[rant]- What’s up with startups? Sudden layoffs in literally last working week of this year

They opt for dec, because its quarter ending. The books will appear cleaner from Jan and that quarter will look better when it ends.

It has nothing to do with new energy from new year. Its like they clean the old shit to prepare for new shit.

Had they done in Jan first week, we would have said the new year got ruined. No point delaying the inevitable

Spine, what is that??

• An Edtech start-up founder

Swiggy does exactly this only! They fired this year in 3rd week of Jan and now a new round of layoffs are expected post new year.

One of the reasons why I like the Zerodha Engg team. Has a very healthy and stable AF employee count. No investors AFAIK. No layoff, no hiring. Just minding their own business and enjoying their own profits.

who all are int this boat

Just speculation but, one of the reasons also could be that most companies have their employee’s leaves getting renewed starting Jan 1st so if they lay people off now they wouldn’t have to pay for leave encashment for new leaves

Investors have told to extend runway till 2025!

In most cases especially if the company has crossed series B round , founders usually don't have much equity of the company , It is the others who have the highest voting shares on the board .

Founders would have in all cases, would have negotiated as much as possible, in these startups , founder are just executioners than decision makers ....!!!

I do not advocate any kind of firing but just the other side of the story .

Not every founder has the corpus to say NO to investors. Maybe it's actually the need of the hour and we can't do anything about it coz it's too late. Life ain't fair all the time. Yes bad decisions were taken but if the choice is between layoff and closing down the company, I am pretty sure what option most of us would take.