Posts from War for Talent

The War For Talent

Steve Blank says in his New Rules For The New Internet Bubble:

hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble

I'm hearing this from everyone I know in Silicon Valley. And you can see the evidence on the web.

Joshua Schachter posted this on his twitter feed yesterday. This is what a new developer gets when they show up at work at Tasty Labs.

Tasty dev setup

Quora posted this on their website yesterday.

Quora dev setup

I guess the developer setup is a key part of the recruiting war in Silicon Valley. Tasty Labs earns their name with the inclusion of Dr Pepper in the standard dev setup.

But seriously, there is a war for talent, particularly developer talent, going on. Not just in Silicon Valley but also in NYC and many other places around the country.

Companies, small and large, are resorting to all sorts of creative ideas to recruit. Free lunches, free yoga, pushing code day one, cool schwag, options, RSUs, pretty much whatever it takes.

We are watching this anxiously. It is likely to get worse before it gets better. But we are not just sitting around biting our nails. We are working with our portfolio companies to help in lots of ways. And I think it is making a difference. If you want to work in the USV portfolio, here is the USV portfolio jobs page. And if you want to drink Dr Pepper and write code with Joshua Schachter, here is how to do that.



#VC & Technology