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Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

nytimes.com

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Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#241

Post by xenihn »

meritt wrote: post #225
aphextron wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends what you want in life. Pittsburgh you can afford a beautiful home and support a family on $100k. That's studio apartment survival money in the bay. The portion of us who will ever make it to the big leagues and land that $300k FAANG job that allows you to buy a home and raise a family in the bay is infinitesimal. But if you just want to live that single lifestyle, enjoy the big city, and play the start…

> big leagues and land that $300k FAANG job that allows you to buy a home and raise a family in the bay is infinitesimal. $300k/yr is nowhere near big leagues to buy a home and raise a family in the Bay area, just fyi. It's more like a comfortable single income where you aren't worried about paying rent or going out to dinner. You try and raise a family on a mere $300k in SF/SV, you're one layoff or recession away fr…

The trick is to also marry another engineer making that much :)

The majority of housing stock listed for sale in SV is being pulled off the market in a panic. I'm not sure what exactly it means, but if I had to guess, I think it's due to a huge reduction in demand.

No one is buying, so sellers don't want their homes to be listed as unsold for a lengthy period of time. Eventually, people will need to sell, and then we'll see a race to the new bottom for the market, which might still be incredibly unaffordable for most.

$300k will take you further then, but the issue will be whether companies will keep paying engineers that much when housing prices no longer warrant it.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#242

Post by sjg007 »

meritt wrote: post #225
aphextron wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends what you want in life. Pittsburgh you can afford a beautiful home and support a family on $100k. That's studio apartment survival money in the bay. The portion of us who will ever make it to the big leagues and land that $300k FAANG job that allows you to buy a home and raise a family in the bay is infinitesimal. But if you just want to live that single lifestyle, enjoy the big city, and play the start…

> big leagues and land that $300k FAANG job that allows you to buy a home and raise a family in the bay is infinitesimal. $300k/yr is nowhere near big leagues to buy a home and raise a family in the Bay area, just fyi. It's more like a comfortable single income where you aren't worried about paying rent or going out to dinner. You try and raise a family on a mere $300k in SF/SV, you're one layoff or recession away fr…

Well it might be enough in 6 months!

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#244

Post by muse900 »

qppo wrote: post #54

Startups are in way better shape than traditional small businesses. By our very nature, we need months of runway just to keep running. We're designed to weather this kind of storm because "zero revenue" is the default state. Hearing about Bird cutting 30% of their workforce is awful. But it's nothing compared to the thin-margin Mom & Pop, or medium sized private enterprise that had 1 week of cash on hand and ceased o…

Small-medium hotel owner here, that used to write code for a living.

What just happened in my industry, is forcing me to go look for a job. I don't think we are going to open for summer season or even if we do its not gonna make enough to live by.

Hundreds or thousands of years ago, a few had all the wealth and then most people were poor. We even had slaves.

I can't believe that in 2020 and with all the knowledge we've acquired as humanity we've allowed a few people to acquire all the wealth.

I am gonna struggle with paying any tax coming my way this year, or even supporting my employees who they very much need the job. And on the other hand, there are corporation that don't need to pay much tax through their umbrellas and then again they pay their employees peanuts so they can have a CEO that is worth in the hundred of billions of $. Sad to see that humanity hasn't improved at all.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#245

Post by sheeshkebab »

dominotw wrote: post #93
julius_set wrote: post #62

So I’m curious will property and rental prices drop in San Francisco now that funding is drying up? Can’t seem to find much information about that. For example a friend of mine who was laid off still has to pay $3300 / month for his studio. Curious how long this will last for?

I think its unlikely because everyone knows its going to right back up once this blows over. So demand should hold constant.

Perhaps, but the way it’s moving there will be another 20m+ people without jobs in a month or two (prime working age folks), and with a bunch of industries contracting at the same time it’s likely that recovery will take a while before it all resumes. Hope I’m wrong but it could be a few years before it will bounce back.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#246

Post by IggleSniggle »

closeparen wrote: post #150
jaggederest wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work remote, move to the midwest (or, really, anywhere outside of the bay area or NYC), own your house outright. The idea that the options are "get paid usurious amounts of money" or "live 90 minutes from work with a bunch of roommates" is a false dichotomy.

Interesting perspective. My employer entertains remote workers and satellite offices only to the extent that it feels the Bay Area is “tapped out.” If that thinking is at all representative of the industry, I think we’re likely to see those options evaporate rather than grow. There are definitely IT jobs “native” to the Midwest, but they’re overwhelmingly seen as cost centers to be deskilled/automated/offshored rathe…

I've been working remote for only a short time, but it's been interesting to watch as my entire company (its a software company) now goes remote due to COVID-19. There's a lot of people that seem to be having lightbulb moments like, "oh wow, I'm just as much if not more productive than I was before" as well as some people that seem to be having a crisis and not know what to do with themselves. The people that don't know what to do with themselves seem to be correlated with the same people that I previously felt had a negative impact on our velocity.

Any company that truly believes all the talent is on the coasts isn't the kind of small-minded company I would want to work for anyway, so it's kind of moot for me.

But I think there will be a lot more understanding of what jobs work well in a remote setting due to quarantine, and plenty of software companies will realize they can save a ton of money by not retaining an expensive office space, while gathering talent from a wider pool of diverse perspectives.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#247

Post by sjg007 »

I dunno.. online businesses will probably do well in this "new" economy. There's a ton of opportunity to remote work tooling as well. Right now people are hunkered down trying to get the basics in order. Restaurants and grocery stores have had to reconfigure themselves for delivery and curbside pickup. Cloud kitchens will do well here, Instacart is probably doing well too. AirBnB will not do well since they are a function of in person travel. Airlines though have moved to cargo delivery type function. Amazon is obviously cleaning up. If you can make masks or ventilators you are probably going to do really well. Every local community has an instacart like opportunity and some of these are grass roots organized.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#248

Post by temp20160423 »

kirktrue wrote: post #195
dchyrdvh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These prices are set by the top 30% employees of the big tech firms. Unless there are massive layoffs there (e.g. 250k employees are let go) and this situation lasts for a few years (they have savings for 3-5 years usually), I wouldn't expect the prices to move.

Just to make sure I am understanding you, are you stating that the top 30% of employees have 3-5 years of savings socked away that they can get to easily? If that’s true, well, I guess I am not in the top 30% of employees of big tech firms.

It also depends on if you include retirement accounts. It seems nuts to have 3-5 years of savings as cash in taxable accounts. But this is easily doable if you include retirement accounts, which you would start withdrawing from if things were really bad and the choice is to lose your house or withdraw early from 401K/IRA.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#249

Post by sjg007 »

not2b wrote: post #154
tdfx wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this crop of federal leadership is rotten, I'm not seeing much hope in the possible followup cohorts. The US government has effectively delegated responsibility for the crisis to state governments, and they all seem to be following the same stupid "stay in your home" model. Federal and state, their only solution has been to throw money at the problem, but that doesn't work when you've got no one around who can exe…

Only the federal government has the ability to borrow money. States have to balance their budgets every year, and whoops, half their tax money has now vanished, because so many can't work. Delegating responsibility to state governments and simultaneously refusing to provide the needed resources is a recipe for failure. Allowing unlimited profiteering on essential supplies and forcing states to bid against each other,…

States can borrow money if they want, they are called bonds. The Feds can print money or they can sell bonds. That's the difference.

Re: Startups are pummeled in the ‘great unwinding’

#250

Post by meritt »

sjg007 wrote: post #242
meritt wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> big leagues and land that $300k FAANG job that allows you to buy a home and raise a family in the bay is infinitesimal. $300k/yr is nowhere near big leagues to buy a home and raise a family in the Bay area, just fyi. It's more like a comfortable single income where you aren't worried about paying rent or going out to dinner. You try and raise a family on a mere $300k in SF/SV, you're one layoff or recession away fr…

Well it might be enough in 6 months!

For sure. I'd just hate to be someone who thought signing a 30-yr note on a modest $1.5M 3-bed/2-ba home was a sustainable decision, and is now faced with the almost certain deep recession we're heading into.
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