
Unhireable category of employees, how true is this?
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
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions

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.

Anyone who doesn't agree with that anology will tend to deny this as socialist truth bro.
Just look around and see what others doing the same job in TCS WIPRO are earning.
It's ok to get 20/30% higher. But these guys earn 3x and sometimes 4x

Just one point, TCS Wipro charge higher from their client and pay peanuts to their employees. In the last 2 yrs due to competition they had to increase the pays by approx 50-75%

Agree, I had a friend who had 1yo, worked at twilio, had a stock comp of $42k, and around 28lpa cash.
In this market no one would want to touch them.
Same is the problem with mid level and senior execs, they were paid to inflate the valuation, increase top line, launch new businesses, if you see how the market is functioning right now, it’s more like focus on bottom line and extract the value out of what is already there.
I see many round of layoffs coming in few mos. A friend who runs a startup (just got funded) got resumes from many director level folks at zombiecorns, and obviously he can’t hire them.
Reckoning incoming.

Journalist here. What do you like the most about Ken stories and which other media houses do you like?

Honestly that Ken was the pioneer in deeper journalism in India - specially into tech and the business sector.
The morning context is a similar outlet, but they seem to be selling way more negativity than might even be true.
There’s also TC - but TC is not that relevant for India

Yeah I also subscribe to them but the generally they are more on the pessimistic side, need to be more balanced in opinions

The Ken really does half baked surface level opinion stories. Wouldn’t trust any of their stories. It’s not as black and white as this article seems to suggest it is.

I am close to 20 yrs experience. I would not consider myself industry veteran yet.
But I find thier research close to reality of things

To be honest, Ken does come with really honest opinions. Had worked with a startup where there was controversial things done, came to the surface on Ken

The number should be 70-80% really lol, Bell Curve anyone? I’ve worked in major product based companies, service based companies and with early age startups. I’ve seen almost all of the critical/important/meaningful dev work eventually becoming the responsibility of a single person in a team of about 6-8 engineers.

I am that person in my organization.

I disagree because even high Indian salaries are still low by global standards

Hmmm imagine if indians get same salary as American why will they move IT jobs here .lol

I’m not talking about American salaries. Indian salaries are still lower than places like Netherlands and Sweden

Who exactly gives the right to classify an employee as overvalued? There were companies willing to pay this much for them, and these companies were poorly managed by their leaders the consequences of which these employees bear. No company's employee cost exceeds 15-18% (for manufacturing, its even lower). So for the management to blame overhiring as one of the top reasons for declining profits is pure BS. And what is the benchmark for this perceived 'overvalue'? Traditional exploitative white elephants who would rather hire freshers at peanuts than try and retain good talent, or pay at par with what you expect from the employee? Anyone trying to justify this firing spree has just fallen back on their own career journey.

Well the market has to right to classify something as overvalued.
But salary can't go down unlike a commodity price which adjusts according to market. Hence someone who is removed not able to find job with equal high pay is part of market forces acting the way it should

There is just one thing that cannot go 'down' as per corporates - stock prices. Everything else is dispensable. Everyone fired is making choices - some accepting offers lower than their current draw. Does not absolve corporates and their greed. What were these guys supposed to do - tell them 'no we are sorry you are overvaluing us, please lower the offer'?

Idk as a fullstack engineer if i have to
design wireframes on figma
Design HLD and LLD for backend
Implement frontend in 2 different frameworks
Implement backend
Build and push it to various environments
Write and do all types of testing
Update documents
Solve and and answer customer escalation
While working on weekends and sometimes national holidays and code from 6 in morning to 6 in eve .
I deserve the 40 lpa i got after 100% hike.
Nai toh agar itna aata h toh khud se karlo… So it boils down to the value you add to the system. Which i would say they are very good at extracting . No one is giving us free money.
So this narrative is total BS and a way to extract more from already overworked employees
Although there was indeed a bloat owing to the funding/hype cycle, this is sensationalized news-jacking at its best by The Ken (sad to see them sink low as this), when folks laid off are at their lowest ebb.
Not ironic enough that they themselves are VC funded.