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Comment by jimhi | Hacker News Reader

> If you even think about doing 70% layoffs you clearly over hired and are not making good leadership decisions leading up to the layoff.

100% agree with this part.

Going default alive was not the cause of whatever this company was dying. At best, it would slow or kill your growth, not your company. It sounds like it was mismanaged and prioritized something else over fixing their product. It is not bad for a company to focus on profitability.

More employees also does not mean faster product development, every developer knows this is often the complete opposite.

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> More employees also does not mean faster product development, every developer knows this is often the complete opposite.

This is only true up to a point. Otherwise, every startup would be a one man show.

That's true, but the intrinsic bias of...well, pretty much everyone...is to overhire, so that's what you need to fight. I don't think I've met anyone who was suffering from under-hiring, unless it was a situation forced upon them by lack of resources.

People feel important and "arrived" when they lead a big organization, and also, it can feel like you're doing the right thing, because it alleviates some stress. Even if you're otherwise allergic to large teams, you're so busy as a founder that any help feels like good help.

> I don't think I've met anyone who was suffering from under-hiring,

I've definitely run into this a handful of times, mostly due to runway concerns and "keeping options open".

What were the clear symptoms of under-hiring?

I think I've only worked at companies that under-hired. At small start-ups it that they were worried about runway and so made everyone wear many hats and overwork / crunch on things. At large orgs its just difficult to hire and very competitive, so you always have a hard time hitting your goals even though the roles are very much needed.

I can't think of one org I've ever worked at that hit a sweet spot where you were able to hire exactly as many engineers as you needed while keeping up with growth and attrition.

> More employees also does not mean faster product development, every developer knows this is often the complete opposite.

Maybe teams are more productive when their membership is stable. Either adding or removing developers mid-project could disrupt development.

More employees means faster (or at least higher throughout) product development if and only if the organization has competent managers who know how to design an effective organizational structure, set clear priorities, hire the right people, and implement good processes. Unfortunately, competent management is rare in early-stage startups led by founders who lack management experience in larger organizations. (Yes I am aware that there are also many incompetent managers in larger organizations.)

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