The War For Talent
Steve Blank says in his New Rules For The New Internet 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.
Context & Ripple Effects
December coverage had already framed Silicon Valley hiring as a contest for top technical talent, while Twitter’s London hiring rationale pointed to competition for engineers across geographic markets. Tasty Labs, which raised funding for a social-software venture in 2010, is presented here through a public new-developer welcome as another visible recruiting signal.
Joshua Schachter’s post gives Steve Blank’s broader observation a concrete startup-level example: hiring packages are becoming part of how companies market themselves to scarce developers, not merely an internal HR matter.
First-order effects
- Tasty Labs gains a public recruiting asset aimed at developers weighing startup offers, while prospective hires receive a clearer signal about the company’s willingness to invest in their arrival.
Second-order effects
- Other startups seeking the same engineering pool face pressure to make their own offers and workplace propositions more legible, rather than relying solely on funding or product ambitions to attract candidates.
Third-order effects
- If public recruiting signals become standard, engineering talent becomes a more explicit competitive moat: startups with the resources and reputation to package an attractive employee proposition gain an advantage in building teams.
The trend: Silicon Valley’s competition for developers is shifting recruiting from a private staffing function into a visible part of startup positioning and differentiation.