Boys only want to one thing and it's disgusting...

Corporate Strategist

Boys only want to one thing and it's disgusting...- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Looks like he’s entering into one of the most profitable category 😅

Software Developer

This may sound like a dumb question, but why do these companies fire just before the IPO? isn't an IPO a good thing? More cashflow. Shouldn't they be taking care of their employees who made it reach there?

What exactly is the thought process behind this mass layoff before IPO?

Swiggy possible layoffs

Analyst

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

These people(so called Sr Execs) were extremely toxic bunch of buffoons who used to be too full of themselves. Don't know what Angel One saw in them. Angel One to brace for big attrition now.

Culture of Angel One is going to be destroyed

Growth Manager

𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱.

Investor

To be very honest I feel very frustrated looking at the situation right now. Companies are laying off without worrying about the employees. It's just corporate profits everywhere.

I am scared to death that my career won't last long than 20 years because the moment these folks think you are becoming a financial burden on them, they'll lay you off.

I don't want to live my life in a constant war mode. The Indian education system has bruised my personality for a long time. I want to relax but looking at this battlefield I can never.

My weekends are spent worrying about planning for finances in case I get laid off. I am worried I won't be able to buy a house.

This shit is depressing me very much. Other folks please tell me how are you navigating this mess?

Soulless Corporations

Mandatory : keep on up skilling 
 Optional :  go outside India or move to operational roles(as it doesn't need creativity bone)  
  
 In your 30's you shouldn't explore stuff, stick with one domain(example : digital marketer) be the SME. In 40s you'll have 10+ years experience of a domain, and you're part of that domains evolution  
  
 No one wil have the know how you gained in 10 years

Program Manager

Software Engineer

Kya dikat hai bhai, udane do paisa. Tumhare thodi hai. 

Good firms genuinely perform well and return money. The ecosystem is not forgiving -- you don't survive very long if you don't create any big wins. It's an extremely high stress job with very little WLB. You do make money but it comes at a cost.

Layoffs are sad but at least those jobs existed in the first place? They wouldn't without VC money. India's VC scene is extremely young and it'll take time before we produce a Google. Entrepreneurs are not always right, they are not always nice either; but they definitely are courageous.

Unpopular Opinion: VCs get a lot of crap for no reason

VCs kill many startups with unrealistic targets that the main problem. Not every business is designed to give ultra quick returns VCs want . They ruin well potential startups

Product Manager

https://x.com/deepikabhardwaj/status/1798720683364819455 (Dating scam)

I did think dating is a scam on some level but this case does reveals bad actors on female side as well. Pretty sure it happens outside India as well and tbh, such case might be less highlighted than a case with male as the bad actor.

Why should boys have all the fun?

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. 

Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. 

What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” 

Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. 

It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! 

If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. 

*Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 


1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 
2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 
3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books
4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital

PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

Startup founders are mafia bosses!

Incredibly myopic and pessimistic view. I'd suggest trying to be a founder yourself once before judging them. 
  
 Not every startup needs to elevate human condition, plus you still need money to make that happen. 
  
 Most founders don't actually earn much compared to jobs they could've had in companies. All you see is the flashy idiots like Kunal Shah and Byju. Not the bootstrapper shutting down their 10th project for xyz reasons. Because no one likes talking about their failures, and no one listens to people who fail. Only those who succeed.  
  
 You have a problem with the human condition buddy, not founders. Humans can be real shitty given the right kind of conditions. Everyone's fallible, even you.  
  
 If you think you can be a better founder than some of the names you mentioned, then you're only indulging in holier than thou behaviour, which you allegedly hate about founders.  
  
 I do agree with some of the things you said, but much of it is way off.

Generalist

Consultant

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Im a Product Manager 1yoe in a SaaS startup.
I had a good experience in the first year. I got to build a product 0-1, competitor analysis, work on creating prioritization frameworks, UAT, content marketing, wireframing.

However, since January the compamy started their stabilization phase, and PM's are now taking care of Sales and lead generation(Content, Ads etc.). The nail in the coffin is we are getting dragged to follow up renewals( Customer Success) 🤢

Im currently motivated to building something new, and it feels like we are being dragged into everything as the company does not want to hire. With no pay hike or any adfitional benefit.

Please advice. Should I look for a new job?

Need advice

Hi folks, 

I'm Aadit, Co-Founder & CEO at Zepto. We're one of India's fastest growing consumer internet companies and are today present across 10+ cities in the country. 

I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Zepto, my thoughts on the quick commerce space, organization building, amongst other things.

Ask away!

I'm Aadit Palicha, Co-Founder & CEO at Zepto. Ask me anything!

Hey @Aadit  
I’m @salt  
  
Some questions from my side: 
1. As companies scale there are many diverging opinions on how things should run. How do you ensure that the best ideas drive the company even though they might be in direct conflict with your point of view?  
  
2. What kind of impact have you seen via use of Machine Learning to streamline operational efficiency wrt initial benchmarks? 
  
3. What is the key focus area that you are currently working on? 
  
4. How do you balance creating shareholder value versus customer value?

Founder

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

- Most VCs are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one fund to another to hide that they never made anyone any money. 
They also have usually no real input to add. 
They are no subject matter except negotiations which too mostly they just prey upon any founders. 

It's a thankless asset class. Most founders will always hate it as they will never get a dollar and most investors hate it as they will never net a dollar. 

Never chase VC, they are supposed to find opportunity .. Chasing them is useless, they judge you for it. 
So treat them from first day like your ex. Gf/bf. 

- Most tech startup founders are fraud,  they never make any money and keep shifting from one idea to another to hide they never made anyone any money. 
it usually takes 20 years to make a real $100 million dollar revenue company, but 20 months to be a unicorn. 
Any unicorn today is priced according to what they would make after 5-10 years... Yeah right. 

- Making real money is hard. Making fake money is easy. 
99% of startup Esops are fraud
If the company is homerun, then they won't get you stock easy. 
If the company is maybe homerun, they won't give you cash easily. 
If you get free cash and esops, just imagine it's an 18 month project. 

- Most of the humblebrags are fraud as half of them don't even understand the fine print of what they think is real money but not. 

- Most of the people who usually ask for change have no intention for it. They want to be seen as leaders, change is hard, negotiated and cried for. 

- you only live once. Go hard.. No one like people who have too much to talk but nothing to show.

Some observations after 10+ years of being in the system

I had heard Waycool was also talking to raise at unicorn valuation, but they've fired like 300 people on Monday, so that's pretty uncertain. What to make of Zepto, though?

India's 109th unicorn?

Data Scientist

Compiling a couple of ways people can understand a toxic founder from a distance, before they start working with them actively 
I've now met with a lot of them over the last couple of years, here are the ones that stand out the most to me: 

1) Narcissism: They'll love to have fame through random things. Stuff like Forbes 30u30 or some random award. Even if it means nothing. They'll show how great business is doing on social media, even when it may be nosediving. You'll never know things are messed up on the inside. 

2) Masochism: They're super likely to enjoy pain: be it messed up working hours, or bad health, or just really hard times. This almost allows them to thrive during adversity. This is usually coupled with sadism, they'll typically love that they can take pain well, but you cannot. 

3) Overemphasize on the carrot: In your first couple of meetings with them, once they like you, they will over emphasize on the benefits you will have if you work with them. They'll keep repeating how your career could skyrocket, or how you could be a star in other ways. This is also a typical red flag.

These are just 3 of the ones that I feel summarize what I have seen in known toxic founders. Happy to debate/know more if somebody else has had the lovely experience too :D

Traits of toxic founders

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. 

And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

Why are startup folks so entitled?

If you can’t run a business that lets people have a normal life then you’re the one who thinks they’re entitled to employees. 
 Businesses must take risk, employees don’t. Stop your whining that people won’t support shitty business plans

[Thread] Why does every founder I know hate VCs to the core?

Absolutely sad to see the state of the startups, most of them.
I am a founder myself, and this is a post with equal disappointment with myself as much as it is for anyone else who relates.
Look at all these companies that have raised shit tons of capital, and now make a fraction of money that has been invested in them.
The raised money is spent on outsized, non business sense making acquisition costs, only to keep repeating it till the tap runs dry.
Then when all stakeholders get bored, the service quality plummets, the employees are fired and whole sectors are admonished as being bad.

But, my question is, which sector where large sums of money was invested in early days have come out with flying colours. Fucking nothing !
Edtech, proptech, agritech, ecommerce etc. etc. etc. kuch bhi nahi. 

Is there any sector where a startup which has raised in the 100s of millions in the first 5 years have actually built a sustainable business at any scale ?
Then scaling down, isse acha, scale slowly.
The worst part of this whole drama, is pushing the innovation wheel backward and destroying customer sentiment.

Isse acha, raise less money inititally, build slowly, and only scale when the market is ready. Artifical growth makes no sense, unless you have a treasure chest that shall never run out.
Even in that case, spend the money on assets and not on random acquisition costs, direct or indirect.

As founders, let's do better, nahi ?

Rant or is it ?

Hello everyone, this is Blue Panda. I recently joined Grapevine see lot of folks disappointed with current economic condition and also see lot of folks saying it will stay like this. 

Good news - I already have started seeing winter fading and we should be back to good times sooner.

Lets spread some positive energies around us. I see startups fixing their issues, VCs being more sane while deploying capital. India macro story already playing out. Govt doing better policy making etc. This has already starting to show in business returns when i analyse companies across listed corporates, SMEs and startups 
 

Though what will not change in the next bull run as well is the capitalist nature of our world wherein maximising equity return is the key goal of most leaders. I get a chance to spend time with folks who have accumulated massive wealth and none of them have done it through their regular pay cheques but equity. If you are ambitious want to create wealth make sure you get sweat equity commensurate to efforts you putting in. Thats the best way to grow! 

Few options below
- Join a startup negotiate a good ESOP deal
- Startup yourself and be the founder
- Start a side hustle. Equity trading, Insurance distribution, blog subscription/influencer, goods trading, educational content etc depending upon your past strength
- Upskill yourself earn more salary and start taking more equity position in small cap companies (consult an expert and dont do it randomly) 

You can follow me for regular dose of positivity. Thanks :)

Summer is coming!

There are essentially four parties in the startup economy:

1. The Consumer
2. The Enabler(read, Startup)
3. The Service Provider
4. The Investor

Now let's look at Game Theory motivations:

1. The Indian Consumer wants to minimise money spent per unit value extracted, the Western Consumer wants to maximise value extracted per unit money spent. (There's a massive difference.)

2. The Startup depending on the stage wants to maximise User Growth and Free Cash Flows.

3. The Service provider wants to maximise financial incentives.

4. The Investor is wants to maximise the XIRR of their fund. For this they need to reach a multibagger liquidity event.

Now let's look at what happens when:

1. The Consumer gets f'ed over: 

The startup attains pricing power through deep competitive moats allowing for monopolisation. They can jack up the prices to ensure nice FCF, greater rewards for Service Providers and great returns to their investors. (Think, Uber can charge anything to you now)

2. The Startup gets f'ed over: 

The users get bang for their buck, the service providers get good incentives, the investors push for higher growth but unfortunately the startup does not have enough capital to service their Cost of Operations through their unit economics, so they will either run out of cash or investor patience. Either ways, they are doomed. (Think every legit startup that failed)

3. The Service Provider get f'ed over: 

This is the likeliest scenario as they have the least power in this dynamic. Rewards will be reduced over time or made harder to achieve. They have no option because they got no option for sustenance. (Think any on-demand service providing app)

4. The investor gets f'ed over: 

Now imagine there is a startup that can balance the act very well. They have a service that users are willing to pay a margin on. They pay their service providers fairly and have decent unit economics. Now, the investor will do halla about destruction of shareholder value from little growth. (Is this the case with BluSmart?)

Maybe that's why building in India is tough.

[Rant] Here's why someone usually ends up f'ed over, for a startup to get successful in India

Quoting from The Ken (which btw I would highly recommend).

How many of you think this is true for Bangalore and problems that we are facing now with this generation.

+++++++++++++

Between 2020 and 2022, investors pumped billions of dollars into startups whose founders and leaders offered up the mythical “hypergrowth” narrative. Those startups, in turn, pumped money to hire and grow a layer of mid-level and senior-level executives whose job was to deliver on that hypergrowth narrative.

And salaries went through the roof. Hikes of 50% and above were par for the course.

Cut to the present.

If overvalued startups are widely recognised as a problem, can overvalued employees escape the same fate?

A CEO of a prominent company estimates that “in product and tech, 20-30% are in this category”. 



- Extract taken from Ken

Unhireable category of employees, how true is this?

CEO will always say employees are paid too much 
  
 Who exactly is recognising overvalued startups as a problem? Most are still trying to run the grift and were only hampered by interest rates lowering their runway. You can see how many are opening AI startups that have nothing to do with AI whatsoever, not to mention the number of Crypto / Web3 companies in our country. 
  
 Executive pay has always been the problem, take a look at any graph showing the skyrocketing ratio of Executive:Employee salary ratio, and for terrible decision making and management as a trend.

Someone told me that it is an issue that can be solved by having high agency but it is exactly the thing that is penalized first. You can only affect the locus of your influence but when you need to get work done collaboratively it is mind numbing work.

You need to sell, sell and sell. Not the right ideas always win but the loudest guy who is really chummy with the founders. Most founders can't do any better because it serves their ego. Doing things right means accepting that your throughput of ideas based in gut call is bad for the company. Having a system where meritocratic ideas win while "smart" show-sha people who are all talk and no show are fired straight up.

I have myself witnessed the death of culture when the inner circle does as what they want to, and soon the it turns very toxic for everyone involved. I can tell you that right now I am pretty much sure that 4 people will leave within 1 year, even if they were offered a 100% hike.

High agency means that you can only do the best with the cards that have been dealt to you. But even with high agency you cannot expect to solve big problems that extend beyond your scope of responsibilities.

Boys only want to one thing and it's disgusting...

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