What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

My grandfather was a printer not to far from that Burger King, in a building now owned by the academy of art. In 1963 he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda. He died early, but extended family stayed in the business. It was union work, he as the youngest operator of the 4 color press. His wife my grandmother didn’t work. The printing business was cooked by the early 90s. I was laid off from Broadcom a year and a half ago- I think about the printing industry to Ai analogue all the time. I got lucky and got a job a startup making less than half of what I made before. I know much more capable and smart people laid off in the same round- that are still wondering what the hell to do.

I think what happened is that a lot of the wrong personalities entered technology for all the wrong reasons.

Some of us started in the 80s or 90s and got into it with personal projects and treating the PC as a hobby. It is satisfying to be able to command a hunk of metal and get it to do things. And it can do boring stuff really fast and repeatedly. And that alone was exciting. The majority of us would stay up into the morning hours figuring out how to compile something. Or how to get that new driver work correctly in an unsupported OS or setup. It's a lust of computing. The gadgetry. The devices. The awestruck feeling when a new computing device or technology comes out.

I and many others like me still have that yearning and curiosity. I love strolling the aisles of the hardware store and computer stores for this very reason. The energy is electric. The immense amount of technology in every little thing is just mind blowing. THAT's why we do it. THAT's why we got into it. It wasn't the pay. It wasn't the glory. It was a group of us who wanted so desperately to have a computer club or an electronics lab for us to hangout and build stuff.

Unfortunately, as the industry grew, all the wrong personalities entered it. Project managers, product managers, scrum/agile masters, terrible mid level managers, talentless clowns, bozos, cheerleaders, jocks. The lot of them. The non-weird, non-geeky, non-obsessive, non-nerdy types. And then they co-opted the culture. They thought wearing glasses and wearing a backpack and carrying the latest tech devices made them "it".

The good thing is that the burnout hits fast for these folks. Just like the tons of medical school or law school students who are there for all the wrong reasons and realize sooner or later that this isn't at all what they wanted. Some members of this group actually become doctors and lawyers. THIS is the group that the article is talking about. They don't last, because their heart and soul are just not in it.

For the rest of us? AI, no AI, walled gardens, OSS or closed. It doesn't matter. All of this geeky stuff brings us joy. I don't want to "turn off and disconnect", I want to be connected because I love this stuff. I love the simple speaker and amp and the latest LLM. And I love the latest ADAS systems in cars. This work is meaningful to me because of both the end product and the work that it took to get there.

Unfortunately, the issue is that while we enjoy the geekery, the others ruin it for us because their lives suck.

Sorry to be harsh.

Because they chose to not doom scroll?

Well, I said "Find a rich life outside of work".

In the article's conclusion, "once freed from the false satisfaction of believing we are changing the world with our day jobs, perhaps we will be inspired to fill that hole with something real".

I suppose we agree and are saying something similar.

If you've worked for startups then you've delt with existential threats, perhaps hard times and failures. I read the article as a lot of corporate jobs. When you fail you find out quickly what is important in life. You need some not-work to be important in your life too. AI can only mimic your creativity and your emotions. You are not as replaceable as it may seem. Maybe I'm not convinced that Anthropic and OpenAI are going to replace us all just yet.

We are living in strange times, not only with threats of automation everywhere but with great political upheaval all over the world. One thing is certain, change, things won't always be this way. I'm going to rely on my grit and remember what is important to me and what makes me happy.

The class you’re thinking about is not made up of workers.