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Economics!

During a boom time, wages rise. Wages are "sticky", meaning they lag behind the current state of the economy. Wages for programmers have really gone out the roof in the last few years due to lack of US computer science graduates, stingy visa provisions, etc.

In a few months, the funding wave will start to level off and dip, but wages will still be as high as ever. That's the crunch. Winter is coming.

EDIT: Think about it this way: in 2009, a 1M seed got you 10 engineers for a year. Now it gets you 6, maybe 7. Ouch.



Economics again though!

In 2009 servers were more expensive, and programmers handling your cloud were both less experienced AND had inferior tools. There is a small funding glut, but 7 vs 10 isn't a fair compensation. It's more like 7 people that work 20% more effectively, so 8.4 vs 10.


That is true, but we're talking about total compensation. Base salary is sticky, but stock options and bonus aren't.




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