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I'm not sure whether to feel vindicated to see someone else echoing my own internal thoughts, or to feel nauseous about reliving those years. I was fortunate en

I'm not sure whether to feel vindicated to see someone else echoing my own internal thoughts, or to feel nauseous about reliving those years. I was fortunate enough to have been at a company that was making money, but I still remember growing from 500 employees to 4000 or so in 2 years...and then dropping back down to 1500 two years later. We bought a small software company for the talent, and 3 months later was told to layoff the entire team. Many great colleagues left tech at that point to become Realtors, landscapers, accountants. This is not to say that we are destined to relive exactly the same fate, but it's good to remember that rapid change is always a possibility.

asdf21 7y ago
500 employees to 1,500 in 4 years is still extremely solid growth. Markets have corrections, if your company is providing something of value I'm sure things will be okay.
- pm90 7y ago
  Value is relative. If consumer spending drops it’s going to hurt a lot of services that rely on it.
  - at-fates-hands 7y ago
    Consumer spending remains strong. . . From July: Real GDP grew above market expectations in the second quarter of 2019, according to the advance estimate released this morning from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Growth was particularly strong in real consumer spending, which rose 4.3 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter of 2019. This increase is notably higher than the 2.5 percent pace set in the preceding four quarters. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/strong-consumer-spending-supports-steady-growth-second-quarter-2019/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/strong-consumer-spending... Also, if the unemployment numbers continue at record lows, I would expect consumer spending to remain positive. A lot of the market instability has been due to the shaky trade stuff going on with China.
- chronotis 7y ago
  I wasn't exhaustive in my storytelling. Most of that growth came from M&A activity. Financial engineering.
taude 7y ago
Most my friends went back to grad school and retrained for other professions, too, like attorneys and some optometrists. I think what's a bigger risk these days is just how much tech talent if off-shored to other parts of the world, even at fast growing startups. Serious risk for engineers, likely in the Valley, where I don't know if you remember all of the billboards going from having ads on them, to pretty much being blank for several years.
- pm90 7y ago
  That seems exactly how you would expect capitalism to work, isn’t it? Labor retrains when demand for it drops and chases capital in other industries which do need it.

asdf21 7y ago

500 employees to 1,500 in 4 years is still extremely solid growth. Markets have corrections, if your company is providing something of value I'm sure things will be okay.

pm90 7y ago
Value is relative. If consumer spending drops it’s going to hurt a lot of services that rely on it.
- at-fates-hands 7y ago
  Consumer spending remains strong. . . From July: Real GDP grew above market expectations in the second quarter of 2019, according to the advance estimate released this morning from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Growth was particularly strong in real consumer spending, which rose 4.3 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter of 2019. This increase is notably higher than the 2.5 percent pace set in the preceding four quarters. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/strong-consumer-spending-supports-steady-growth-second-quarter-2019/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/strong-consumer-spending... Also, if the unemployment numbers continue at record lows, I would expect consumer spending to remain positive. A lot of the market instability has been due to the shaky trade stuff going on with China.
chronotis 7y ago
I wasn't exhaustive in my storytelling. Most of that growth came from M&A activity. Financial engineering.

taude 7y ago

Most my friends went back to grad school and retrained for other professions, too, like attorneys and some optometrists. I think what's a bigger risk these days is just how much tech talent if off-shored to other parts of the world, even at fast growing startups. Serious risk for engineers, likely in the Valley, where I don't know if you remember all of the billboards going from having ads on them, to pretty much being blank for several years.

pm90 7y ago
That seems exactly how you would expect capitalism to work, isn’t it? Labor retrains when demand for it drops and chases capital in other industries which do need it.