Poll: How Has The Recession Affected You? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: How Has The Recession Affected You?

17 pointsMystalic14 comments

I was curious how much of an effect techies, hackers, and entrepreneurs have felt from the recession. It would be nice to hear stories too, if you have one.

View on HN

Where is the option for it's improved things?

There's a HUGE opportunity right now for offerings which help companies and individuals save money. The climate has never been better for small lean responsive companies to displace the large expensive lumbering service providers out there.

modoc, that's a really good point - I'm sorry I didn't put it on there! Lesson learned.

I agree. I actually resigned from my full time job at a big corporation to work full time on my start-up because of the opportunity to come out with a new cost-saving product

Please provide stories for how it has empirically improved things. It's always easy to write things like "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste", but it's not very interesting.

I chose none because there wasn't a "It's better" option. I've actually gained new contracts since things went south. So far the recession is working out fine for me. However, I know plenty of people who are struggling so it's not like I'm completely unaffected.

I hit 'None', but it has been interesting for Tipjoy. We're finding more interest in alternative monetization schemes and social donations to non-profits. Both are aided by the recession, not hurt by it. We already have a round of funding in the bank, so we're not looking. We're hiring, and more people are coming on the market.

We'll see what our valuation look like in any following rounds of funding or other events. Overall though, I think we've been helped by the state of the economy.

I lost my job, but am using this opportunity to do my second startup. My first one was profitable, so I'm hoping I can do it again.

Losing a ton of money right now looking for the next contract (1 month+ now). I can get an employee job in days, but at half the income of independent. Nevertheless, that's what I am interviewing for these days as nothing is appearing down the pipe.

It used to be you just showed up at any given agency and you'd be in a client's office on Monday.

Banks stopped giving me un-subsidized loans cause I don't have a decent cosigner. Luckily I work for a company and I could pay the rest out of pocket(if I worked 8 hours a week more).

Otherwise very little.

Lost my job in the DC. Was able to get a new one about 3 weeks later, that pays about $5000 more per year. I don't really care for the job as of right now, but it's something to do while I keep hacking away at stuff, hopefully finding something interesting to do.

I don't know how I feel about the recession. If I had more money saved up, I'd be feeling a lot better about it. If I were to lose this job, I'd be back to square one.

There are widespread budget cuts at the BigCos. People are losing capex budgets, which depresses forecasts from enterprise technology companies, and they're losing headcount. I don't personally know anyone who's been laid off. But it could take a couple quarters for the F500 to fully react to Q4'08; the budgeting process alone in a normal year consumes months at most of these companies.

It didn't affect me in any way tough I did fear for my job, I must admit. But it seems there is no real recession (yet?) going on where I live (Belgium, europe). I must admit a lot of people lost their job, but those people where working in car manufacturing/steel/clothing factories and they have been going downhill for years...

The recession hasn't affected me at all. I was lucky enough to land a well-paying job at a well-funded startup just before the economy exploded. This allows me to work on my own startup in my spare time without having to worry.

Just extended my contract for another 10 months.

So far -- what recession?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com