Comment by JamesBarney 8 days ago
This is something that both impacts them and impacts you if you're a developer.
This tax treatment can increase the cost of a dev by 5-15% which leads to less hiring and a looser job market. Which will impact us even if we're not looking for work because most companies look at market rates when deciding raises.
All companies would prefer to have 0 employees if possible. This isn't special about YC companies. Heck it's not even special about companies. If I could buy a roof that was slightly more expensive but I never had to hire a roofer I would.
Devils advocate might say
1. Lots of groups want to pay less tax to suit them. Just because it benefits us doesn't make the lobbying logical.
2. We call ourselves builders. But you presumably can't claim the cost of building your house against income tax. So why is out building different.
3. Come on; be honest: software development was always the loophole. You have coders building next year's features and you are saying that is a legitimate expense against this year's profit. You couldn't have made profit this year without a half implemented unreleased AI sparkle?
I really think the law is silly from a practical point of view but it's good insofar that other countries' silicon valleys need a chance ;)
Possibly, but I think if YC companies could get away with just cutting everyone they would too.
I don't doubt there's an impact here, but it's not because they have a real interest in any other topics that concern me and hiring, H1B and so on.