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The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

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Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#181

Post by mdoms »

chrisseaton wrote: post #19
version_five wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the dotcom boom in Canada there was a sub-boom in fiber optics and related stuff in the Ottawa area. Nortel et al were hiring and paying big salaries right out of school, and people got used to it and thought that was how much money they could earn. For years afterward there were people who had mentally anchored themselves at a certain salary bracket that couldn't find anything (especially in Ottawa) that paid any…

> and thought that was how much money they could earn But they were right.

They sure were! No need to read the rest of the comment!

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#182

Post by riku_iki »

ctvo wrote: post #46
nemo44x wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a month ago was a totally different time than today. I know of a few companies that froze most hiring (including in cases where an offer was about to go out) temporarily with the last couple weeks. Of course I haven’t sampled every company. Just a very sudden defensive position springing up more and more.

Meta very publicly announced a hiring slowdown, Netflix is introducing levels and slowing down hiring, Coinbase is slowing down hiring, etc.. Even with the above names slowing down hiring, I would guess big tech uses this opportunity to stockpile even more engineers to come out of this stronger. I don't see the competition for engineers that can pass those interviews slowing down. Startups? Yes, the cohort that raise…

> Meta very publicly announced a hiring slowdown

their revenue may just go to other companies (tiktok, google?) which will hire those engineers.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#183

Post by khyryk »

warent wrote: post #72

People are calling this a correction... I don't understand the first thing about economics. Over the last quarter, the Nasdaq is down 25%. That's a correction? Seems pretty serious

Because over the last 3 years just prior to this correction, QQQ (since we're talking about the tech sector here) had a CAGR of around 30%. Had it been climbing up at a CAGR of 10%, we'd be having a different conversation.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#184

Post by bckr »

Beltalowda wrote: post #130
nemo44x wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a month ago was a totally different time than today. I know of a few companies that froze most hiring (including in cases where an offer was about to go out) temporarily with the last couple weeks. Of course I haven’t sampled every company. Just a very sudden defensive position springing up more and more.

I'm interviewing right now, and thus far still plenty of interviews. It probably matters what kind of thing you're looking for: I mostly prefer small outfits but stay away from SF-style "venture-backed" setups in the first place. Turns out that outside of the "bubble" the economy is just churning along as usual. The position I'm most excited about now is just a small self-funded company making something useful and is…

> That said, I did have a job offer that was rescinded at the last moment

At what point in the process was it rescinded? Had you already accepted or even started the process of getting your equipment / Onboarding?

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#185

Post by gnicholas »

ctvo wrote: post #46
nemo44x wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a month ago was a totally different time than today. I know of a few companies that froze most hiring (including in cases where an offer was about to go out) temporarily with the last couple weeks. Of course I haven’t sampled every company. Just a very sudden defensive position springing up more and more.

Meta very publicly announced a hiring slowdown, Netflix is introducing levels and slowing down hiring, Coinbase is slowing down hiring, etc.. Even with the above names slowing down hiring, I would guess big tech uses this opportunity to stockpile even more engineers to come out of this stronger. I don't see the competition for engineers that can pass those interviews slowing down. Startups? Yes, the cohort that raise…

NFLX may be slowing down hiring, but they also laid off 150 full-time employees, in addition to part timers and contractors: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/netflix-announces-more-layof...

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#186

Post by gsibble »

robbomacrae wrote: post #140
bearjaws wrote: post #22

I think this is just the correction that was inevitable as hiring had become a cargo cult. Everyone was hiring so everyone felt compelled to hire, creating a feedback loop of insane wages and offers. Now its time to pay the bills and many organizations realize the engineers they hired cannot possibly provide the value necessary to keep their job. I know one individual who got hired as a Sales Engineer for a platform…

"cannot possibly provide the value necessary to keep their job." It's actually very much possibly for software engineers, at least, to justify high valuations. As an example when I joined Reddit my first task was to remake a data engineering server in scala that cut down the needed AWS machines by 70%. That cost saving already covered more than my salary in perpetuity and I was only 3 months in.

I was paid $165k a year by a neobank startup to.....build their bank. It's now responsible for over $200mm a year in revenue. I was the sole engineer on the project.

Good engineers are worth their weight in gold.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#187

Post by ramesh31 »

nemo44x wrote: post #87
BoxOfRain wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What advice would you give to people who've not been in the tech industry during a recession yet?

Save money and have enough to live on for awhile. If you don't have savings then immediately cut your cost of living down. If you do lose your job then don't just accept anything (remember, you have savings + unemployment + severance to live on for awhile) and use this time to sharpen skills and learn new things. Make yourself more valuable. I can't see the future but I don't think it's going to be a bloodbath like t…

> If you do lose your job then don't just accept anything (remember, you have savings + unemployment + severance to live on for awhile) and use this time to sharpen skills and learn new things.

This is terrible advice. An employment gap will make you radioactive to hiring managers during a recession. Even a terrible job will keep you in better standing for negotiation.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#188

Post by mathgladiator »

dageshi wrote: post #28
SemanticStrengh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf you are totally 100% missing my point, the current recession is a self-fulfilling prophety that is auto-amplified in mediatic echo chambers and by sell feedback mechanism on stock values.

What goes up must come down (at least a little bit). Stocks ran up A LOT during covid, it couldn't continue forever and it didn't. People who felt rich because they made a ton of paper profits on the stock market now feel poorer because they have paper losses in the stock market. That and inflation of course is really taking money out of peoples pockets. Real world things that effect the way people act have occurred.

Yep, I feel it. I was about to impulse buy a deck, and then after looking at the market decided not to. I'm not alone in tightening spend.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#189

Post by gsibble »

crate_barre wrote: post #62

Someone needs to explain to me why our tech companies are so tied to interest rates. Are VCs borrowing with home mortgage equity??

A lot of this is because VCs are in bed with the media, especially tech news sites. They've been publicly and loudly unhappy with the prices of rounds for several years now. They raised an enormous amount of capital over the last few years that they are expected to deploy as soon as possible. This is all coordinated with a drop in public markets and, yes, somewhat of a tech bubble, to force valuations down and make them more palatable for VCs.

Source: Former SV startup CEO currently helping with a raise at an AI company. We aren't getting pushback on anything except our valuation which they constantly use the news of the day to try to lower.

It's not like VCs don't have capital on hand and it's not like they will all have big paydays if they don't invest it. They just want better returns and have for a while.

Re: The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis

#190

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

arcticbull wrote: post #178
UncleMeat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After 3-4 years in a staff role you can easily be making $1-2M/yr. Refreshes exist but this is a total lie. I'm staff at Google. Nobody at L6 is making $1M in annual compensation, even if they have their sign-on equity and three refreshes. Let alone $2M.

Ok so I'm speaking from personal experience and network. The point is that 3-4 years tenure is enough for significant appreciation in equity, especially in the earlier grants. Let's work an example, for someone who started 3 years ago. - May 2019. - Base: $225K. Equity: $880K grant = 785sh @ 1120/share = 220K. Bonus: $60K. Total: $500K. - May 2020. - Base: $236K. Equity: 196sh @ 1428/share = 280K. Equity: $220K grant…

The original grant runs out after 4 years. You don’t just infinitely accumulate a higher annual comp through refreshers.
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