Should startup founders be concerned about possible hyperinflation?

Question

It seems that the fed will print money to provide liquidity to distressed banks. It also looks like gold is up as of late. Alternatively fed may also alter reserve requirements for banks which could hurt banks even further (along with rate hikes).Should startup founders be concerned about this? What about VCs?

relaunched · Accepted Answer

Hyper inflation would be a catastrophic risk to the entire economy. If it happened in the US, it would be a catastrophic risk to the world economy.
Insofar as everyone should be worried, startups should be worried. However, the only way to manage that risk would be to focus on markets that would be insolated from such a risk. That would be economies like Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc... many of which US startups can't operate in anyway.
One should be aware, but there isn't much you can do against hyperinflation in the US and the world.

hazyc · Answer

I think if a startup founder is worrying about anything other than product-market-fit and customer retention then they're doing it wrong.

legitster · Answer

I think you are conflating a few things. The premise of your question is wrong in a few places, but overall I will just say inflation is still trending down.
Still, looking at the current situation, I think all founder should posit a few things:
- Long term: the age of venture capital is going away. Gone will be the days when there is free money to throw at longshots on profitability. Your ideas will increasingly need to bootstrap themselves.
- Short term: STOP SITTING ON SO MUCH MONEY IN CHECKING ACCOUNTS! Spend the money or at least hire a treasurer for crying out loud!

ashwagary · Answer

Depending on the amount of cash you keep on hand, you may need to be concerned.Preserving as much value as possible, which is normally a side task, should become a bigger priority.

gus_massa · Answer

You mean real inflation with 50% MoM, or just hyperbole for a few % MoM?