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Comment by AIorNot

17 days ago

I don't know, its a bit of a hellscape in tech right now as thousands of people with deep domain knowledge and people knowledge and business knowledge (ie experienced engineers managers and product owners), were laid off by C Suites desperate to keep the AI funded mandates going

Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money? Its like saying any actor can goto hollywood and be a star

VCs wont fund everyone

Nobody is sure of anything

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AIorNot

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jdjdndbdhsjsb  17 days ago

Yes it is. But I am an optimist for human nature. I personally believe smaller companies doing different things is the future... Scaling as they need. It is a hellscape but people can and will adapt.

> Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money?

Yes I have failed to do it before. I get this.

> VCs wont fund everyone

And? Do you need VCs? Economics mean that scale matters but what if we don't need it. What if we can make efficient startups with our own funding??

  • AIorNot  17 days ago

    I’d like to say its possible

    But heres the reality from me- I’m in my 50s and I don't have it in me to grind at the level of 20 year olds to achieve some level of security in an untried business model - and this is someone who has launched 2 AI startups in the past 2 years

    In one we got VC funding but I left after setting up their agent platform and tons of AI assisted coding only to not meet impossible deadlines and over-promised AI value to enterprise customers - I was literally working 20 hr days at stretch for 170k salary competing and half benefits against 25 year olds out of stamford with no lives- far lower than the 250+ with stock and benefits I got in my EM role at a big company which now evaporated - I was edged out of that startup role for not delivering “on time”

    My second AI startup I cofounded with friends and trusted colleagues its bootstrapped (all of us are over 40) - so we have more experience and better deadlines now but its up to the business gods on how well it will do- crossing my fingers

    But its a lot of pressure for sure and I currently have no health insurance and my wife was laid off in December and we lost her benefits

    So I wouldn’t call myself optimistic in the end stage capitalistic hellwhole that is modern “middle class” America

    I hope a better work model can be found - but having some any salary and medical benefit security would be nice

    I went to an AI meetup last week and it was filled with gray hairs - i could sense the desperation as many people I met told me they were laid off recently and trying to dive in

    Ironically looking at them it reminded me of those interviews they used to do in Appalachia or something when a town was out of work and advisors came in and said “learn to code instead of mining” (ok I may be exaggerating somewhat but I even know a ex Microsoft manager who had to resort to a go-fundme to keep his family afloat)