Hypocrisy

The startup culture is so toxic these days, they literally treat people like slaves now. Hiring krte time team team krenge lekin fir attitude aisa ki jaise mazdoor ho jo dihadi lene aagye ho roz, idk if its the case everywhere but i experienced it in 2 startups in NCR.

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?

The stupidity and arrogance of some leaders in some companies to use colleges as filter criteria for what is clearly irrelevant for the role. Mostly these idiots end up fucking up company after company creating these neo-casteist groups sucking off and living off each other. This identity based hiring is the start of corporate politics. I still don’t understand how difficult it is for fucking idiots to understand that while hiring for most roles you have to encourage diverse backgrounds at the start of the process to help you hire the right candidate for the long term, specially in a startup. PS I’m not against preferring candidates from certain colleges if it’s relevant. What i do hate is this herd behaviour of trying to hire only from your alumni the moment you are given leadership roles. It must be such shitty experience to work under idiots like these if you are not from their alumni colleges because their biases play into all evaluations they do about their teams.

I am starting up soon. I care about working on meaningful problems, with good people and building the right culture. Have been hearing from a lot of folks about culture problems in startups. Seems more of a norm rather than an exception. Curious to know why do startup culture degrade? What pitfalls should I avoid to create a healthy culture?

I have been following the Indian startup scene for a while now, and I have to say that I am not impressed. It seems like most of the startups here are nothing more than people chasing quick bucks and the entire scene is a circlejerk of people doing everything, attending these stupid conferences and gatherings than actually building something game-changing. Every founder is chasing nothing more than a valuation just so they can exit and there’s nothing wrong with it but don’t sit on a moral high ground talking about building business etc. There’s a reason we don’t see startups here penetrating west because most of the founders in the Indian ecosystem reek of ego and it’s all because we don’t judge business on merit but based on the degree the founders have. We all can count stupid startups draining money all because they are from some IIT or IIM or now some fancy degree from Ivy and yes it takes effort and hard work to reach there. Still, it automatically doesn’t translate to you naturally being better than a guy working his ass off to make up that difference. Also, just because you used your dad’s money to start a 'Venture Firm or be an angel investor after college doesn’t mean you’re an expert at everything. You’re just adding to the noise and the hype that is already too much in this space. You’re not helping anyone but yourself and your ego. So a friendly reminder can we all actually focus on building things based on hard work and merit instead of glorifying this circlejerk. Can we stop being obsessed with funding rounds and valuations and start being obsessed with solving real problems and creating value for customers and society? Can we stop being influenced by the media and the hype and start being influenced by the data and the feedback? Can we stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution?

Sharing my experience: I am a founder of a small startup where I am the only employee. Recently, I received an offer from a head of another start up asking for money in return for work. I immediately refused due to business ethics. I work in life sciences sector. Sad that people curse politicians and they themselves stoop to lows for money.

IIT grad here building a venture backed startup. I think 99% of folks here believe that venture backed founders are super entitled and in a much "cosier" position than employees Just sharing a few facts about our journey so far if it helps anyone improve their perspectives- 1) Paying ourselves 33% of our campus salary & 60% of what we are paying to our employees (Talking about Pure Base Salary here, not including ESOPs) 2) Insane stress - You basically have to raise money to build (esp if its deeptech because of the high fixed costs) and there are predefined metrics you have to always chase, sometimes just beyond yourselves. Your product will be copied if it's good because well, they always have more money than you. You work 7 days a week for insane hours, chasing metrics required to be "afloat" 3) 99% of venture backed startups result in 0 liquidity gain for founders. So basically in all likeliness, everything is for a net negative return compared to if we took the campus job So, when you wholeheartedly bash founders as if they are sitting On a goldmine while you are toiling for THEIR gold Treasure, just understand that more likely than not, there is not really any gold but rather an irrational hope they are clinging to Also, Yes-we pay above market to our employees (100% hike for the last one) but the truth is some startups just Can't afford it. And ironically, there is a much higher looking down on these startups with meagurely paid founders rather than giants like Tech Mahindra paying peanuts to their employees while having a 1000% salary hike for the executives. Yeah, most startups need to do better but please appreciate if someone is atleast trying to do better because trust me, it's INSANELY HARD.. The number of posts I see about Flipkart making hundreds millionaires is way too less than the ones I see about pinpointing at every single mistake early stage startups do & I just wanted to express my opinion on it Peace!

I am done with Meesho. The work is great but the reward structure has become shit. The leadership has become hypocrite over the years and if this goes on then soon most of the talent would leave this super high density talent company. Feeling betrayed post the layoffs and the promo cycle, I am looking for new product opportunities, please help if there are any openings at your organisation 🤕