If they're at 30+ staff, they've managed to keep hosting to a pretty small chunk of total budget.

Yeah...that's insane. Since they're a "pre-revenue" company, they're just burning money.

"Burning" seems like an understatement.

Looks like a switch to dedicated hardware would amortize within... 3 months.

Given their growth rates and cash in the bank, and the fact it is still looking for a business model, it is probably better for them to focus on their key problems before working on other issues. If they were self funded, like 37signals, and are running operations where they'd tighten the screws on cost, then the focus is different again.

I disagree.

Yes, they obviously have quite a few loose screws (read: whoever invested 100MM in that).

Either way, this is not a matter of "tightening". It's a matter of hiring an admin and having him not only pay for himself after 3 months, but for 1-2 other employees, too.

Yes, when you have 100MM in the bank then a mundane couple dozen thousand dollars a month might seem to matter less. But I can't think of a company where that kind of decadence has led to anything positive in the mid term.