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I think that is necessary to cut down engineers. Let's face the truth, not all engineers you hire is so talent that you can never find another one on the market

by liuliu 18y ago

I think that is necessary to cut down engineers. Let's face the truth, not all engineers you hire is so talent that you can never find another one on the market. Cut down the salaries you pay to the not-so-talented engineers or let them go.

anamax 18y ago
I'm not saying that they won't be able to hire engineers. I'm saying that it's going to be more expensive to do so. Sequoia has increased the perceived risk of being an engineer for at their companies and arguably most tech startups. When the risk of an activity increases, either the reward goes up and/or the activity goes down.
- skmurphy 18y ago
  They have also decreased the demand, so salaries and/or total compensation may go down.
  - anamax 18y ago
    > They have also decreased the demand, so salaries and/or total compensation may go down. They've decreased demand only if they've reduced the number of products and/or reduced the amount of engineering required for those products. Since they gave folks an incentive to leave near the end of a product, they've probably increased the amount of engineering for their products.
    - skmurphy 18y ago
      There will likely be a decrease in the number of VC-backed startups and the amount of hiring that they are doing: if this occurs it will reduce demand. In a year where the S&P has dropped 44% YTD customers may value positive cash flow in a prospective vendor over additional engineering-driven features: perceived odds of survival may offer significant differentiation it didn't even six months ago. This represents a potentially very different competitive equilibrium, at least in B2B markets, than a few months ago. Also events like the Entellium fraud may make many firms much more nervous about doing business with startups and lead to the need for independent substantiation of the fact that they are cash flow positive. These efforts will have to come at the expense of other efforts (e.g. engineering, marketing, ...)
      - anamax 18y ago
        I should have written that the risk increase will make engineering more expensive than it would have been otherwise. The demand decrease during the current slowdown will probably have a greater effect now, hiding the effect of the increased risk. However, when demand rebounds, the effects of increased risk will persist. Note that "jumping" when a project is close to done to a project further from done may be an even better idea during decreased demand.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]

by liuliu 18y ago

anamax 18y ago

I'm not saying that they won't be able to hire engineers. I'm saying that it's going to be more expensive to do so. Sequoia has increased the perceived risk of being an engineer for at their companies and arguably most tech startups. When the risk of an activity increases, either the reward goes up and/or the activity goes down.

skmurphy 18y ago
They have also decreased the demand, so salaries and/or total compensation may go down.
- anamax 18y ago
  > They have also decreased the demand, so salaries and/or total compensation may go down. They've decreased demand only if they've reduced the number of products and/or reduced the amount of engineering required for those products. Since they gave folks an incentive to leave near the end of a product, they've probably increased the amount of engineering for their products.
  - skmurphy 18y ago
    There will likely be a decrease in the number of VC-backed startups and the amount of hiring that they are doing: if this occurs it will reduce demand. In a year where the S&P has dropped 44% YTD customers may value positive cash flow in a prospective vendor over additional engineering-driven features: perceived odds of survival may offer significant differentiation it didn't even six months ago. This represents a potentially very different competitive equilibrium, at least in B2B markets, than a few months ago. Also events like the Entellium fraud may make many firms much more nervous about doing business with startups and lead to the need for independent substantiation of the fact that they are cash flow positive. These efforts will have to come at the expense of other efforts (e.g. engineering, marketing, ...)
    - anamax 18y ago
      I should have written that the risk increase will make engineering more expensive than it would have been otherwise. The demand decrease during the current slowdown will probably have a greater effect now, hiding the effect of the increased risk. However, when demand rebounds, the effects of increased risk will persist. Note that "jumping" when a project is close to done to a project further from done may be an even better idea during decreased demand.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]