Venture capital is getting nervous. And the flood of new money has become a trickle. As money dries up, startups have to tighten their belts and lower their burn rates in order to live another day. In the process, big hiring plans are shelved.
The formerly rosy scenario has turned grim. Companies like Twitter fell all over each other to lure tech gurus with blue-sky compensation packages that then allowed these folks to rent or buy whatever they wanted to, and drive up prices in the process. Now Twitter is laying off people.
I hadn’t realized there would be widespread repercussions like this from the downturn in tech investment. Perhaps the bubble wasn’t in the San Francisco housing market after all, but rather in the tech industry, whose lucrative hiring and relocation packages in turn skyrocketed housing prices.