Consider attacking your living expenses. Request a rent reduction from your landlord -- you're a known entity, and they're more likely to offer this if you ask than if you don't, and them more they've heard that request. Look at roommate situations. Don't make any big purchases. Do put away an emergency stash.
One of the big problems the Bay Area faces right now is one that attacks its ongoing attractiveness as a tech hub: technical labour is losing its flexibility. Employment is contracting, slightly, but housing is so expensive that virtually nobody has any personal runtime if the paychecks stop. A considerable exodus from the area may make it less attractive in future. It's one thing to take a new job down the street, or even switch between San Jose and SF or SF and Oakland. It's another to shuttle back and forth, with household wares, from Cleveland to Palo Alto, every 6-18 months.
It's also an opportunity for a new low-cost hub to establish itself. One with what makes SV tick, but doesn't have its problems.
Unfortunately, most of the candidate destinations lack the legal environment, particularly labour law, which made SV so attractive. It's possible locations outside the US might emerge, though I'm not sure where that might be either.
I'm not calling the end of SV, that would be idiotic (until its not, at which point it will be inspired). But the hub is entering a period of distinct vulnerability.
I'm less convinced of the uniqueness of SV and the role of labor laws. Places like Massachusetts are doing pretty well these day. (And, indeed, housing near the city isn't cheap either.) This in spite of EMC and certain other employers torpedoing anti-non-compete legislation. But, then, a lot of Boston-area employers don't necessarily put non-compete's in place even though they're more enforceable than in CA.
But the thought of dealing with any of a number of hassles, ranging from commutes to housing frustrations to highly uncertain employment to outright labour-hostile legal codes (and even in light of those, vastly worse employment contracts) has me reduced to essentially zero interest in even considering the game.
Massachussets, New York, Texas, and North Carolina have all done an exemplary job of eliminating themselves from any and all consideration. California's simply not affordable where there's work, and there's no work where it's affordable. Europe's a mess.
Altair IV is looking pretty good.
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Notes:
1. See for example, https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/38skua/what_ar...
Best case: he doesn't get laid off
Worst case: he gets laid off and puts the debt back on the LoC
Money sitting in an insured account is as safe as anything in the world.
People don't tend to like lending unemployed people money. Isn't that the first thing a bank's going to ask? "How is person going to pay me back?"
In any case I've never had my bank ask for any income verification of any kind, they just take me at my word. I was surprised too.
Be moderately concerned. Live frugally and try to save money if at all possible.
Be more or less concerned based on specific details of your company that I don't know about. Does it have a revenue stream or does it depend completely on funding? Is it just a year old or has it already survived for a decade or more? Are your primary customers other startups (big risk), or do you primarily serve a different industry?
And start looking at jobs you think you might enjoy that are outside the Bay Area. Life is a lot less stressful if you're in a situation where you can save some money without worrying about every single purchase you make. Even a $50k-60k salary which many here might scoff at can take you far in a much cheaper area of the country.
Generally good advice, but here's the thing that often goes undiscussed when talking about cost of living: Many big expenses do not scale with the cost of living. If I have a $80K student loan. It's $80K no matter where in the country I am living. So I'd rather go for the high salary/high cost of living than the low salary/low const of living, in order to maximize the ability to pay for these fixed costs. Cars are the same way.
Of course, I haven't ever actually done the math to confirm that this theory checks out when looked at as percentages of available income after dealing with the extreme costs like housing... but I'd guess it still holds.
Also, while living frugally can make a huge difference in your net available income if you live in a high salary/high cost of living city, it can also be very hard to commit to that lifestyle when your friends/co-workers don't.
Not sure how your friends' or co-workers' lifestyles have any effect on your own, though. I have friends who work for Google and live what I see as pretty extravagant lifestyles, and overhear co-workers (who must make a shit-ton more than me) talk about their nanny, their maids and their kids' private schools, but it doesn't really have any bearing on my life. You have to live the lifestyle you can afford or you go broke.
You can . . . focus at your job, learn what you can, take initiative, get things done, be a positive force on your team.
Save what you can, trim expenses, eating out, etc. Getting laid off always sucks do what you can to be ready just in case.
Polish up your resume and be ready to use it if needed. I expect you would get some severance to give you some time to bridge to a new job.
Good luck.
How much are they burning vs what they've raised? Are they a consumer startup? Do they make money at all?
Basically, imagine your company cannot raise another round of VC again. Will it survive?
Also, are your loans federal? You should put them on Income Based Repayment if you can. It's more important to save up a cushion before paying student loans that have flexible options like that.