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Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

Should the preverbal hit the fan, would you open-source the code and have a paid support plan... should all else fails to monetize this?

Not sure why the down votes. I don't know the balance sheet of the company. Also lots of other companies like Aerospike open source their code and make money from support plans.

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We aren't having trouble monetizing the business. Our revenue projections remain the same even though we let some staff go and we are doing fine on that end. Mixpanel isn't going anywhere if that's your concern. If anything, we are investing a lot more in engineering, product, and design to make our products a lot better for all you.

It's too early to say what we'd do in an outcome like that. I certainly wouldn't want to see everything we've built go to waste.

How are you investing a lot more if you let people go?

The article says they mostly fired sales people.

So they are hiring other people? That doesn't address my question.

> He confirmed to TechCrunch that 18 people were laid off, mostly in sales.

From the original article

Which is odd. Sales people don't cost much. They either pay for themselves or they're let go quickly. They're not usually let go in a group like that. Usually engineers are cut early; they cost more. Not trying to pick a fight, I've just been through layoffs before and this is how the finance team always justifies their cuts.

If things are going bad, the engineers become assets for a potential aquisition. I've never seen engineers let go when things get dicey. Almost everyone else is let go first.

That's probably a sign of frothy (dare I say bubble?) times. The opposite is usually the case. Cut the engineers and outsource the work was the M.O. for a decade+.

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