You're doing a great service to the community by raising so much awareness on this topic, and others related to it!
The level of uncertainty and unfairness we're experiencing is unprecedented. When you use your platform to speak openly about it, I believe it helps everyone feel a little less lonely in this journey, less of a failure.
These are tough truths to acknowledge. It is incredible to witness the instability of technology sector and how reliant it has been on low interest rates and growth of client companies in the same sector. There are not enough executives in VC backed companies speaking out about the incredible pressure they have been under to shift from a growth-at-any-cost strategy to one that is profitable, leaving 100s of thousands of employees as collateral damages along the way. It appears all companies are now expected to operate with a fraction of the headcount they have been used to. I think we will look back in the near future and see this period marked a dramatic reorganizing of our economy; it’s just still fuzzy on what that may look like.
"I think we will look back in the near future and see this period marked a dramatic reorganizing of our economy; it’s just still fuzzy on what that may look like."
Hi! I listened to your podcast on this, and it sounded pretty grim, so I came here to read more.
> But I think the days of banking on a steady 9-5 are ending in the next 5-10 years.
I think I may be missing some context. If you really believe this is likely, how is the solution "learn to market yourself"? Taken literally, this statement sounds like an unprecedented hollowing out of the middle class, right? If this comes true, how many well-marketed data engineers, or security professionals, or civil engineers—how many of any of these people are needed, if you're talking about this level of unemployment coming at us this fast?
Retraining in something like nursing sounds pretty appealing, given these prospects. Your friend even has me thinking about it now. But who's going to be able to afford healthcare in this future USA you're describing? What's that profession's income going to look like when 80% of reasonably intelligent office workers all try to retrain for these vastly fewer remaining jobs?
I guess I appreciate your optimism, but I'm struggling to share it, and I'd really like to hear more about how this plays out in the future, because I'm becoming genuinely scared and I can't make sense of this.
This is great advice, and one that really needs more attention! I started to write on Substack to get involved in these types of discussions. Thanks for your work!
You're doing a great service to the community by raising so much awareness on this topic, and others related to it!
The level of uncertainty and unfairness we're experiencing is unprecedented. When you use your platform to speak openly about it, I believe it helps everyone feel a little less lonely in this journey, less of a failure.
Thanks Ramona. Something needs to be said. I’d rather write stuff like this than the 1001st tutorial on Apache Iceberg or something
I wholeheartedly agree; there's a real need for these conversations, how to stay sane in the tumultuous times we're in.
I've been resisting writing tech content, and focused almost solely on the human component. Even in the podcasts I appeared I was talking about that.
We can vibe code that 1001st tutorial on *topic*, but we cannot vibe code our humanity. And this is what we need the most right now.
These are tough truths to acknowledge. It is incredible to witness the instability of technology sector and how reliant it has been on low interest rates and growth of client companies in the same sector. There are not enough executives in VC backed companies speaking out about the incredible pressure they have been under to shift from a growth-at-any-cost strategy to one that is profitable, leaving 100s of thousands of employees as collateral damages along the way. It appears all companies are now expected to operate with a fraction of the headcount they have been used to. I think we will look back in the near future and see this period marked a dramatic reorganizing of our economy; it’s just still fuzzy on what that may look like.
"I think we will look back in the near future and see this period marked a dramatic reorganizing of our economy; it’s just still fuzzy on what that may look like."
This is also our future to shape
Hi! I listened to your podcast on this, and it sounded pretty grim, so I came here to read more.
> But I think the days of banking on a steady 9-5 are ending in the next 5-10 years.
I think I may be missing some context. If you really believe this is likely, how is the solution "learn to market yourself"? Taken literally, this statement sounds like an unprecedented hollowing out of the middle class, right? If this comes true, how many well-marketed data engineers, or security professionals, or civil engineers—how many of any of these people are needed, if you're talking about this level of unemployment coming at us this fast?
Retraining in something like nursing sounds pretty appealing, given these prospects. Your friend even has me thinking about it now. But who's going to be able to afford healthcare in this future USA you're describing? What's that profession's income going to look like when 80% of reasonably intelligent office workers all try to retrain for these vastly fewer remaining jobs?
I guess I appreciate your optimism, but I'm struggling to share it, and I'd really like to hear more about how this plays out in the future, because I'm becoming genuinely scared and I can't make sense of this.
This is great advice, and one that really needs more attention! I started to write on Substack to get involved in these types of discussions. Thanks for your work!