a follow up story to the layoff headlines

also, hello!

THE STORY

i’ve been on the tech layoff beat for nearly a year. by this point, i can do two things quite well:

1. recite a canned ceo apology statement that includes key terms such as “macroeconomic environment” and “discipline.”

2. tell you that most of the laid off talent was caught off guard by the zoom, call, or the questionable choice to suddenly cut off slack access.

and while that’s easy to talk through on a podcast - which we do, often - i don’t often get to spend words on the intricacies of what laid off talent is thinking. there are so many tensions to consider. what does it look like when stripe, twitter, amazon, plaid and salesforce employees all enter the job search market at the same damn time? should we feel bad for the engineer who is making half a million a year and swims in offers? aren’t layoffs part of the cost of joining a startup, which folks do knowing shakiness may be worth the potential upside on this future rocket ship?

i explore what happens to tech talent from here in my latest for techcrunch: “burned by layoffs, tech workers are rethinking risk.”

Click here for the full story

i used pseudonyms as to not jeopardize anyone as they search for their next job. my goal was to broaden our understanding of laid off tech employees beyond these weird privileged stereotypes that have often become associated with the labor market.

this story is the first in what i hope is a natural part of my beat this year: a follow up to the tensions that were unearthed by 2022’s downturn. i want to focus on the economic empowerment of an industry that has gone through a reckoning of sorts. doom and gloom is part of it, always, but i think there’s also news to be found in the reinvention and reframing of tech.

ANYWAYS

thank you to all who subscribed to my new ~profesh~ substack. like every other journalists on the internet right now, i’m diversifying my platforms beyond twitter as to not just de-risk, but to also chat with all of you in a different way. we’re rewriting the playbook a bit in real time, i think, because substack is clearly not the best way to share bite-sized thoughts. and inbox space is precious. so, i’m open to suggestions.

right now, i’m thinking this blog can show up sporadically, whenever i have a big enough story or scoop that is worth bringing to my most loyal readers with a twang of extra commentary. some of you may only follow me on twitter, some of you may only follow me on substack; for the sake of this blog, i’m going to start by pretending like you follow me on both (aw, you shouldn’t have) and only share stuff on here that deserves some extra words. think less bite-sized stray thoughts, more bite-sized thoughts that were once stray and are now slightly refined. with pictures!

don’t worry, no one needs another link round up so i’ll avoid that (for now!)

let me know what you think about that? since you’re the one offering up inbox space?

thank you. thank you. thank you. for sticking with me, caring enough to hit subscribe, and starting the year with some words i can only hope broaden your perspective.

n