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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

#211

Post by lumb63 »

twblalock wrote: post #164
skeeter2020 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

now equate tech executives to specific Nazis - circle complete!

No, just stop responding to or encouraging this kind of behavior. It probably seems funny to you in the context of a thread but it pollutes the discourse and gradually wears down the standards on this site. The signal to noise ratio needs to be good, or there will be no point to reading the comments.

Wow, you just made me realize why HN is so much better than Reddit. There’s no useless comments full of in-jokes and sarcastic one liners; comments are actually thoughtful and generate discourse rather than being one-line low-wit witticisms.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#212

Post by chis »

pound wrote: post #188
yamtaddle wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's true! Thanks for adding that, it is important. As long as you can put enough money aside to cover the entire COBRA period, this is indeed the best "play" when offered COBRA, unless you're sure you're gonna need it from the beginning (in which case you may as well just sign up to begin with—less hassle that way). If you don't end up needing it, you basically just got free health insurance for a few months.

it's 60 days to elect whether you'll be using COBRA. If employment is terminated early in the month usually coverage is still there through the end of the month, but if termination is at the very end of the month it can be exactly just 2 months, not few.

Ah good catch. The 60 day deadline was paused during Covid but I guess it’s coming back starting this May.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#213

Post by schmichael »

I was employee #2 at Airship (was Urban Airship) which was started by laid off tech workers after the 2008 housing crash. Oregon, where we were all located, had an unemployment incentive for starting a new business… and it worked! Airship has employed hundreds of Oregonians (and others) over more than a decade.

Layoffs suck. I’ve been laid off before and wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but with the right supports it can be an opportunity. I hope we see some exciting new ideas come from folks who have been given a chance to go their own way.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#214

Post by lotsofpulp »

yamtaddle wrote: post #205
m463 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought cobra gave you group healthcare rates. Meanwhile individual healthcare might have had restrictions and higher premiums.

Yes, group rates. It probably varies by states, but basically all group plans—even ones that aren't that great—are more expensive than even our gold-tier HCA plans, let alone silver and bronze (because all our HCA plans are terrible by comparison to even the fairly-poor group plans). The group plans might actually be cheaper in other states, I dunno. (there are also literally zero providers of individual plans that a…

I think you mean ACA plan, not one that confirms to the Affordable Care Act and is available for purchase in healthcare.gov

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#215

Post by icedchai »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #132
jb1991 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

But where is AWSs moat? It's not enough to have all of the customers. Customers are fleeting and will leave if they get a BBO (bigger, better offer). If you scrap together an AWS migration tool that can pull databases, instances, and lambdas off of AWS and mirror them in your cloud, for less money, you'll probably attract a lot of customers.

Easier said that done. Migrations are hard. AWS can really lock you in to their proprietary services, "serverless" stuff like Dynamo, Lambda, SQS, etc. It's easy to get in, hard to get out once you have a lot of data. If you stick with more standard infrastructure (RDS, EC2, containers on ECS, etc.) you'll have an easier time.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#218

Post by ryanSrich »

est31 wrote: post #110
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?

Ideally if you are a senior big tech employee you are not living paycheck to paycheck any more, so you could endure a few months of not being employed. And even then, if you are good and have a network, you would find employment very quickly if a startup fails, unless there is some event that causes all startups to not look for new employees. The problem with startups is I think more around the stock options trap (sh…

> endure a few months of not being employed

What kind of insanely high growth business is going to either generate enough revenue for a Sr. Dev's full yearly salary (or close to it) or lead to investment in just a few months?

Even if you're an insanely well connected person it's going to take more than a few months to put together a pitch deck and a POC for a new business and then raise enough money to pay yourself and a few other people.

Realistically, if you're starting a startup and not currently working, plan on having at least 12 months of expenses saved (not a few months).

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#219

Post by wincy »

yunwal wrote: post #202
ejb999 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good choice - you definitely don't want to be caught without a chair when the music stops. Whether one likes musk or not, and whether or not you agree with how he is running twitter or not - he let go like 80% of the company and it is still more or less running (with some bumps) - I don't think other companies will go to quite that extreme, but I'd bank that some executives right now in some companies are asking them…

I mean, twitter’s worth about 40% of what it was when Musk bought it. Hardly a success story.

It’s not worth anything until he sells it. That’s just some imaginary number people are making up to cast aspersions at Elon Musk.

Re: Tech layoffs are feeding a new startup surge

#220

Post by metadat »

EarlKing wrote: post #197
phendrenad2 wrote: post #125

The only data cited is the increase in YCombinator applications. But they only have data for the last year, because YCombinator didn't publish how many applications they received in previous years. (Also, if you're looking for it: archive.is slash WE4WH)

Can I take this to mean that they're censoring archive links finally?

https://archive.today/WE4WH

People are weird.

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