4 ms·

I understand where your frustration is coming from. As a founder, you do your best to prepare for the best and worst outcomes at the same time. It sounds like

I understand where your frustration is coming from. As a founder, you do your best to prepare for the best and worst outcomes at the same time. It sounds like they ran a real recruitment process and paid you for your time, hoping to hire you. However, the funding market is very poor. It's likely they realized that someone of your calibre, while useful to the org, wasn't absolutely, 100% needed to the survival of the company. That's not to say you weren't impressive. It's just that founders right now are in survival mode, not "Let's hire the best talent we can find" mode. Founders are trying to use the minimum resources possible to get to their next milestone. It sounds like the YC founders made a tough call but one that protected their runway.

tedmiston 4y ago
I agree this feels like a sign of the times and the greater macroeconomic environment has forced many startups to choose between going into survival mode or going bankrupt by running out of runway too soon. I've always been frustrated by startups that hire over-optimistically. I worked for one that doubled headcount twice from 15 to 30 to 60 in just a few months (with a heavy emphasis on engineering) pre-PMF only to turn around just a few months later and layoff half of the company, then a few months after that, half again. That obliterated the culture and morale, and then also follow-on effects of more people leaving that made it even worse. They are a rare success story that went on to eventually re-raise a "seed" round two more times (!), rebuild and eventually achieve unicorn status. However, in the process it required changing virtually the entire company (90+%) including all new C suite, the founders being demoted, etc. I can't help but wonder in a parallel universe what could have happened had we not hired excessively to begin with. I think too many founders today expose themselves to being overly dependent on venture capital by growing headcount too fast.

tedmiston 4y ago

I agree this feels like a sign of the times and the greater macroeconomic environment has forced many startups to choose between going into survival mode or going bankrupt by running out of runway too soon. I've always been frustrated by startups that hire over-optimistically. I worked for one that doubled headcount twice from 15 to 30 to 60 in just a few months (with a heavy emphasis on engineering) pre-PMF only to turn around just a few months later and layoff half of the company, then a few months after that, half again. That obliterated the culture and morale, and then also follow-on effects of more people leaving that made it even worse. They are a rare success story that went on to eventually re-raise a "seed" round two more times (!), rebuild and eventually achieve unicorn status. However, in the process it required changing virtually the entire company (90+%) including all new C suite, the founders being demoted, etc. I can't help but wonder in a parallel universe what could have happened had we not hired excessively to begin with. I think too many founders today expose themselves to being overly dependent on venture capital by growing headcount too fast.