[lmeyerov]

Yep!

Tech companies over hired for ~10 years wrt efficiency & sustainability, and few want to do layoffs necessary to get 'good' efficiency numbers, instead just close enough that they can maybe reach non-buzzy norms in a few years, and hope things change in the meanwhile to go back to setting money on fire.

It's natural: market funded inefficient growth for years, and tech people want to feel like they are succeeding, which headcount is a power-tripping and physical metric for, even if wildly inaccurate. Cutting isn't easy either. Losing headcount makes folks want to quit, slows growth, and if as deep as needed for efficiency (which the 'standard' 10-20% cut isn't enough for), loses revenue... Which can cause a death spiral.

We have been growing purely on revenue for awhile now, and we have to remind many of our customers that we need to get paid bc we aren't (currently) doing the VC thing. Many have been trained at this point to not think that way, it's bizarre.