Disclosure: I had a more specific calculation in the second-to-last paragraph here, which led to some incredulity on HN before the story got nuked - "unless you're paying the engineers $400k/yr each, I'm not quite sure how this would add up".
I don't think the exact figure was important, so I edited it out instead of getting deeper into the weeds; but the short answer is that in the Bay Area, an SWE costs you quite a bit more than the base pay in their contract. I don't know the startup numbers, but I've heard the Big Tech estimates, and the overhead is nuts. Even if you can do half of that, the median SFBA SWE - expecting $250k/year - is not going to cost you $250k.
But again, it's beside point: either way, you're still burning millions a year. What sounds like a sum that would personally set you for life is not enough to get the business to sustainability, and you will be very quickly needing more. You can be a lot more heroic and frugal than is the norm, but VCs get impatient if you're moving too slow - and progress isn't measured in lines of code.
Hiring for a startup may always be more expensive - I would certainly need a big bump in pay to risk joining a startup without any serious revenue. I've been burned before.
"The more you know the more you know you don't know" - the more tech you create the more tech you could create, the more capital you have the more capital you could have etc. It takes capital to play. At some point you find out that VCs are the cheapest funding fit for the tech market, and all other sources of funding are much less forgiving. Like with democracy Churchill quote - it is the worst system except for all the others. This ecosystem is what is extremely difficult to copy to other countries.
Disclosure: I had a more specific calculation in the second-to-last paragraph here, which led to some incredulity on HN before the story got nuked - "unless you're paying the engineers $400k/yr each, I'm not quite sure how this would add up".
I don't think the exact figure was important, so I edited it out instead of getting deeper into the weeds; but the short answer is that in the Bay Area, an SWE costs you quite a bit more than the base pay in their contract. I don't know the startup numbers, but I've heard the Big Tech estimates, and the overhead is nuts. Even if you can do half of that, the median SFBA SWE - expecting $250k/year - is not going to cost you $250k.
But again, it's beside point: either way, you're still burning millions a year. What sounds like a sum that would personally set you for life is not enough to get the business to sustainability, and you will be very quickly needing more. You can be a lot more heroic and frugal than is the norm, but VCs get impatient if you're moving too slow - and progress isn't measured in lines of code.
Hiring for a startup may always be more expensive - I would certainly need a big bump in pay to risk joining a startup without any serious revenue. I've been burned before.
This is epic 😂
"I confess that I was flattered — after all those years, this place was finally noticing its humble servant’s true worth! "
"The more you know the more you know you don't know" - the more tech you create the more tech you could create, the more capital you have the more capital you could have etc. It takes capital to play. At some point you find out that VCs are the cheapest funding fit for the tech market, and all other sources of funding are much less forgiving. Like with democracy Churchill quote - it is the worst system except for all the others. This ecosystem is what is extremely difficult to copy to other countries.