How to tell if your company is recovering from ZIRP

Executive overview

Many companies over-hired and over-spent during the ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) era, creating bloated teams, vanity projects, and cultures built around unlimited resources. The hangover is still unwinding years later. Recovery is real and measurable — and being on the right side of it matters for your equity and career.

Companies recovering from ZIRP make hard decisions; companies still infected avoid them.

Signs of recovery: leadership

• Executive turnover at the top is a good sign, not a warning — ZIRP-era hires optimised for large-company environments with little accountability
• Founders becoming more hands-on signals a wake-up — they're reclaiming control of a company that drifted
• Pushback from existing leadership ("that's my job") is an immune response; if performance is poor, founders should override it

Signs of recovery: operations

• Return to office is a hard decision senior management is willing to make despite pushback — a signal they're serious
• Physical proximity demonstrably increases productivity; cities exist for this reason
• Willingness to upset some employees to do the right thing is itself a positive indicator

Signs of recovery: culture and work

• Vanity projects — built to justify headcount or secure a promotion rather than serve customers — are being cut
• Empire-building (accumulating reports and budget as an end in itself) is a ZIRP artifact; its removal is healthy
• Perks reduction (free meals, mental health days, DoorDash credits) signals a return to treating employees as adults
• "Quiet quitting" content on social media is a warning sign about colleagues, not a lifestyle to emulate
• Being asked to work harder or over weekends is not a violation — it's a sign the company still needs to be built

What to do if you're inside the recovery

• Be visibly part of the solution, not the problem — management is now paying attention to output
• Hard work is rewarded more reliably now than during ZIRP, when effort was obscured by noise
• Working around high-effort colleagues compounds learning and career growth faster than coasting

What to do if your company isn't recovering

• Stagnant ZIRP culture may not survive — your equity may not either
• Options: find a role at a company that has gotten real, bootstrap, or start your own company
• Flexible remote-first lifestyles are achievable — but build them on your own terms, not a zombie employer's