Pure bullshit takes this person's been offering since past month on LinkedIn. Amazes me how distant are VCs from real life

● "70-Hour Workweeks and Peanuts" - It's Not Just "How Markets Work" Claiming that grueling work hours and low wages are intrinsic to free markets oversimplifies a complex issue. Capitalism should mean fair exchange, not exploitation. ● "Founders' Fortunes vs. Employee Pennies" - Rethinking Entrepreneurial Rewards Rewarding risk is valid, but amassing vast fortunes by underpaying employees raises ethical questions. Capitalism should be about equitable rewards, not just personal gain. ●"Don't Blame, Analyze the System" - Seeking Systemic Improvement Critiquing capitalism isn't a personal attack; it's about refining the system. Understanding its flaws allows us to make it fairer for everyone. ●"Critique, Don't Opt Out" - Working Towards a Better Capitalism Suggesting one should avoid capitalism if they criticize it oversimplifies the issue. Critique is a call for reform, not rejection. It's about making capitalism more equitable, not abandoning it. No offense to the author, but the excessive toxicity that some folks spread across social media, be it on Twitter or LinkedIn, with others blindly hopping on board, really highlights how we sometimes let our critical thinking slide.

Apparently naming people is against guidelines so I'll stick to saying avoid the company. Highly unprofessional behaviour towards entrepreneurs.

Sharing frustrations with starting up a business. In my career I have raised over $30m over multiple rounds. Co-founders in non-business roles get pushed out by politics. Sharing control with co-founders is messy, inconvenient, time consuming. Money lets you hire people who have to answer to you. If you are not the main ‘Business person’ in a startup high chance you are disposable, no matter what skills you have. And it sucks to spend so much effort only to get bullied out and left with nothing. Some investors will follow you on social media, if your business is not growing QoQ don’t post anything on social media that implies you are not working every weekend. They will ask why you are not working. If you are CEO, be ready for every random person to tell you how to run your business. Not in a ‘friendly advice’ kind of way, if you are the CEO you have a target on your back. Investors don’t know about your industry or have very dated knowledge. Some will just say random tips like ‘try web3’ or ‘try SaaS’ and blame you for following their advice when it fails. Your progress is measured against fraud companies who fake numbers, or the 1 in thousands who succeed. Get made to feel like you are failing to live up to super high expectations constantly. Employees work half your hours, off sick usuall one day a week, deliver next to nothing and expect 20% hikes every year because that’s what their friends make, or they read some dumb startup hires freshers at 20LPA. Smooth talking people with the same idea as you, no traction, never shipped a product in life, will raise a huge seed round due to 'pedigree' and spend it all on self promotion. You will always be compared to these clowns who find ways to lecture others while building nothing of value.

I have evaluated a lot of startups as part of my work. My approach has changed from being optimistic to being suspicious of a lot of founders, even before the process starts. The sheer number of founders that I come across that try to game metrics/play around with data to make the startup look good. Most commonly: 1) Completely changing the definition of margins, repeat rates, etc. and never clarifying that they are using different definition. 2) Often giving rebates/discounts to key stakeholders but finding ways to hide it from their P&L so that it’s not visible. THIS IS SO COMMON - lot’s of them start showing revenues, and then you will see another cost item rising at the same pace, and lot’s of times it will just be money moving around 3) Sometimes completely giving the wrong picture of how their product works on ground. You then speak with their customers, and they describe something completely else. Things like these are eating up the ecosystem. These founders also end up fooling some VCs, and then capital get’s kept away from actually good founders who have good intentions. There was a recent major investment in the commerce space, and that is another one such example of a startup doing this. Needs to stop.

The company had more than 6 layoffs in the past 10 months. Right from office boys to the company COO was affected by the layoff. The recent layoff happened 10 days back, where the company didn't pay their employees a single dime and instead gave them their value less esops to keep their mouth shut. The company is being run by 2 arrogant adamant co-founders along with their 10 other close ally so called the CORE team. The employees were on 30% salary cut since 10 months in the name of deffered and were promised that everyone would get it back with 8% interest on the cut. In every layoff employees were asked to leave within a day or two without even paying them for their notice period. Nobody was vocal about it as the founders had threatened some ex employees that they would make their life miserable and they will find it difficult to get jobs anywhere in future.

Because every Santa-Banta startup has started to pitch AI wrappers to me over the last so many month.

Something I've found very frustrating while pitching to investors, platforms and funds is that so many of them actually just bait and switch. They pose like gyani people earnestly looking for investments or helping entrepreneurs, but when you speak to them they start selling you their services. Fundraise is apparently just a step away, need to signup here first, or create xyz report first, or do outreach to xyz number of people, or do market research and fresh pitch deck creation, or hire xyz consultant/agency to get to the "next level" - basically a bunch of barriers you need to pay to clear despite having a profitable business with paying customers. Fact of the matter is there are plenty of people raising money based off of pitch decks with no MVP , or even just the right conversations with the right people. But they are rare and hard to find organically. Requires lots of networking and connecting dots over months and years. The point is, this selling in the guise of securing investment is tiresome and a waste of time for most entrepreneurs. They probably do get a few suckers occasionally which helps them stay afloat I guess. Some of them might even take your ideas and start building something of their own or back someone to build it under them. Once you start pitching, the deck starts floating around in VC groups and networks mostly beyond the reach of the average entrepreneur. Considering all this, just keeping one's head down and bootstrapping forever in peace seems like a better approach.

So I interviewed for a SaaS company serving US clients. I got selected after three rounds (basic email chat, built a project, technical coding round at last) and got selected. Finally, it was time to discuss salary and joining date with the CEO. He was impressed by the about section on my portfolio, where I mentioned that I like to go on treks, hikes, read books, lift weights, go on a run, etc. During our call he mentioned that everyone at the startup works 6-7days a week, 12hrs a day and asked if I'd be fine with it as I have a "happening life". I said that I'm not used to it but I'll manage and work in appropriate working hours. He seemed to agree on it. But he ghosted me after that, and when I pinged him in the email thread; he said he's not moving ahead with me because my other properties won't allow me to "work as much as other employees". How am I supposed to react to this lol