[webehere]

The problem with all this talk is that the scale is weird.

Silicon Valley is what? LinkedIn, or a 2015 YC summer intake company? At the scale of LinkedIn, maybe this argument is inconsequential in many ways. At the scale of a 2015 YC summer intake company, it is irrelevant.

Where between those two is this argument relevant? Should a growing company desperate for talent spend seed money while unprofitable on "operations staff"? Or should they minimise that pay and try to get great devs? Great sales people?

That's the issue with these kind of sweeping statements - there are so many companies in a labour market, and very few arguments can ever apply to all of them, or even most of them.