This post is aimed at those who would like to work in tech, have worked in tech, or have a loved one who works in tech.
I’m thinking of my friends Ryan and Judy, or the guy that I met briefly in an Austin coffeeshop who worked in tech and is now a baker.
Ok, first, let’s define some tech terms for the tech non-natives.
Let’s start with “lifecycle”.
This term comes from the term “product lifecycle”, which is a tech term for planning the life of a “product”, from it’s conception, to launching to the public, to deprecating the product and no longer offering it.
Just like humans have a lifecycle, so do tech products.
But what is a tech product, exactly?
When most people think of tech products, they think of hardware: smart phones, laptops, so on.
In tech terms, a product is anything that a tech company makes money off of.
The term “product” is oft-used in the tech sphere, to the point of a fixation, or even an obsession.
It’s used like, “We’re talking to product”, which mean “we’re talking to the product team”.
As far as terminology, there’s: product management, product marketing, minimum viable product, and so on.
But what is a product, as used in tech.
You could say a tech product is the commoditization of something. Maybe it’s a social network app(like Facebook), or an algorithmically-mediated service like AirBnB or Uber.
When tech people talk about “product”, they typically are talking about software products.
Web and desktop applications are the most obvious examples of software products, but Facebook ads is a product in this sense, and so is Google Search.
In tech, there are product managers, product marketers, and so on.
You could say there is a sort of a “cult of product” in the tech world.
I think this is a big part of what is wrong with tech.
Let me try to explain.
The Tech Industry Exists to Make Profit
Without getting too radical here, let’s start with this basic premise:
“The tech industry exists to make profit”
But for whom?
Well, for venture firms and investors and, if they’re very lucky, startup founders and their early employees.
Is this a bad thing?
Historically, no.
The tech industry is one of the United States’ greatest innovations. The internet, smart phones, social networks–all born in the US.
The precursor to the internet, DARPAnet, was a U.S. military project.
The tech industry has given many people from around the world the opportunity to use their skills and abilities to make a healthy income and feed their families.
During the pandemic, internet tech allowed many to safely work from home while quarantine was in effect.
Those are some of the good things about the tech industry.
And the bad?
Foreign interference in the 2016 election, a genocide in Myanmar, and targeting of individuals by lone actors and white nationalist hate groups.
There’s also the disintermediation of regulated industries like hotels by tech(AirBnB). This has had the second-order effect of significantly exacerbating the housing crisis in the US.
Real-estate investors and rental barons are buying up homes to turn them into short-term rentals. Private equity firms and tech barons are buying up homes as a scarce asset that steadily appreciates on their balance sheets.
Tech relentlessly optimizes profits over people and social good.
It didn’t always, but that is the state of the tech industry in 2023.
The Tech Industry Is Not Sadistic, It’s Just Greedy
Because tech is an industry that is optimized to generate profits at all costs, it can be a very taxing industry in which to work.
For instance, layoffs.
When you work in tech, getting laid off is a fairly common experience.
I was laid off from a tech company after they made bad business decisions that impacted their ability to pay their employees. I have friends and family members that have been laid off from tech companies as well.
Tech layoffs in 2022 were significant, but 2023 tech layoffs have already surpassed the previous years’ at the time of this writing.
According to the census, there was 5.2 million tech workers in the U.S. Layoffs.fyi reports that ~360,000 tech workers have been laid off so far in the past two years.
That’s about 7% of the tech sector laid off in the last two years, which seems conservative. In some niches of tech, like the cryptocurrency industry, layoffs are likely much higher.
This article cites supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine as factors, but fails to mention that tech startups access to cheap liquidity was effectively ended when the U.S. government rose interest rates in March of 2022.
Whatever the cause, lay-offs suck, and are one of the most negative aspects of working in tech.
Also, it’s not just being laid off once that you have to worry about. Rather, there is a culture of laying off workers in the tech world, and startups especially.
The prospect of being constantly laid off is demoralizing. In the past, workers sought to work for a FAANG company for job security and high salaries.
In 2023, FAANG companies are laying off up to 13% of their workers, per year.
How to Retire from Your Tech Career
I’ll admit, the above headline is misleading.
Most people don’t retire from tech. Instead, they get burnt out, and either leave their jobs voluntarily, or get laid off and don’t come back.
If you’re a “very online”-type, you may be aware of the “dev to woodworker pipeline” trope.
A couple tweets from searching “dev to woodworker” on Twitter:
This post by a man named Dan Gilmore is illustrative of the experience of many tech workers.
His story is unique, in that he was a government IT contractor. Most of the tech sector does not work for the government.
His story is also universal, in the way that Dan was fired from his job for arbitrary reasons, which is common in tech. Dan yearned to work with his hands and do something meaningful, and started a woodworking business.
AI Will Continue to Eat White-Collar Jobs
AI is already putting writers and illustrators out of a job.
At some point, it will probably put tech employees like software developers, product managers, and UX designers out of a job.
AI will likely eat most white-collar jobs at a certain point.
Lawyers, doctors, and finance professionals will all be living under the API like the rest of us.
So where does that leave the average person?
Well, don’t expect UBI anytime soon.
Maybe the best insurance is to learn a trade, and to live as frugally as possible. If you can own a brick-and-mortar business without over-leveraging yourself, that’s probably a good idea too.
Many folks in my generation and younger dream of growing some amount of our own, and being as self-sufficient as we can afford to be.
I don’t have any answers, only the intense desire to buy some land, live cheaply, and to take my time back.
My goal is to minimize time spent doing bullshit jobs, on social media apps, and on activities that do not add meaning to my life.