by 
Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
Tech layoffs continued this morning, with Spotify announcing plans to fireplace round 600 staff. That brings the month-to-month complete to over 56,000, per monitoring web site Layoffs.fyi. together with final week’s monster cuts at each Alphabet and Microsoft.
The large query: Could this spark a surge in tech entrepreneurship? A kind of upside to the downturn? The reply is muddled.
Bull case: There are loads of would-be founders now on the proverbial avenue. If you’ve got at all times had the itch to launch an organization, maybe as a result of your ex-employer was making an apparent mistake, what higher time than whenever you’re already unemployed?
- Particularly when you get to money severance checks for the subsequent few months, and know of potential co-founders in the very same place?
Bear case: Today’s job market is way tighter than what we noticed after previous market messes like the dotcom bust or Great Financial Crisis. Even if tech is shedding headcount, there are loads of non-tech firms that can salivate over the prospect of hiring former Google or Facebook engineers.
- There additionally generally is a flip facet to relative monetary safety, in phrases of the drive to start out one thing new. And maybe damaging perceptions from enterprise capitalists, since being half of a ten% layoff is considered in another way than being unemployed as a result of the whole firm went underneath.
Speaking of enterprise capitalists: They are a significant variable. There presently appears to be loads of dry powder and keen check-writers, together with at the seed stage, however any important adjustments to disbursement ranges — up or down — might be considered as a sign by potential entrepreneurs.
The backside line: Layoffs are distress. Even if it is clear that an organization overhired, the pink slips are nonetheless painful. The hope is that, ultimately, some creation can come from the destruction.
