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Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

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Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#61

Post by Salgat »

greenthrow wrote: post #29
qqtt wrote: post #8

Good. Both Google and Amazon are barreling down the path of democratizing scale and infrastructure with their cloud offerings. It's never been easier to reach millions of users in a short amount of time with your product. These are the companies that will end up ultimately challenging them down the road for talent and potentially even hitting at their core business models of search and commerce (we've already seen hi…

99.9% of startups never have a need for more scale/infrastructure than a single VPS. Maybe a dedicated server. Cloud infrastructure is great when organizations actually need it. But I think most startups would save money and time by keeping it simple until they really need more.

I disagree, mostly because if your product takes off, that single day or few weeks where the adoption rate sky rockets may be your defining moment for your startup, and scaling up on the cloud is trivial in comparison. Remember, when you're that small, the expenses of the cloud vs dedicated hardware is tiny compared to your employee expenses anyways.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#63

Post by myth_drannon »

ejb999 wrote: post #12

I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. I work for a fortune 50 company - (not faang), on our team we had 2 openings posted back in early November - one for a developer, one for a lead developer (same tech stack) - this was for a fully remote positions, but limited to timezones that mostly overlapped with the USA - we got 3 applicants fo…

Last summer and also before that, when I applied, I would get ~90% response rate and would have at least a call from recruiter/HM. Last week I sent a bunch of applications and crickets... this is something that I've never experienced in +10 years being in the industry. I'm not in dire need for a job but I can imagine how much,much stressful is to be unemployed now vs even 3-5 years ago.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#64

Post by sanderjd »

greenthrow wrote: post #56
SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I think most startups would save money and time by keeping it simple until they really need more. Having done this several times I can definitively say given my experience it's best to start in the cloud with a cloud native architecture. I can run a fully containerized application in ECS or EKS for a few hundred bucks a month. Why would I incur all the costs and limitations of a VPS or even worse a server I hav…

You can get a VPS for like $5/month. So you can save near enough hundreds of dollars a month.

So, say you're saving $2500 a year? That seems pretty cheap for an option to scale up without fundamentally changing your operational architecture.

The bigger question mark than the money, I think, is whether this scale up approach actually works, or whether you end up fundamentally changing everything anyway. In my experience it's a mixed bag. There are some advantages, but it also isn't a panacea, and certainly isn't as easy as turning that dynos knob on heroku was. But at the end of the day, I land on it being worth it for a business (though not for a hobby). But it isn't a no-brainer.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#65

Post by jb1991 »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #55

This is great news. Google, Facebook, Amazon are over. You can see the writings on the wall. It's time for the next wave of tech companies.

And what writing is on the wall, exactly, for Amazon? AWS powers the internet. Apple uses it for cloud services, for cryin' out loud -- the largest AWS customer in fact. AWS has more market share than all of its competitors combined. Where is this writing you're speaking of?

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#66

Post by mattmanser »

Salgat wrote: post #61
greenthrow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99.9% of startups never have a need for more scale/infrastructure than a single VPS. Maybe a dedicated server. Cloud infrastructure is great when organizations actually need it. But I think most startups would save money and time by keeping it simple until they really need more.

I disagree, mostly because if your product takes off, that single day or few weeks where the adoption rate sky rockets may be your defining moment for your startup, and scaling up on the cloud is trivial in comparison. Remember, when you're that small, the expenses of the cloud vs dedicated hardware is tiny compared to your employee expenses anyways.

Twitter used to go down regularly in the early days. Reddit did too, even years after it became popular. Facebook I can't be certain now, but I think it would break in the early days.

And even right now today, ChatGPT regularly displays "too busy" messages.

i.e. this is absolute tosh.

And if you know what you're doing you can take something down overnight and put it on a dedicated server.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#67

Post by treis »

greenthrow wrote: post #56
SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I think most startups would save money and time by keeping it simple until they really need more. Having done this several times I can definitively say given my experience it's best to start in the cloud with a cloud native architecture. I can run a fully containerized application in ECS or EKS for a few hundred bucks a month. Why would I incur all the costs and limitations of a VPS or even worse a server I hav…

You can get a VPS for like $5/month. So you can save near enough hundreds of dollars a month.

A couple hours of engineer time per month. Maybe 5 if we're being generous.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#68

Post by mock-possum »

user3939382 wrote: post #62

Personally as a senior developer with a family, I wouldn’t stake my stability on a startup. Does that reservation generalize? Do startups end up lacking wiser devs?

Wages from a volatile source is better than no wages, and what you previously thought to be a stable source has proven otherwise - you’ve just unexpectedly been laid off.

Do you take the startup job, to provide for your family? You need to make money.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#69

Post by nfRfqX5n »

user3939382 wrote: post #62

Personally as a senior developer with a family, I wouldn’t stake my stability on a startup. Does that reservation generalize? Do startups end up lacking wiser devs?

During the last few years some start ups were offering solid base salaries in addition to RSUs, so the risk wasn’t horrible. Not sure what it’s like now.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#70

Post by Der_Einzige »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #59

Good. The best minds of a generation have wasted their talents figuring out how to best maximize media addiction and serve ads for Facebook and Google. Let’s hope a new generation engages in more socially productive endeavors.

Being good at leetcode is not equivalent to being one of "the best minds".

Comments like this are why the general public feels like SWEs are stuck up elitist know-it-alls

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