1/🧵People quitting instead of coming back to offices is very real
Amazing for startups who will recruit the most talented folks who are well paid (some might say overpaid) at big companies—but who will take significantly less in order to work from home #remotework#WorkFromHome
2/Executives have figured out how to manage remote workers so well, that they will need 20% less of them. basically, low performers “have nowhere to hide” in a remote world where folks do an SOD and EOD (start of day and end of day) on SLACK
3/plus 20% less overall cost of maintaining an office, which even if you do offsite meetings will still be 10-15% savings
4/Salaries are going to go way DOWN for work from home as folks leave in person work & join the WFH movement (supply!)
Salaries will hit a “global salary,” which means 30-50% LESS than what folks made in San Francisco, where 50-70% of salaries went to housing!
5/US Knowledge workers will not only compete against counterparts in US cities, but US citizens in cities around the world AND foreign knowledge workers
Savvy US knowledge workers already realize how far the USD goes in Thailand, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Canada, & Japan!
6/Salaries for in person work will get 30%+ higher as folks working at the Apple store or Bank of America say “I’m spending 10 hours a week commuting while my friends are having lunch with their spouses and picking up their kids from school... pay me MORE or I’m out!”
1/Been getting a ton of questions from founders about the $4b Clubhouse valuation
Here's how to do the math.
-- CH will make ~$10 a year per users
-- With 5-10m users that's $50-100m in revenue
-- 10x revenue is $250m to $1b in value
so why $4b?? read on ...
2/When a startup is growing fast in a hot market people give credit for 2-5x their performance in order to "get the deal"
That surges CH's valuation to $500m to $5b--in this case it landed at $4b
This makes no sense... unless you invested in Facebook, Uber, or Google!
So..
3/How do you get in on a valuation like this as a founder?
a) you need to grow VERY fast (50%+ a month)
b) you need to have big brand names on your cap table
c) you need to a competitive marketplace/bubble
d) you don't want revenue because it pins the valuation to reality
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment."
"We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."
"there are times when a critic truly risks something & that is in the discovery &defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night I experienced something new: an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source"
1/Most folks don’t have a startup, they have an *idea* or *plan* for a startup
no one invests in ideas or plans today
I haven’t seen ideas/plans get funded for ~20 years
So what gets funded?
— Growing Startups
— World-class products
— Track Records
— ... then everything else
2/Investors pick their inventory in three phases.... First, they look for “the chart.” Basically, you’re growing ~20% a month, consistently, for ~six months
After VCs can’t find any more investments with the chart they move on to the second tier startups....
3/Those startups have either a world-class product design or founders with track records.
World-class design means your product can stand with Uber, Calm, Robinhood, Instragram, Snap, Wealthfront, etc.
World-class track record means you build a startup already & sold it.
1/I’ve embraced remote work completely like all tech folks have been forced too, & I’m afraid & inspired that the gains are so significant for employees that many/most will not go back to offices
This is going to lead to a crazy, competitive chess board for funds & startups.
2/Some companies will be able to draw top talent and demand they come to the office (think: Apple, FB, Google)
Companies that do real-world things like build cars or rocketships, will obviously be able to draw people to an office
For knowledge workers??
3/Nope. The top developers, writers, sales executives, product people, marketers, investing, finance executives, etc. will be able to say the following to big companies:
"I am only looking for job opportunities that allow me to work from home."