I wonder what the revenue per employee of YC is. 85 employees, with 1/6 companies unicorns (though some of that is paper valuations, but still huge returns).

> "When they do, a shocking percentage of them will go on to make a startup worth a billion dollars (on average 6 out of 100 startups in recent batches)."

That's 6/100 (6%). 1/6 is 16%.

I think that’s 6 out of 100 instead of 1/6

Wow. First time I've seen a layoff post that starts with boasting success. Summary: "6% of the companies we invest in are worth a billion dollars. We're laying of 20% of our staff. We appreciate their efforts. No comment on how we're taking care of those laid off or remaining staff"

Why do they need "taking care" of? Are they fragile school kids? Desparate single mothers who can't make ends meet?

What is with this "save our babies!" attitude towards people who are

- Well off

- Highly skilled

??

Finally some sense-talking. The growing culture of paternalism in the employer-employee relationship is toxic to the foundations of our societal wealth.

Personal responsibility and equal opportunity are how we got to iPhones, toothpaste in every corner store, and a store on every corner.

> The growing culture of paternalism in the employer-employee relationship is toxic to the foundations of our societal wealth.

???

What? As in, could you explain....

It's also how we got rid of a store on every corner.

Only in America. In most developed places, there are still corner stores (in addition to big box stores).

there's still a store on every corner in America, it's just one of (CVS/Walgreens/Starbucks)

Every year it feels like Snow Crash gets more and more closer to being real.

Because the risk is supposed to lie in the hands of the investors, the founders, and the people who make the decisions. When the risks taken by the people at the top succeed, they profit, when they fail, they tend to push that onto their employees through layoffs and withholding raises. Then they will turn back around saying that they deserve their lavish lifestyles because they are the ones taking the risks. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

This is the corruption of the US system of business and capitalism (and I'm a capitalist). Expenses are passed down on the employees, and the ruling class reaps the reward.

If only there were some way to, say, unify the—to use your word—employees as some sort of collective unit, so that the—again, your word—ruling class has a little less power to reap all the reward.

Instead of complaining that your profession lacks a union, why not pick a different career that will allow you to easily join one? Problem solved!

A) Why should any profession lack a union?

B) If the problem is that one profession lacks a union, wouldn't the more natural solution be to start one? Problem solved!

Sure, you're welcome to start one. My hat is off to you and/or 'jachee' if it comes to fruition. That takes a lot of real work, however, as opposed to posting a few snarky internet comments and calling it a day.

I don't have to; where I live, we already have one. So yeah, sure, easy for me to post snarky comments. But at least not quite as useless as posting comments that are not only snarky but also idiotic, like comments to the effect that one shouldn't have a union. So what are you doing to start one?

Funny how you use these words beginning with Uni... On the whole, they remind me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

> Expenses are passed down on the employees, and the ruling class reaps the reward

Employees get paid a salary to work. That's it. That's the agreement. There are no expenses passed down to employees - you're just making that up.

The misery gets passed down. The abuse and shitty situations and complete lack of power -- that gets passed down.

Sometimes the expenses get passed down, but I'll agree that's rare. However I have had employers bill me for my uniforms, and I ain't talkin about the military.

Employees get paid to work, but are abused. Sure they can leave, but things aren't always that simple. Things are normalized.

Just like you can "just leave" an abusive relationship, but instead much of the system is abusive to their employees.

If you were getting paid for 2 years working on a project that doesn't pan out, that's you not taking the risk.

"Getting laid off" is not a risk. Wasting 2 years for nothing while bleeding income _is_ risk.

If you don't agree, then why would you work for an employer when you could take your own risk?

If you have the luxury of a safety net or in-demand skillset, then yes, getting laid off is not a risk. If you have less means, and the costs (both monetary and social/emotional) of needing to relocate to find another job turn into something much more daunting. In that kind of situation, loss of a job is a very negative event, much more than, say, a 10% decline of a wealthy person's portfolio would be.

re why work for an employer when you could take your own risk: generally speaking the odds of losing a job due to layoff are still less bad than the odds of a bootstrapped business failing, even if attempting to start a business was a realistic option, which it is not for many people.

Losing a job is a negative event, the parent is not disputing that. The parent is disputing that there is minimal risk for an employee, they are getting paid month to month for their work.

California has very generous unemployment benefits. I also strongly doubt any former YC-employee will have a very hard time finding a next job.

Except it's not upper management bleeding income, it's the company. They still get their golden parachutes and massive bonuses, then they downsize other parts of the company in order to claw back the costs. They don't have to worry about losing their healthcare or having to survive. Hell they don't even have to care about keeping the company alive, they can just straight up kill it and still reap the benefits like we've seen with Sears and the scumbag Eddie Lampert.

That's the risk. They destroy the bonuses and benefits of their workers to fuel their own rat race.

Employees also usually get bonuses, and stock options. Your point is possibly true for companies as big as FAANG ones, but for a startup invested in by HN, it's highly unlikely the founders are getting any real bonuses. They might get some money about in series B or C, but that's already less than 99.9% of startups that get to that stage probably.

You are simplying the situation by thinking about everyone as successful unicorns. Most companies and founders are not.

The employee working under someone and doing work according to their requirements. The employee should not bear the risks of the decisions.

(naturally this is all meant for F500 companies which post a lot of profits, start ups need a different mindset.)

If it were “for nothing” you might have a point.

So are you saying that, in the multi-million VC-fuelled start-up climate of the last couple decades, founders haven't made sure to pay themselves at least the same salary as their employees?

If you are, I'm not buying it. And if you're not, i.e. if you admit that they did, your point falls to pieces.

> the people who make the decisions

Which includes the employees. They want the cool tech, the stock options, the prestige of working at FAANG or some new startup, the all-you-can-eat cafeterias... the price of working in a fast-moving, always-changing industry is that you're likely to be on the receiving end of some of those changes.

Want to be protected from layoffs? Take a salary cut and work for the government. Or be the most incredible software engineer at a boring as hell credit union or community college.

I certainly don't wish for anyone to be laid off and I know, from personal experience, that it can be tough. But by choosing the startup or FAANG world and enjoying all the benefits, you're practicing guaranteeing that you'll be affected by some adverse outcome, somewhere along the line. Accept it and move on.

You have a point.

It also seems the job wouldn't have existed without someone willing to take the risk? I myself weigh risk in my decisions frequently. I am full aware that a layoff (or firing) is possible every time I accept a job. I'm also fully aware of what my employers obligations are to me. I'm not sure I've ever felt that my employer 'owed' me more than that. Maybe my life would be better if I did?

I think the thing that makes the recent layoffs so controversial is their context.

Layoffs on this scale are understandable, maybe even justifiable, in the case of a 2008 style market crash.

Layoffs on this scale do not feel understandable or justifiable given that many of the companies are extremely profitable, were hiring during, and have continued to hire afterwards. Add to that the prevalence of stock buybacks and the sheer scale of recent hiring and the question becomes why should the employees be the ones to feel the consequence of this behaviour?

The often billionaire CEO tearing up over how hard it was for him to fire thousands of people but "is using it as an opportunity to take responsibility for his mistakes" is simply the cherry on the cake.

The idea that you can just throw away an employee is bizzarre to most of the developed world. You have a responsibility to them (usually a legal one); the employee-employer relationship is an unbalanced one in many ways, and relies on that for fairness. If you want people you can get rid of at the drop of a hat you should be hiring contractors and paying the associated premium.

It should not be bizarre. Everybody should adapt and act accordingly, save money and keep your axe sharp. No job is forever, no employer is your friend or family.

That last sentence is true. But it doesn’t imply that people shouldn’t treat each other with basic respect.

Counterpoint: it should be much more bizarre, and should track social consequences for those responsible.

All that can be good advice and yet helping layed off workers still be win-win for employers and employees.

A reputation for sticking with employees, even through a layoff, makes a company more attractive.

It increases trust between employer & employees. Trust increases the efficiency of any collaboration.

What about demanding a salary no less than 50% of the value you add to the company? How many industries would stop being viable if their whole workforce would demand to be compensated for the worst case scenario Every single paycheck? A couple years ago this would have sounded like hyperbole, but then the Great Resignation happened, so there's that...

From that point of view, severance payments are not noble handouts but compensation strategies to reduce the overall payroll cost.

I acted accordingly by moving to a country with decent labour laws.

Whatever country you moved to, odds are there's more of a brain drain from there to the US than vice versa. When places heavily regulate laying employees off, they just make employers much more apprehensive and conservative about hiring.

I find this take kind of odd to be honest.

From a capitalist perspective, the paternal employer-employee relationship is one of mutual benefit. Ensuring that the the employee's incentives align more closely with their employer's. At the same time it acts as (an arguably weak) justification for corporate profit, a comfortable and loyal employee is one who does not concern themselves too much with where the rest of the money is going.

The idea of the relationship as transient and adversarial directly opposes this. When companies force their workers into precarity, while at the same time making record profits, there ceases to be a justification for accepting that profit in the eyes of the worker. Eventually leading to some kind of societal response.

I actually see elegance and justice in the cold, ruthless capitalist approach; I tend to think of it as tough love... But I don't believe that the system we have today is capitalism and so this cold, ruthless approach is actually unfair.

The difference is that in a capitalist system (with a constrained money supply; an even monetary playing field), when you get tossed out, you can get back up and you still have a chance to compete. In this system, when you get tossed out, it's game over (feels like slow withering away, a constant struggle to stay afloat).

The winners' wealth compounds infinitely beyond the point when it becomes impossible to compete against them. Billionaires are earning enough passive yield on their diversified portfolios that some of their businesses become useless appendages and they can afford to run them as a hobby, at a loss... Yet nobody can compete against those businesses; they're essentially subsidized by the money printer which serves as a compounding interest machine for the billionaire.

No real business which relies on profits from its economic activities can compete against a business which is funded by an infinitely compounding source of wealth.

> I actually see elegance and justice in the cold, ruthless capitalist approach; I tend to think of it as tough love... But I don't believe that the system we have today is capitalism and so this cold, ruthless approach is actually unfair.

I'm curious as to how the hypothetical Capitalism would avoid quickly collapsing into a much more extreme version of the current state of affairs. Capital producing more capital seems built into the system, without strict controls on capital accumulation I don't see how the end result could be anything other than monopoly.

From what I know from an old friend of my dad, helping coworkers who lost their jobs to land somewhere else is a well rooted custom in US.

Said friend told me numerous stories about how he gave positive references or call his friends in other companies for positions for coworkers who were laid off, during his tenure in IBM.

Helping people who lost their jobs because of reasons which they can't control is being a good person, for once, too.

It always astonishes me seeing how ingrained this individualistic capitalistic mindset is on so many. People have been brainwashed.

These are people. This could be you, or your friend, espouse, mother, sister... And just because you can bounce back, it doesn't mean this is okay.

Even if they have money saved and can use that to find a (hopefully) better next job, that's not easy or guaranteed.

It seems that this "criticism" is more like jealousy than anything else. If they were not earning a bit more than others then we can feel bad for them. Otherwise let's pretend it's fine and yell "screw them".

Meanwhile the rich fucks are still getting richer even with the "risk" they take. Not sure how that can even count as risk, given these VCs are all multi-millionaires that can afford to fail multiple times over in the first place.

But it's somehow easier to hate the person that makes a few more bucks than you, than it is to hate the money hoarders that control the lives of so many of us.

This has nothing to do with being brainwashed. Couldn't we say the same about your stance?

Yes they are people, but a company is NOT responsible for them. Where does this come from? An employee has an employment relationship and not a friendship and while it certainly sucks to be let go, it's not the company who is the bad guy.

From what I see, you can't take off your personal morale views from business decisions.

> Meanwhile the rich fucks are still getting richer even with the "risk" they take. What even has that anything to do with what parent is saying? Or the topic we are discussing?

Is in your opinion no company allowed to let go people, except if they pamper them with big severance package? Sorry, but your post reads very childish and naive.

>Where does this come from?

Have you talked to anyone from HR in the past decade???? It's all "we're one big family" this, "bring your whole self to work" that. The company trying to brand itself as a good guy and not as a money making vehicle goes both ways.

You can't possibly believe this PR scheme, do you?

of course it's total bullshit but it's wrong to blame the people getting bullshitted and not the bullshitter

I guess you could say people are brainwashed about anything. So fair point, I take that back. I was just frustrated because it's such a "default" answer for people when the vast majority doesn't even consider that this is not the only way the world can work.

>Yes they are people, but a company is NOT responsible for them. Where does this come from? An employee has an employment relationship and not a friendship and while it certainly sucks to be let go, it's not the company who is the bad guy.

I agree the company is not fully responsible for them. But they have to have some degree of responsibility. There's an enormous power imbalance in play here and right now companies can just ditch people like garbage and increase stock prices at will just because they can.

The reality is that people don't choose to work. You either work or starve. So when we give companies that much power over our lives, I believe they should have a responsibility for those they employ.

> Is in your opinion no company is allowed to let go people, except if they pamper them with a big severance package? Sorry, but your post reads very childish and naive.

I don't quite get this. My point was that we've been conditioned to believe that letting people go is okay and it's every person for himself.

But you immediately go to the other end of the spectrum saying we can't ever let people go? That's quite childish and naive in my view.

There's a whole range here between basically zero consequences (what happens today) and you can't let people go. But once again it comes back to the conditioning that we all have that this is the system and there's nothing we can do about it. If we can't even imagine how it could be different, nothing will ever change.

There's no hate. There's no paternal love either, nor a need for one. It's a completely neutral event that requires no emotional reaction.

Imagine it happened to my sister. So what? Are you expecting me to get emotional or angry at her employers? I wouldn't. What is there to be angry about?

Seems to be a weird American tech thing. In the real world, people lose their jobs, do their notice period (if any) and take steps towards securing a new one.

For whatever reason, American tech workers appear to think they should get 5-10x the median income or more, also get stock in the company, also have flexible work/life hours and also be "looked after" (what does this mean? More money?) after they're fired.

They're clearly in a bubble.

It’s not even a great boast. Their success is due to the Federal Reserve. Oh, sweet summer child.

Are you suggesting that YC's success is because of the long-term US monetary policy climate?

That's a very incorrect suggestion. It reminds one of how people like to pretend that Elon's money is because his family had an emerald mine. Do you think that a significant percentage of wealth inheritors go on to immigrate across the world and invent electric cars and reusable rockets? Same thing with YC and the investment climate.

* * *

Connections in the government? Care to elaborate? How would a government connection increase your success in terms of investing in the right start up?

There are countless ways that government connections could be very useful if you're trying to ensure the success of portfolio companies, especially if they're operating on regulatory frontiers.

Nudging policymakers in a favorable direction on legislation that could effect your portfolio is the most obvious, but there are tons of other examples as well.

I'm not arguing that this is a primary driver of YC's success (I don't know the extent, if any, of their government influence), but you'd be silly to think that political connections can't benefit an investor.

Palantir is one of their big successes because the government has chosen to pay them for big contracts; a government who thought differently might have not only declined to do that but shut down their whole operation as fundamentally harmful to regular citizens. Likewise Uber and AirBnB built their whole business pretty knowingly on open violations of the law; a government faithfully representing its citizens' interests might easily have decided to shut that down (as e.g. the government of Japan did; both companies barely operate here). Those are just the biggest names that come to mind; I'm sure there are similar things at every level in their portfolio (e.g. not so long ago there have been stories about YC funding a malware distribution company and a company that makes illegally usurious[1] loans; at the time dang claimed pretty vigorously that YC didn't and wouldn't fund companies that do that, but the evidence that they did fund the company and the company was doing that seemed pretty irrefutable).

[1] when lending to veterans, which the company in question did

One way is getting a 8 or 9 figure government contract from said government connection.

Sounds like the only way. And it sounds rare. Most startups in yc or anywhere never get these contracts.

For the simple fact that investment leverage scales super-linearly with investment size, I think you may have mis-judged how much the market affects valuations.

> > It reminds one of how people like to pretend that Elon's money is because his family had an emerald mine.

Well, would he be a billionaire, if he didn't inherit an emerald mind?

> Do you think that a significant percentage of wealth inheritors go on to immigrate across the world and invent electric cars and reusable rockets?

What portion of people who inherit no wealth whatsoever, do that? What portion become billionaires? Well, that can't be that hard to find out:

https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_hallucination_of_americas_r...

Looking at forbes 400, 22% have backgrounds with inheritances up to 1 million, 11.5% over 1 million, 7% over 50 milllion, and another 21.25% earned their way onto forbes 400 through inheritance alone. So that leaves 22% of forbes 400 maybe not having inherited that much, although the category is shared with people who inherited up to 1 million.

That's just regarding inheritance, there's also the simple side effects of growing up in a wealthy family such as having the best educational (read: networking) opportunities money can buy, having the best healthcare on earth, being well fed, etc.

I think thus it's very easy to guess that Elon would not be a hundred billionaire, or billionaire at all, if he was the exact same brain born to some working class family in south africa.

> Well, would he be a billionaire, if he didn't inherit an emerald mind?

Yes, because he didn't inherit an emerald mine.

> I think thus it's very easy to guess that Elon would not be a hundred billionaire, or billionaire at all, if he was the exact same brain born to some working class family in south africa.

There are many brilliant people in South Africa who are born into wealth and none of them have reached the same heights as Elon Musk.

Even if it were the case, wouldn't your argument then predict that there would be many people MUCH wealthier than him because they were born into the vast riches and privilege that is America and Europe?

It’s a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Necessary? This statement does not hold any water.

Jeff Bezos used to work as a cook at McDonalds in his teenage years.

Sure but he grew up in river oaks, the local rich neighborhood to me, and his family had a massive ranch. So his rich parents made him work for spending money, dude grew up in a rich family. Didn't his family also invest a couple hundred thousand in Amazon's early days?

Ugh, I'll be honest, I'm kinda tired of this "debate." We're really going to keep peddling the myth that any hard working joe can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become a billionaire? That's the tale we're telling with a straight face in 2023?

Here are 10 billionaires who grew up poor:

- Oprah Winfrey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey)

- Howard Schultz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz)

- Ralph Lauren (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren)

- Larry Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison)

- Kenneth Langone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Langone)

- David Murdock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Murdock)

- Alan Gerry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gerry)

- John Paul DeJoria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_DeJoria)

10? So less likely than winning the lottery.

This is not specific to YC, but there is no way a company like Uber would be around in a high interest rate environment. You don’t get to burn 32B, keep reducing scale, and still be unprofitable unless the market is flooded with money and it has nowhere to go.

The pandemic period was the best example - monetarily, that was the last 12 years compressed into a 2 year window. The amount of money in the system was so immense that anything and everything was being funded at absurd valuations.

I don't know why you are falsely implying that Musk's money is not due to great initial capital. If that was true, it would mean that capital for investment doesn't matter, which in turn would mean that we could just as well place a 100% tax on all wealth above a certain level without any detriment.

It doesn't though, since your claim is bullshit. Elon's wealth is absolutely based on his parents' success.

His X.com/paypal was not based on his previous wealth and corresponds to the thing that propelled him to later successes.

He got a $20K investment from his dad for his first company, Zip2, in 1995. That's about $40K in today's dollars. X.com/paypal success seems to have happened in spite of him, not due to him. He got billions from it because he had been lucky enough to be one of the early investors.

I'm not actually saying that he's not a great business tycoon, he clearly is based on track record. Plenty of people have the kind of base resources he had without amounting to anything. Either they don't bother to even try or are too stupid or too unlucky too succeed. His parents wealth is still the catapult that launched him to his current success.

There are plenty of people who could have done what he's done but did not because of lack of resources.

$40k today is not a lot even for a lot of middle class… basically his parents gifted him an equivalent of a slightly nice new car.

With X.com he did quite a bit than invest as all of the other cofounders left prior to launch. By the time they merged with cofinity Elon was the only one of the original team.

If a rich great childhood was sufficient to build great businesses, then shouldn't we expect a middle-class childhood to be sufficient to build a decent business?

But a lot of middle-class people try and fail to create any kind of business.

The reason is that it takes more than money and education to build a business.

Money and education are necessary to build a great business, like electricity is for your home, but insufficient, as your home also needs good construction, running water, etc.

You seem to be conflating "necessary" vs. "sufficient".

Elon's inherited wealth and excellent upbringing were necessary for his Tesla and SpaceX success, but far from sufficient.

If a good rich childhood was all that's necessary to commercialize electric cars, reusable rockets, and fast satellite internet, then we'd have a lot more of these kinds of amazing products as millions of people have good rich childhoods.

Elon did not invent electric cars. Elon also did not found Tesla. He was an early investor, ousted the real founders, and started calling himself a founder.

He also did not invent reusable rockets. (And that's beside the fact that these don't exist yet - it is but a dream at the moment.) He funneled a large amount of taxpayer money into SpaceX, while not really improving much on anything (he _promised_ costs savings, but did this really happen?).

What he did invent is the snake oil salesman pitch. Oh wait, actually... he did not invent that either.

Elon M and his well-wishers moved the needle to where it is today. You can't even compare the achievements of Elon M's backers to Meta's or Apple's big stupid bag of cash inflated by overworked subcontractors in China, and India next.

Imagine thinking Elon Musk invented electric cars

It seems like it is taboo to even discuss the collapse of the so-called "tech" industry. The people invested in it appear to police the dialogue online, which is not something I remember before the dot-com collapse. (Of course, in the early 00's we did not have the same level of manipulation through data collection, tracking, re-ordering of results, comment voting systems, etc.). The attempts of the "tech" believers to "argue" with simple questions or the presentation of facts is hilarious.

Too many years of "zero" interest rates has resulted in some warped thinking.

However, calling it a “collapse” is taking it to the other extreme. We’re not going back to the cave age.

It is disingenuous, at best, to equate collapse to "going back to the cave age". If your house's roof collapses you do not end up in a cave. You either pay a small fortune to have it fixed or, if you lack the wealth to do so, sell it at a loss to someone who can.

Tech/IT is too valuable to be ditched altogether, so we are not going back even to the 80s or 90s. But collapse is appropriate for the kind of lean times ahead: companies getting bought on the cheap, investments evaporating, projects shelved, jobs (or even careers) lost.

It’s not just the cheap money, it’s across the board woke language policing. While we should all strive to be more inclusive, it shouldn’t be at the expense of honest and clear communication.

Just a random example, but Delta airline now calls turbulence “rough air” as if that’s more reassuring… I’d rather be spoken to like an adult.

double plus good

That sounds more British than censored.

This has nothing to do with "wokeness" or inclusivity, this is known as past exonerative.

It's a way of distancing yourself from the blame. "Mistakes were made" instead of "we made mistakes". Or "a suspect was shot in an officer-involved shooting" instead of "a policeman shot the suspect".

It's the equivalent of saying "shit happens, who knows who's to blame" when we all know who's to blame.

How is this surprising?

The tech industry culture around the Bay Area has been extremely hostile towards debate and diversity of opinion for the last two decades.

I am hoping the SBV failure serves as a hallmark, a final exclamation point for the startup world.

Cuz now it's gone, and all that's left is Big Corporate. Basically NYC but with that California faux niceness. I'll give the New Yorkers this: they'll tell you to eat shit and die on the street to your face, but they don't fake it; they respect others enough to stab you in the front, not in the back.

> Wow. First time I've seen a layoff post that starts with boasting success.

Something similar with IBM recently: "IBM posts biggest annual sales increase in more than a decade, announces 3,900 layoffs" [1]

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibm-posts-biggest-annual-s...

They can't even bring themselves to say the words 'laying off', 'redundancies' or even the milder 'letting go'. The staff are merely 'impacted' by this change in focus!

Execs just feel like they need to retreat to the safety of euphemisms in these kind of announcements, after first boasting about how well the company is doing, of course.

Changes happened somewhere as a result of something happening and, presumably, someone somewhere was impacted in some sense.

Well at least they didn't use the word 'inconvenienced'.

Its called HR because you are a resource.

If I would guess, this kind of wording reflects a view which is quite common in Silicon Valley companies: an employee is an (human) asset for the company to utilize. Once the skill of the employee is no longer needed, they can be dispose of. If I may guess it further, this view might be shared across many high-paying industries.

Tech companies in China had similar mass layoffs in the past few years, which prompted many highly skilled tech workers to seek formal opportunities in state controlled companies/entities. Why state controlled companies you might ask, well, because those companies rarely perform this type of layoffs. Once you're one of their formal employees (not employee of contract), you're set safe for life. And even if some "difficult change" has to happen, those state companies will try to compensate the effected workers with other (often equal, sometimes better) opportunities.

I know Chinese state controlled companies are heavily criticized by western view points, but you have to admit, they treats their own people fine.

the U.S. government works the same way. According to one web site, there are over 4 million federal employees. When is the last time any have been laid off? What I find most disturbing is that you think this is somehow a good thing. A government takes money by force and then spends it to "take care of its own", meaning provide cushy jobs to people regardless of their productivity, output, or necessity? This is the very essence of the ever-growing and increasingly corrupt bureaucracy.

I'm reminded of a history of Nigeria I encountered recently: https://youtu.be/E2HJbi-AG54?t=603. The Nigerian government basically ran the economy. If you wanted a good job, you worked for the government. For most people, getting elected was key to living a cushy life, and once won, the office was used to spread favors and wealth to one's friends, family, and tribe, while losing office in a subsequent election meant going back to poverty because private jobs simply didn't exist. This, of course, was a recipe for widespread corruption.

From the video: "Control of the government has been desperately important not only to avoid being oppressed by rival tribes but also because the massive role of government in the economy has made politics the preeminent route to prosperity as well as power whether for individuals, tribes, or regions. As of 1964 governments at the federal, regional, and local levels employed more than half of the wage earners in the country. Government also allocated large sums to the various regions which is also to say to the various tribes. In 1961 for example the northern region containing more than half the population of Nigeria paid only nine percent of the personal income taxes while it received 45 of the money allocated to the various regions by the federal government. At the same time the western region paid 64 percent of all personal income taxes and received less than one-fourth of the funds allocated by the federal government to the various regions. In tribal terms though Yoruba were subsidizing the house of Fulani and other Northern groups."

Whatever you might think about the unfairness of being laid off, I promise you that a growing government bureaucracy is not the solution you think it is! The government is just as self-interested as any corporation, the difference being the government gets to use force to compel you to do what it wants, while at least a corporation has to ask for your business.

> When is the last time any have been laid off?

Presumably when we weren't throwing billions of dollars at 2 x 20 year wars that accomplished nothing. The DoD is the largest single employer in the world.

By comparison, I'm way, way less concerned if Health or Education Depts. have more people -- a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of a Littoral Combat Ship, (which is already obsolete). It would be nice of HHS and Education had more funding and legal mandates behind them, though...

Or if instead of Nigeria you want more “civilized” examples, look no further than Eastern European governments. Here in Croatia some years ago a statistic came out that we have 4 times more government employees than Germany. Just for comparison: Germany has 83M people, Croatia little less than 4M. I shudder to think about that metric now as I’m sure its even worse.

The respective population numbers are irrelevant, because those “four time more” government employees must already be in terms relative to population size – so that's already taken into account.

(Just think about it: Surely Germany has more than a million government employees? If Croatia had over four times that in absolute terms, more than its entire population would work for the government.)

Yeah, that's fair. Thanks for pointing it out.

In fact, counting federal, state and local governments, Germany has some 6 million government employees (~4.8m directly and ~1.2m in public agencies). Also, there might be things that are government provided in one country and private in another (postal service, telcom and utilities, railway, schools, childcare...), which you would need to account for as well.

> If I would guess, this kind of wording reflects a view which is quite common in Silicon Valley companies

Remove the words "Silicon Valley" and I agree with you.

> an employee is an (human) asset for the company to utilize. Once the skill of the employee is no longer needed, they can be dispose of.

This is exactly accurate and there’s nothing amoral about that. The flip side is a job is just a way to make money and when it’s no longer wanted or needed, the employee is free to dispose of it

This is a good playbook. When we have to sell the house and move to a trailer, i will be using it. "There will be some exciting changes around here."

You could also use the cliché favoured by startups, 'Our incredible journey', normally used in a blogpost when they fold or get bought out.

SUNSET the employees.

It is not boasting, it is part of the explanation that YC is good at early stage investing.

They did not say how their late-stage investing turned out, but supposedly not as well, and that's why they won't do it anymore.

Early stage investing is the right mix of low cost and high yield. Most of the their startups are failures and duds but it doesn't matter because they don't cost that much and there are enough that do work out. Later stage investments are still quite risky but now you are losing millions when they fail. So you are more dependent on the handful that don't. Also, late stage investment in Silicon Valley means dumping money in real estate, very expensive executives, engineers, etc. Who then take the money and job hop to the next startup as soon as things start failing.

Now that interest rates are going up, the financial risks have increased and the follow up rounds are drying up a bit (less IPOs, series B, C, etc.). Meaning the cost is higher and exits are becoming a bit more rare and less lucrative. And also, there is less chance of offloading not quite profitable late stage investments to more conservative investors. A lot of these unicorns still fail. They just fail a bit later after early investors cash in. Somebody pays for that. Usually not the early investors.

> it is part of the explanation that YC is good at early stage investing.

no, they are good at giving money to people

investing implies ROI

If they're so successful, how are they then not moving people into new roles in the company's front end investment group?

They have "graduated"... :-/