[shash]

Yeah, the point here is nuanced, but let's do an argumentum ad absurdum instead /s

Probably the _best_ advice I got from the entire startup community is, "don't scale without PMF". The saving grace here is that they didn't scale beyond 140 people, so the damage is limited. And they didn't double down on something that would have dropped the whole thing down.

But as a founder, I'd consider it a failure of planning on my part if I had to lay off 50% of my workforce (a failure nobody is immune to, but a failure nonetheless).

[vanviegen]

That's not an argumentum ad absurdum. The whole point of a startup is to try to build a business based on a as-of-yet unproven business model, which usually involves hiring people.

If you need that many people to (dis)prove viability.. I don't know. Hard to judge from the outside, though easy to judge in hindsight.