategy, and learn enough to understand the answers... doubly so if you're not getting any stock (I go for cash/salary anyway - worthless stock is worthless if the company goes tits-up). If they get all nervous or their answers start getting all buzzwordy, end the interview there and go look somewhere else, unless circumstance says you have no other choice.

      I've lost count of the times when I interviewed at some startup that tried to sound like The Next Big Thing(tm), and everyone runs for cover at the very mention of even the minor question of "How much revenue do you project over the next five years, and what is your strategy to improve it?"

      ( The funniest was when one "IT Director" replied to that very question with "Why should you care? You're just orchestrating the servers?" Why was it funny? Because the look on his face was priceless when I told him that "Well, I won't blindly slave away for some random VC chump, good luck finding someone stupid enough to work for you, and the interview is now over. Good day, gents.")

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:GOOD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >My smugness has not diminished.

      Verily, your smugness may have increased!

  2. Tried the startup culture, hated it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Never again. I value my personal time with my wife and children too much to devote it to a mere job, no matter how "good" that job may be. I'm interested in working with interesting tech, primarily things relating to command line tools, regexp, pattern matching, you get the picture. I left the startup culture for good and went to non-profits. Why? Because I have more latitude with how I work and what I work with than I ever did following some young, inexperienced founder(s) hellbent on getting rich. I work 40 hours a week, 8-5, Monday-Friday. These are normal, healthy hours. Anything else is for monkeys and those foolish enough to believe working 70 hours makes a difference.

    You have one life. The time you have is precious. There is no rewind button. Do what you love, but do it largely for yourself or your family if you are married and have children.

  3. What is old is new again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're all too young to remember the dot-com bubble bursting 15 years ago. We're living in the same times.

  4. "Start-up executives are sobering up" by Nutria · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is why, once upon a time, executives were middle-aged men who'd had enough time to learn why profits are required for business to function.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  5. Some advice by jgotts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless you are an executive, favor cash compensation, not equity. Make the decision for yourself how you want to invest your cash, if at all.

    Work for a company that is making something legitimate today.

    Work for a company that is making a profit, not wasting naive investors' money.

    Factor in cost of living increases for the amount of time that you expect to work at the job. Let's say for example that you're moving to a city in the Silicon Valley region. If rents are going up 10% per year in that city then what they're paying you is going down 5-10% per year in real terms. (As rents increase, the cost of everything else increases, too. As rents climb even higher, the cost of living is completely dominated by what you spend on rent.)

    F*ck Silicon Valley. It seems like no matter how high you get paid, you're screwed. Work somewhere where making $60,000 will allow you to live comfortably, in other words, virtually anywhere else in the United States.

    If you can't save any money, you're not living comfortably. You're just getting by.