I’m curious - who gets screwed over the most here? Is it investors who got tricked into over valuing? Or langchain who now can’t meet their expected revenue targets and will be forced to pivot?
Speaking in hypothetical terms of course. I’m assuming the langchain folks are probably paying themselves pretty well and not working super hard (at least not on engineering stuff)?
Usually the investors - the funding amount means that the founders and early employees can get paid a living wage at least (as a former VC-backed founder I can say that they probably don't get paid exorbitantly). But investors will get rinsed if the company can't either reach IPO or raise a subsequent round at a higher valuation. This becomes very difficult when the company is already worth $200M on paper, and need to get the revenue to a point where that valuation is justified.
Speaking in hypothetical terms of course. I’m assuming the langchain folks are probably paying themselves pretty well and not working super hard (at least not on engineering stuff)?