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Does anyone know what has happened to the company behind Rome? Seems like all the employees have left
by whatever3 3y ago
Does anyone know what has happened to the company behind Rome? Seems like all the employees have left
- sfobiab 3y agoWhat I have heard and seems was considered "common knowledge" about a year ago was that the founder embezzled the money. His VCs considered suing, but decided it was just too messy. I'm not joking, something about some seriously extravagant vacations and a house renovation all paid right out of the company's bank account.
- habitue 3y agoAny links to direct discussion of this (or sources)? All I can find is indirect evidence that they burned through vc money too fast
- norman784 3y agoAFAIK they ran out of money and now the project is community driven, so no hopes to have the all in one tool soon
- nindalf 3y agoYou have a source for that? Couldn't find a mention on their blog.
- norman784 3y agoIs not an official source, but it seems that it is the case according to this discussion[0], searching in the social media accounts there's nothing, also Sebastian[1] didn't published anything more about Rome since December [0] https://github.com/rome/tools/discussions/4302 https://github.com/rome/tools/discussions/4302 [1] https://twitter.com/sebmck https://twitter.com/sebmck
- sieabahlpark 3y ago[dead]
- Hurtak 3y agoThey run out of money? I thought they raised like 5M two years ago and they had like 3-5 employees and pretty much 0 expenses outside of salaries.
- capableweb 3y agoAccording to HN, 1 good employee would cost you $1M per year, since everyone obviously lives in SV. 5 employees and that works out to 5M/year.
- vlovich123 3y agoWith payroll taxes and benefits, an employee is ~2x TC. Since startups underpay frequently, let’s say the average salary was ~150k in TC for early employees within SC. That’s 300k*5 = 1.8 million gone per year. Over two years that’s 3.6M. 1.4M left over for finance, legal, rent, and other expenses is kind of tight and you definitely won’t make it a 3rd without any kind of customers or other financial infusions. That’s why a company has to find some kind of product market fit quickly - you have to show there’s a there there so you could continue growing either through revenue growth alone or raising another round.
- noahtallen 3y ago2x TC seems high. For one direct example I know of, benefits package (including all the insurances with all premiums paid by the employer) costs around $25k/yr. I feel like at $150k salary, it’s probably like $200k total cost? Payroll tax employers are responsible for seems around 7-8%. $30k benefits, $12k extra payroll tax leaves $8k for equipment and other expenses. That would be about $1M/yr for 5 employees. Curious to learn more though.
- vlovich123 3y agoI think the 2x number is a rough ballpark that includes total cost of employment (eg HR salaries / outsourced HR etc). It’s entirely possible that this overhead is smaller for startups and it may have shifted over time (this is a rule of thumb I was told by a few people 10 years ago)
- JohnBerea 3y agoHow was Rome going to make money so that an investor could get a return on their investment?
- detaro 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27039330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27039330
- aim_cherries 3y agoThey ran out of money after the CEO spent all of the money on...questionable...purchases. All of the employees were laid off with no notice.