I read this article (https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-hardcore-twitter-culture-inspires-fellow-tech-founders-2022-12) that talked about people who call themselves founders looking up to Musk. Lol, imagine that being a SHEEP "founder" instead of being someone who leads own their own terms given every company has a different set of input and output parameters.
If "founders" or "investors" have been waiting for someone to push back on "cushy conditions" as Bill Gurley said then I'd say you've already failed to be a leader. Why would you invest in companies where they don't know how to operate efficiently? And Bill Gurley, fuck you for using "performant", it's fluff vague words like this that contribute to bullshit culture and "fluffy" conditions.
Imagine creating a competitor to Google, but your idea is to create conditions like Google without the same economics to support it, so you go looking for VC to fund your little environment. Still not the same economics, but you have high burn rate causing you to go through that cycle again and again until your company falls flat. That's the real world. Most VC backed companies fail.
For any VC to start acting like a lack of "fluffy conditions" is a root cause of high burn rate is facetious. If you don't know what you're investing in, you've already locked that loss. You have no right to complain when you've visited their offices and did your due diligence, but still invested. You invested in "fluffy conditions", you are part of the root cause for inefficiency. No backbone. No spine. Invest in companies that already shown efficiency and you'll solve your problem.
Founders who desire to create "fluffy conditions" because they think that's what people want are woefully misguided. People want a job. The kind that allows them to live in own box with their own fluff. No one cares about their workplace having a cafeteria, pool table, game room or whatever. That stuff goes unused quite a bit. Once you've introduced shit like this, you will find it hard to take away and a base line for your next location, if you make it there.
What happens when founders have no backbone and can't explain why they need to take shit away until they are forced to? You got an image problem. People will flee. You've failed. Praising Musk won't help you or your "image".
Any "founder" who says they are glad Musk is doing what he's doing has failed utterly at their core job which is to lead their company through the good and bad. Bad times come and you must develop a capability to explain what's going on or else there's no respecting you.
Lastly, if fluffy conditions are your worry in bad economic times, you wildly over estimated your set of input parameters. Where's your baseline? 😑