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Comment by melvinmt | Hacker News Reader

I whole fully agree with the points you make but I want to point out that for engineers in Silicon Valley, it's less dramatic to get laid off than you make it sound (I've been a part of a couple and I've had to lay off people as well).

The reality is in that most cases, you just change a tagline here and there, recruiters call you, and you just go on and do the next great thing.

The only ones for whom this is a problem are probably the ones with a "nice to have" position and they will have a hard time finding a new job. This sucks, but this is, like you said, also the founder's fault so it's up to the founder to give them a nice severance pay, great recommendations and preferably even introductions to other companies.

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> The reality is in that most cases, you just change a tagline here and there, recruiters call you, and you just go on and do the next great thing.

That depends where in the cycle we are. You're talking about the normal churn of startups, but in a downtrend the recruiters stop calling and that is the time where it is quite dramatic.

This is where I point out the obvious: save enough of your huge paychecks to last you a few months in the event of a downturn. I keep about 6 months expenses in my savings account but it's up to your individual risk tolerance.

6 months of expenses in SV is like $24k just in rent. That's going to hit people pretty hard whether they've saved for it or not.

$4k/mo is higher than average unless you're talking about supporting a family as well. If you're supporting a family your risk tolerance should be lower meaning you'll want more saved. Though it should hit people equally regardless of rent. The only difference is that people with lower rents can afford to take lower paying jobs in the event of a downturn.

$4k/mo is significantly more than my total monthly expenses. This leads to the other obvious advice: live below your means.

When layoffs start happening, they tend to be happening everywhere, so no, you're not going to just "change a tagline" and choose among the hundreds of recruiters banging down your door. Doesn't anyone remember 2000-2003? or even 2007-2009? (or earlier I'm sure, I've mercifully only had to survive two major downturns)

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