You'll get no argument from me that a good investment is money well spent, whether it's free soda or a company fleet of Lamborghinis. But what problem is the C

You'll get no argument from me that a good investment is money well spent, whether it's free soda or a company fleet of Lamborghinis. But what problem is the CFO in the article trying to solve? The author claims the startup is "fairly successful" but it's already a few years old, just breaking even, and still heavily dependent on financing. His true measure of success seems to hinge on the fact that the company continues to exist in a bad economy. Meanwhile, the CFO needs to address "Sarbanes Oxley compliance, a new accounting system, beef up IT and security, Section 409A (valuation) compliance, etc." This sounds like an important phase in the company's growth, and she's trying to find ways to pay for it. In the context of the article, this isn't an arbitrary decision that disregards morale, productivity or even QA. It's a growing pain essential to establishing the company's success. IOW, they do have much bigger problems. There's no question that preventing disgruntlement during these stages is an HR challenge that needs to be handled delicately. But I think the need can be communicated effectively without losing valuable employees. The fact that it wasn't is the real failure in the article.