Why the AI’s honeymoon is ending (and tech workers are feeling it) | Noam Segal

Bad news for the tech community.

>> Burnout at work is a major problem and AI could add to this already overwhelmed employee problem.

>> The honeymoon period with AI is over.

When people are asked, what what are you afraid of? Losing my job to AI is

afraid of? Losing my job to AI is actually second to last. What we saw rise up to the top is the expectation to

do more for the same pay. We did this survey on how people are feeling in tech right now. Burnout is [music] increasing

right now. Burnout is [music] increasing significantly. Optimism is declining.

significantly. Optimism is declining.

It's never been crazier. When are we going to get to the optimistic part of this [laughter] uh of this episode? Half

of the people in tech are feeling incredible. And the other half told us,

incredible. And the other half told us, "My brain is rotting. My work feels worse." Elon had this really interesting

worse." Elon had this really interesting way of describing it. We're definitely

living in a simulation if we're alive right now when we're about to start building data centers in space and AI is going to be as smart as human. What does

this tell us we should be doing if we can do anything? We're in the second inning of a massive shift. No one knows

how it will end, but all you can do is Today, my guest is Noam Seagull. Noam

and I go a long ways back. We worked

together at Airbnb for many years where he was my research partner. Since then,

he went on to be a research leader at Intercom, Twitter, Wealthfront, Meta, Zapier, and Figma. Gnome is so amazing, and over the past couple years, I've been lucky to partner with him on a

bunch of research projects. The most

ambitious of which has been a tech worker sentiment survey, which we plan to run every year. This is the second time we've run it, and the results are so interesting. I believe this is the

so interesting. I believe this is the largest survey of its kind looking at how people in tech feel about their jobs and AI [music] and layoffs and burnout and the future of their careers. There's

so much in this [music] and basically this episode is a conversation about the results. At the end of the conversation,

results. At the end of the conversation, we go through a bunch of advice on what you [music] might do if you are currently on the struggle bus and trying to figure out what to do. I am so excited for this [music] episode. I'm so

excited for this report. A big thank you to Noam for doing the work to create the survey, run the survey, analyze the survey, and write the post that we will link to. It is so good. Before we get

link to. It is so good. Before we get into it, do not forget to check out lennisproass.com for a free year of the hottest and most well-crafted [music] AI products in the world, available exclusively to Lenny's

newsletter subscribers. With that, I

newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Noam Seagull.

Noam, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Lenny. It's such an incredible

much, Lenny. It's such an incredible experience to be here. Thanks for having me.

>> Uh, it's my pleasure. We've actually

worked together for a long time. And no,

few people know this. We, you were the researcher on our team. Uh, when I was at Airbnb, this was like 10 years ago.

>> Decades ago, a decade ago, Lenny, so much has changed.

>> So much has changed.

>> So much has changed. Uh, which is a great segue to what we're going to be talking about today, which is we did this survey on how people are feeling in

tech right now. Uh, it's never been crazier. And so we did this report on

crazier. And so we did this report on just how are people feeling. And this is the second time we've done this. We ran

this a year ago. And the idea here is we're going to have this yearly tech sentiment survey that's going to track how tech people are feeling. Before we

get into the takeaways, what's kind of the give us a little context just on this survey like how how you ran it, how what were we looking at? Anything people

need to know?

>> Yeah, so to your point, this is the second time we're running this survey, which I really feel is unique in the tech industry. I appreciate you for

tech industry. I appreciate you for giving me the opportunity and giving us an opportunity as a community to learn more about how we're all feeling in tech. I'm not aware of any survey like

tech. I'm not aware of any survey like this at this scale looking at these things. Last year when we ran the

things. Last year when we ran the similar tech sentiment, the first inaugural tech sentiment survey, the title was burnt out but optimistic. We

were seeing fairly high levels of burnout but also fairly good levels of optimism about where things are going.

And we actually followed up on the burnout point and we created the armor framework if you remember. And uh I'm I'm really glad we we did that. This

year we surveyed about 6,000 people from product, engineering, design, research, pretty much uh any role,

marketing, pretty much any role in tech.

And the results were very interesting.

So I'm very excited to jump into them.

>> Yeah. I just remember when you shared the first draft of the analysis uh and I was just like reading it, I was like, "Holy this is so interesting." and

it just feels like it's putting words to the way I feel, the way that I hear a lot of people feel. So, I'm really excited that we're doing this. This

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we're going to go through the top 10 takeaways. What's kind of the like the

takeaways. What's kind of the like the big picture takeaway from the report overall? If someone could take one big

overall? If someone could take one big takeaway away. Well, first I'll say that

takeaway away. Well, first I'll say that you and I both noticed an incredible post from Elena Vera a couple of days before this pod was recorded and she's

talking about the AI confidence theater and how in conversations these days in tech everything is dead. First of all, engine coding is dead, design is dead,

SAS is dead, etc. Obviously, that's not true. So, what you're about to see in

true. So, what you're about to see in these results is the best picture we could provide and probably the best picture anyone's provided so far of how

people are really feeling about AI. And

to me, this also ties to the fact that if you were if you're watching this and you work in tech, you probably answer some sort of bianual culture amp style

survey about how you're feeling. But the

questions don't really dive any deeper than the effectiveness or of your manager or leadership at the company you work at. Whereas the big picture in this

work at. Whereas the big picture in this survey and and I think the the thing that stood out to us the most is how

bifocated the workforce is right now.

And what you're going to see is that AI has an outlier level outsiz impact on how people feel about their work more so

than any other uh characteristic of their job whether it's their role, the company they work for, the company size,

their level etc. Half of the people in tech are feeling incredible, energized, amplified, excited about the technology

and the future of, you know, their role.

And the other half feel like the future is unclear. They feel destabilized. They

is unclear. They feel destabilized. They

feel diminished. Um, other negative emotions around that. It's uh it's a very interesting picture that really cuts the tech workforce in half and

that's what we'll see in a second.

>> It feels so like yes, this feels correct as we we look at people in tech. Like it

just uh is so clear that this happening and what's interesting is it's 50/50 in the results. I didn't expect to be so

the results. I didn't expect to be so even. That was a really interesting

even. That was a really interesting takeaway.

>> It's 50/50. When you dive a little bit deeper into the data, there is some nuance there. So, we're looking at this

nuance there. So, we're looking at this slide with the question that you and I both decided to answer the survey, which is, how has AI shifted your professional

identity, if at all? And I'll actually call out first of all that only 3% of people reported that AI hasn't shifted their identity. So, clearly AI has

their identity. So, clearly AI has changed how we each view ourselves.

That's first of all. But then to your point, the most prominent thing here is that 50% of people in tech are feeling amplified. They feel like they can do

amplified. They feel like they can do more. They feel like they can do better.

more. They feel like they can do better.

It's a wholly positive uh emotion.

And it's great. It's great. It's great

for them. But the other half of tech divide into three distinct groups. The

first group is people who feel like their role is being redefined. They

don't, that group doesn't actually have that much clarity or specific positive or negative emotions around what's happening. They just don't really

happening. They just don't really understand it. It's a very mixed bag

understand it. It's a very mixed bag type of emotion where it's very clear to me that my role is fundamentally

changing, but I don't really know what it means. And that's 27% of our sample.

it means. And that's 27% of our sample.

Then as we go down the line, we have two groups who have clear negative emotions around what's going on. The first group, 14% of people feel destabilized.

You know, the the ground is shaking beneath them. They have very little

beneath them. They have very little clarity on what's going on. They have

high anxiety levels. They report having uh very

levels. They report having uh very negative and and uh pessimistic views of what's to come. And then 5% of people feel diminished.

They feel like the great powers of AI have taken something away from them. Uh

and something that obviously is never going to come back because what's the saying? Uh AI and air models are the

saying? Uh AI and air models are the worst today that they'll ever be.

They're only getting better. So people

who who feel diminished now will only feel more diminished in the future probably. Super. So, following that

probably. Super. So, following that thread, >> sewing for the bad news. Sewing for the the bad news.

>> There's there's some good news here. So,

following the thread, uh this these buckets correlate super strongly with basically every other measure of how people are doing. So, this kind of regression on just like every other core

uh question you asked and and it's so interesting to see how connected these are.

>> Yeah. And just to put a couple of statistical terms on this to to clarify how big the effect is in tech we are somewhat obsessed with the notion of statistical significance. But the thing

statistical significance. But the thing about statistical significance is that if you have a large enough sample you can sort of reach that type of

significance regardless of how much the effect matters practically. A better way to look at things is using an effect size measure like Coen's D in in this

case. And what effect size tells you is

case. And what effect size tells you is practically how much does this thing matter. So for example last year a

matter. So for example last year a couple of the largest effects we saw were number one your manager. Who your

manager is and how effective they are matters a ton to how much you're enjoying your job and how optimistic you are and how burnt out you are or not.

And we'll see some of that later on. And

the second large effect we found was the founder happiness effect. Founders, at

least people who are currently founders and in their journey of running a startup, are incredibly happy probably because they have a lot of agency and and autonomy relatively to um the

typical employee.

this finding, this insight around the impact of AI on your identity and on every single other variable around your

job is about three times as large as those other effects.

So this technology, this era that we're in is having an outlier level, outsized impact on how people are feeling about work more so than anything else we've seen. So let's actually look at that

seen. So let's actually look at that data of just how this sort of classification connects to just optimism, burnout, things like that. Uh

because this is and we're going to come back to just like what exactly is that divide? Just a question to ask that

divide? Just a question to ask that tells you which side you're on. But

let's look at this first. Yeah. So we'll

dive into some of these things in a little more depth later on. But just to put it all together, what you're looking at here is the AI identity stance and

then a breakdown by your AI identity around career optimism, burnout, layoff, worry, and an interesting one for me and

we'll talk about this further. Would you

recommend your role to someone coming into the industry now? And what you can see is that as you move from the people who feel amplified to the people who

feel diminished, career optimism goes down significantly.

Burnout or reports of burnout go up significantly.

Layoff worry also rises significantly.

And perhaps the most significant finding of them all is that people would not recommend junior people, early career people

entering into the tech workforce at this moment given what's happening with AI.

And you're seeing these very linear, clear, and organized effects, which just demonstrates to you the impact that AI is having on all of these different

variables. And what I love is you took

variables. And what I love is you took all of this kind of all these data points and you've created these kind of four archetypes of people today. And uh

I feel like everyone listening is going to be like, okay, that's me. So let's go through that.

>> Yeah. So, we're seeing these these four tech workers. And the way we got to this

tech workers. And the way we got to this is later on in the survey, we asked people about how they're feeling and to report specific emotions. And people

could choose as many emotions as they wanted, right? And by the way, fun fact,

wanted, right? And by the way, fun fact, on average, people selected five different emotions. And I think a couple

different emotions. And I think a couple of people selected 13 emotions that they're feeling, which is a lot. So the

first archetype we found is the energized tech worker and that's 41% of our samples. These are the people who

our samples. These are the people who were saying that product has become fun again. I'm exploring things. I feel like

again. I'm exploring things. I feel like I'm in the tech amusement park where everything is open to me and I can experiment with new approaches. I'm a

builder now. I have powers that I've never had before, etc. These people are very energized about the technology and about their their careers. The second

group we called the conflicted, the ambivalent middle. These are 35% of the

ambivalent middle. These are 35% of the sample. These are people who are having

sample. These are people who are having on the one hand the most fun they've ever had as builders, as PMs, as designers, as engineers, whatever their

role is. And on the other hand, they're

role is. And on the other hand, they're feeling the most uncertainty that they've ever felt in their careers. They

just don't understand where this is going and whether they're building the things that will ultimately lead to the

end of their careers as they know it.

The third archetype are the disoriented people. The people who feel like their

people. The people who feel like their role keeps shifting. There's a quote that we saw from one of the the respondents. We're like farmers on the

respondents. We're like farmers on the cusp of the industrial revolution and we just don't see a clear path to what's happening. Very interesting comparison

happening. Very interesting comparison to to that era. And these are people who are feeling very disoriented around what's going on in their career and

where things are are leading. And then

finally, 12% of the sample we categorized as resentful. They're

feeling pressured. They're feeling

checked out. They are not enjoying their work right now. They're saying things like, "I've been forced to use AI or lose my job. And even when I use AI, I'm

still seeing people lose their jobs. I

just hate it. You know, I I hate having to leverage this technology rather than do my own my own thing and maybe ignore the technology, which obviously none of

us can ignore at this point. There's a

lot of people clearly that are very unhappy, resentful, disoriented. I

imagine that group can't imagine. A lot

of people are feeling extremely energized and I think the vice versa. So

I think this is uh just like uh really interesting to see that some many people are very different from you. Uh there

are many people that are having a really good time, a lot of people that are having a really bad time and it's just a a good uh way to remember that and give and basically have empathy for the other half especially the folks not doing as

well because not everyone is as energized and we'll talk about like what that energized groups look group looks like but I think that's just an important point like a lot of people are having a really hard time. I I really

agree with you Lenny and I think that given the pace of change of the technology. I I really do feel that too

technology. I I really do feel that too much of our focus is being spent on mastering the technology and trying to understand what the heck we should be doing with these new releases, new

models, new capabilities, uh loop engineering, whatever the next thing will be next week. And we're not spending enough time and focus on our

relationships at work, on seeing our colleagues, on supporting our peers in also being able to, you know, work with

this technology thrive with it, succeed with it, and and get along and collaborate well with people who don't belong in the same bucket as us when it

comes to how the technology is being uh perceived. So I personally would love to

perceived. So I personally would love to see all of us, especially energized people, take some of that energy and

spend it on the people around you rather than the allin focus on whatever the next thing is with with AI. Let's go to the next takeaway. Let's talk about

burnout and optimism.

>> Yeah. So last year we looked at burnout and we looked at optimism and burnout was at a worrying level enough that we

published further research on it and we introduced the ARM framework around how to deal with burnout and fight burnout.

And this time around I'm not sure what I was expecting necessarily. Um, I think I was hoping that optimism would hold

steady and that burnout wouldn't go up because supposedly with uh new abilities and even better models, perhaps you might think that we wouldn't have to

work as hard or or or put as much energy into everything in a way that gets us burnt out. And yet, that's not what

burnt out. And yet, that's not what we're seeing. When it comes to

we're seeing. When it comes to significant burnout, burnout that's higher than moderate, we've gone up from 44.7%

in 2025 to 54.7% in 2026. So burnout is surging. More

in 2026. So burnout is surging. More

than half of our sample are feeling significantly burnt out at this point.

And at the same time, optimism around the future of our roles and our careers

is falling from 54.8% in 2025 to 48.7% in 2026.

Bad news for the tech community. I don't

know what to say about this other than that sucks. I don't like this. Uh I get

that sucks. I don't like this. Uh I get it fully. Like I can completely

it fully. Like I can completely understand why people are feeling this.

Uh pretty worrisome. the the rise to like a massive jump like over 10% increase in burnout in just in a year.

>> Yeah. And and it's interesting, you've had several guests on in the past who who've talked about things related to this. I loved your conversation with uh

this. I loved your conversation with uh Jeff uh from RAMP.

Um, and he shared that his worst burnout happened when velocity was lowest. So

when you put effort into things that don't actually move, it doesn't feel good and that leads uh to burnout. And I think that maps for me

to burnout. And I think that maps for me with certain theories around burnout where stagnation leads to burnout. I

think what's going on now is the opposite. These data showcase to you

opposite. These data showcase to you that as we ship faster than ever, as we move from shipping, you know, a couple

of PRs a day to 30 PRs uh a day or or just doing so much more.

In some ways, that might be fun, but we are burning out more than than we did before.

And and we're not working any less hard, clearly, right? We we we're just taking

clearly, right? We we we're just taking on more stuff, more stuff, more prototypes, more PRDs,

more PRs, more campaigns, more agents, more ads, >> and it's leading to more burnouts.

>> Yeah. And that's actually one of the takeaways which we'll get to. Uh I don't know if you have this in this deck, but the a glimmer of hope that you pointed out is that enjoyment of work is actually still very high that it's

burnout, but also people still at the same levels last year actually really enjoying their work. I think what we heard about enjoyment more than anything

else which does give me hope is it's a couple of things I think um first of all people are able to bring out certain

aspects of their identity and of their passions that they weren't able to before. You know, if if you're currently

before. You know, if if you're currently a PM by role, but you have a a designer within you or you're a marketer, but really inside you have that engineer

that's been really wanting to to come out. Now, you can, right? Um, various

out. Now, you can, right? Um, various

tools that are available to us these days enable you to bring out those sides of your personality and those professional aspirations. And that's

professional aspirations. And that's something that people are really enjoying. We're sort of escaping our

enjoying. We're sort of escaping our classic swim lanes and a certain percentage of our roles are transforming into something else. And then the second

thing that people are saying that they're finding enjoyable is that um they are able to manifest

things that they've wanted to build that seemed impossible not very long ago, you know, um and that and that's whether it's in their main

job or things that they're doing on the side, etc. Uh, so it is still for many people in tech an exciting time and an

enjoyable time because we can do things that we never thought we'd be able to do because they're outside of our role because they're outside of what felt technically feasible or for other

reasons. And this is another data point

reasons. And this is another data point in the at the end of this you have a bunch of recommendations of what to do with all this information and that connects to something that you recommend

later. But before we get there, uh, one

later. But before we get there, uh, one of the other really interesting takeaways was around layoffs and how layoffs impact fear of layoffs impact burnout. Talk about that. We did ask

burnout. Talk about that. We did ask people how worried they are about being laid off. And as you can see, 72% of our

laid off. And as you can see, 72% of our sample are worried to a certain extent about being laid off and 41.2%

are at least moderately worried about being laid off. So it is clear that people are feeling that they might be uh

cutting the branch that they're sitting on uh when it comes to using AI. Um

people are reporting that their companies going all in on agents all in on these technologies and it does feel

like they may be pushed out at some point. So the the worry level is is

point. So the the worry level is is high. And I think if you're watching

high. And I think if you're watching this, you're starting to notice that there's a ton of ambivalence right now in the community and a ton of uh clashes

between emotions, feeling energized and enjoying my job and at the same time not being very optimistic about it and feeling tired

from it and feeling worried that all of that enjoyment is going to end one day when the company I work for decides that I'm no longer needed. I feel a lot of people listening are probably feeling

feeling all this and uh feeling heard.

Uh so what's interesting is so far the kind of two takeaways. One is this bifurcation that's happening and these kind of archetypes that break that group a little bit further. At the same time

just broadly burnout is increasing significantly. Optimism is declining.

significantly. Optimism is declining.

Talk about just those two kind of how you think about those two side by side.

this idea of many people are much happier and having the best time of their life, many people are having a really bad time, but then broadly this optimism and burnout shift.

>> I think there's something addictive about this technology. And I I'll speak for myself for a second and say that, you know, I've also [snorts] never had as much fun in my career as when using

these technologies. And I've been using

these technologies. And I've been using it for too many hours a day playing about and building. I think many of us, even those who aren't as energized about

the technology, we still feel like we're in this fascinating technological playground.

And it's very very hard to disengage from that technology and touch grass, read a book, whatever you love to do in in your spare time as well, Lenny. And

so, yes, we're enjoying using this technology because it's opened up avenues that we've never had. But on the other hand, it's tiring. It's tiring to be constantly learning this technology

and constantly trying to apply it in different contexts and constantly try to take on more than what your traditional role dictated because again there aren't

any traditional roles anymore. We're

just all builders uh these days whether that's an official thing within a company or not. And so I think that naturally

this leads to these these clashing emotions, these exciting feelings around what's possible and how fun it is to use AI. And on the other hand, the

AI. And on the other hand, the realization that the reason this technology is so exciting is because it's so powerful. And because it's so

powerful, it might be coming for us and to take our jobs, right? Did you Did you grow up on the Terminator movies? I keep

thinking about the Terminator movies.

>> I don't know about growing up, but yes, I I watched them early in my >> Oh my gosh, I love those movies and I just can't help but wonder, you know, when the robots are coming for us. So,

uh, incredible technology might be coming for us at some point.

Skynet Skynet is being built right now.

>> Skynet is coming.

>> So, there's a there's going to be a really great takeaway around this.

Before we get to that one, actually, uh it's like every single one is so interesting and just like, man, this one's interesting, but they're all interesting. Let's get to the next

interesting. Let's get to the next takeaway around people's sense of their own career and whether they recommend it. This is a wild one for me because at

it. This is a wild one for me because at least within the research community, I am known as the net promoter score

hater. I even built a website dedicated

hater. I even built a website dedicated to fighting NPS. NPS is the worst.com.

>> It's an actual website. Fun fact, by the way, I I dislike NPS so much that I even brought the domain NPSthebest.com

and I forward people from that to NPSW.com. That's how committed I am to

NPSW.com. That's how committed I am to fighting NPS. But but you and I were

fighting NPS. But but you and I were both genuinely curious about whether people who are, you know, already a few

years in and they're maybe senior or above senior in their roles, what would they say to the person entering the industry now? Or what would they say to

industry now? Or what would they say to a person considering entering the industry now? would they recommend their

industry now? would they recommend their role and and the tech industry more broadly to a friend or a relative of theirs?

And the answer was shocking. Absolutely

shocking. So, let me show you the data around this. And let me pre preface this

around this. And let me pre preface this with a quick explanation on NPS because it's not so easy to understand. NPS is

this question around whether you would recommend a product or in this case your role to a friend or family member,

right? And the scale goes from 0 to 10.

right? And the scale goes from 0 to 10.

10 being you would absolutely recommend your role and zero being you would absolutely not recommend your bowl. But

then NPS as a whole when it's calculated goes from minus 100 which is absolutely

terrible to plus 100. And the zero point represents neutrality. It represents

represents neutrality. It represents that the sample as a whole is neutral.

It's not a promoter to use NPS uh speak meaning I would promote my role to other people. I would recommend it to other

people. I would recommend it to other people. and they're not detractors

people. and they're not detractors either, which means I'm not negative about my role. So that's the zero point.

What you're seeing here is that no one is a promoter of their role in tech right now. Not even

founders who are by far the happiest happy go-lucky people in in tech right now. Founders would not recommend their

now. Founders would not recommend their roles. Neither would people in sales or

roles. Neither would people in sales or go to market. PMs, operations,

engineering, and the worst of all, designers and researchers, my community are the least likely to recommend their

role to other people coming into tech.

It's sort of like saying, you know, I'm I'm kind of swimming in this pool. The

water's kind of okay, but you shouldn't come into these these tech waters. They

ain't for you.

My god, what an interesting takeaway and and part of this research. So, just

looking at this chart just as people are seeing this uh just like nobody everyone's like, "Nope, don't do what I do." It's interesting. Like, you know,

do." It's interesting. Like, you know, we're going to talk about how founders are the happiest people in tech, but still it's like a very stressful hard job. Uh I'm surprised it's like I'm

job. Uh I'm surprised it's like I'm surprised it's the least like you would think many founders would be like this the craziest, gnarliest job. You should

not do this sucks. But it's interesting.

They're the least unhappy. They're the

least least likely to recommend.

>> There's a strong narrative right now that there's never been a better time to be a founder. You're a lot less reliant on other people to build.

>> There's a ton of conversations around the soloreneur or the duoropreneur, right? It says a ton of conversations around how this is

the era to be a founder and yet people who are currently in that role aren't very excited about recommending it to other people. There's also another

layer to this which is as you go down in seniority you're less likely to recommend your role. So execs, VPs,

maybe even directors are sort of more likely to recommend their role than people who are ICes. That's an

interesting one. And I I've seen all sorts of explanations for that. Um, some

one explanation for example is that at the top of the pyramid VPs are benefiting more from AI because they're getting all of this stream of

information and knowledge being processed by AI making their jobs a lot easier. Whereas IC's are each scrambling

easier. Whereas IC's are each scrambling to build all of these micro SAS products within the companies they work for. No

one knows what anyone else is doing.

There's a lot of duplicative work. It's a lot easier to build

work. It's a lot easier to build products these days, but a lot harder to maintain them. And so I think a lot of

maintain them. And so I think a lot of IC's are feeling like um there's a saying um full gas on neutral, right?

Like you're pushing the pedal to the metal in your car, but you're in neutral gear. You're not going

gear. You're not going >> anywhere. I think that that's the

>> anywhere. I think that that's the feeling that a lot of IC's are having these days with these technologies. like

I keep building these things but I'm not having the impact I want. Everyone else

is building to there's a lot of confusion and it's just not worth it anymore.

There's like this interesting also trend this, you know, there's this whole meme of uh don't become part of the permanent underclass. And I feel like there's like

underclass. And I feel like there's like a few of these threads throughout this and here it's like okay I'm like a PM but like it's too late. Don't do this.

like the door is closing for this role.

Things are changing and that's it's not just PM, it's every role. Everyone's

just like maybe should do something else.

>> Yeah, I would agree with that and I think it's uh it's unfortunate.

I I feel like in the past uh people were

pushed to CS to learn to code. I know

that these days for myself as a parent, you know, I don't know what to tell my kids to do anymore. I'm not sure what roles will be there for them in just a

few years. These are very confusing

few years. These are very confusing times and I think tech employees are being that as well. Um they don't understand what's in line for them in the future. We certainly don't know to

the future. We certainly don't know to recommend to others like yeah you know in 5 years >> it's going to be great >> plastics >> like it's like no one knows it's just

like just like zoom out for a moment.

It's just it's so insane how much change we're living through right now. We would

not have like this is not a result we would have seen a year or two ago. This

is like so un unstable and uncertain and this is very new for for people in tech I think. Yeah,

I think. Yeah, I like to use uh certain uh metaphors or or or sort of uh examples

from you know other other uh areas in my life to explain these things. So, I

believe you spoke in the past to uh Scott Woo, the co-founder and CEO of Cognition.

>> Mhm. Devon

>> and uh and yeah, the makers of Devon.

And I recall that when he described the product, he talked about this this ladder that the product progressed on.

It went from a high school CS student to a college intern to a junior engineer and at this point probably a senior or or a staff level engineer.

I would say that we are all watching this technology climb the rungs of this ladder and

advance and we feel like the technology is pulling those rungs from under us.

And so the further we've gone up the ladder, the better we feel about our careers and the more stability we have.

But the lower we are on that ladder, those rungs getting pulled under our feet. And so it makes lots of sense that

feet. And so it makes lots of sense that we wouldn't recommend, you know, being on that ladder to anyone else because the rungs are disappearing.

Man, there's so much to talk about with Elise, but let me point out a couple things as I look at this and then we can move on to the next takeaway. One is

just like you know at the it's interesting that sales and PM are the least uh bad at don't get into this role like that's interesting I did not I

wouldn't have expected that sales people not as scar scared about the future of the role PM interesting that's a big audience here not as scared uh as you said research design the most don't do

this as a researcher you touched on this a little bit but I'm just curious how does it feel seeing this seeing this thought >> it's it's [snorts] tough. I think the

research community has lived with uh a lot of concerns and trauma and anxiety over the years around having a seat at

the table around finding meaning in our work around topics like the democratization of research and you know other people

taking on our roles and eventually replacing us. It it definitely hurts a

replacing us. It it definitely hurts a lot to see this. I think there's a very important role that research

needs to play in the future of building products. I think that as this

products. I think that as this technology progressive, we should become even more thoughtful about what we build uh rather than than less thoughtful.

I've heard the narratives around, you know, it's so cheap to build just build a thousand prototypes and see what works. I think you heard this in a

works. I think you heard this in a recent conversation [snorts] uh as well.

I would suggest that we're just going to get even more burnt out that way. I

would not recommend that approach personally. I think research has a very

personally. I think research has a very and design has a very important part to play in raising the ceiling of what's

possible. Um whereas AI has mostly

possible. Um whereas AI has mostly lowered the bar, but it hasn't hasn't raised the ceiling. And I can also tell you that PMS being

somewhat more likely to recommend their roles, even though they're they're not likely to recommend their roles, does actually make sense to me. It's more of a generalist role, I would claim, than

some of these other roles. And this is the era of the generalist, if you would ask me, the the AI era. I'm the most surprised by sales and go to market. Uh

because if we are indeed in some sort of SAS apocalypse, which I don't personally believe we are, but you know, it's been said, then I don't think uh sales and go to market people should be feeling too

great about recommending their roles. Um

but but maybe they believe that, you know, sales at this point cannot be done by AI.

>> Yeah, there's just like so much I want to talk about here. Uh it's important to note this is a very important note that I'm going to say here. This doesn't mean design is going away or research is going away. This is just saying people

going away. This is just saying people in that role right now the narrative in their head is don't do this. Does not

mean this is over because it could just be all this hype that we keep hearing like you know guilty of uh adding to it from various guests but you know this

may this is just how people feel doesn't mean this what's happening. 100%. This

entire unique project in tech is all about how people feel. It's not about the realities of working in tech. It's

about people's emotions, about how people feel. Um, I really do think no

people feel. Um, I really do think no one other than us has really captured these emotions in the way that we have.

But yeah, that's a great reminder. This

is not an image of reality. This is an image of how people are feeling in tech right now.

>> Another quick data point that we want to make sure to communicate here. touched

on this, but I don't know if you actually made this as as uh clear to people as it should be is uh so this is looking at would you get would you recommend people get into my role you we

also asked just how are you feeling about your role like are you happy being in this role and the result there was I'm actually doing okay I'm happy I'm a PM I'm happy a designer researcher so as you said it's this kind of like the

water's fine but don't get in talk a little bit about that just to make sure that point is clear >> when we asked people things like uh are they enjoying their their job as we

talked about earlier. Uh most people said that overall yes, you know, they're they're having fun uh in in their role.

I think what's going on here is that again people are lacking optimism compared to what they were, right?

Optimism has gone down. So there's a big difference between how people are feeling now about their role given what they've achieved in their careers and

where they are on the ladder compared to what they're extrapolating might happen in a year in 3 years in 5 years and what

people are extrapolating might happen is clearly more negative than their current experiences. So yeah, I mean all in all

experiences. So yeah, I mean all in all we're doing okay as an industry. We're

enjoying we're trying new things. We're

experiencing uh a a a complete paradigm shift in how we work and that's fun for a while but it it

seems like people feel like this is not going in the best of directions. And of

course I hope we're all wrong. I hope

we're all wrong.

>> Me too. As a natural optimist, I'm like, it's gonna be all right. So, we'll see.

I'll see.

>> I'm a natural optimist, too. And I'm

realizing like so far we haven't been in too much of optimism mode. So, I hope we manage to get to some of that as well.

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about takeaway four. Looked at

productivity, looked at quality, look at just the kind of the upside of AI.

This was a very interesting one to me.

In last year's survey um that we did on the impact of AI specifically on productivity and quality, people were rather bullish about the technology and

how much better it makes them not just more efficient but better. And this time around we saw some some interesting

findings. Let me start with with this

findings. Let me start with with this and this is sort of the initial view but it leads to something very different than I thought would happen. When we

simply asked the question, how much better are you at your job thanks to AI?

Unequivocally the answer was yes. You

can see here that 97.2% 2% of people are saying that AI is making them better at their job and close to 50% of people are

saying that AI is making them very much or extremely better at their job. So

it's very clear that high level, however you interpret better, which we'll get to in a second, people feel like AI has had an impact. But when you

dive deeper into what that means and you go below the surface level, as you can see here, we're doing better

actually means something rather different than what you might think. So

when I heard people say they're doing better, I thought they meant that literally. I thought the quality of

literally. I thought the quality of their work was better, that AI was contributing to better quality of work.

In fact, it's the exact opposite. What

we heard from people were two concerning things. The first is that I can do more

things. The first is that I can do more faster, but not better. So again, AI has sort of lowered the floor of what's

possible and and enabled people to put out a lot more work than they ever have before, whatever that work is, whether

it's uh PRs, PRDs, research projects, prototypes, but they're not the output isn't of higher quality.

And perhaps the even more concerning effect which we heard about the the deeper cost of all of this is the cost of

using AI on thinking and judgment.

People essentially told us my brain is rotting my work feels worse. And this

this is related to phenomenon I've heard about recently like um is it cognitive rot I think is what what I've heard.

Basically this phenomenon where you sort of see the initial output of an AI model and you sort of just accept it. You

don't apply your judgment to it. You

don't apply thinking to it and you slowly let your your mind, your involvement in your work, your agency

sort of collapse into this rotting state, so to speak.

>> This Yeah, this is such an interesting takeaway just uh like this is a positive there's a positive note to this. As you

said, I'm looking at the numbers here.

82% of people say AI is making them at least moderately better at their job and nearly 50% say very much or extremely better which may correlate with that original just this bifurcation like the people that feel like AI is making them

better at their job probably the people feel like most energized >> so whether it's true or not so I think there's a couple happy points that's one people feel AI is making them better they like they feel that so that's you

know that's real even if it may not be and at the same time I think they're self-aware the quality is an issue And also I'm just maybe my I'm atrophying in

my ability to say code or write strategy docs. So at least people are self-aware

docs. So at least people are self-aware that this is happening. Not just I'm killing it. All my stuff is higher

killing it. All my stuff is higher quality and it's much better than ever.

>> They are self-aware but you know among other things I'm a certified coach and I would suggest that beyond being self-aware we need to act >> on this. There are several explanations

I could give to this phenomenon. One of

them might be that the honeymoon period with AI is over. You know, we thought it was perfect and, you know, the the best thing that ever happened to us since

sliced bread or whatever typical Americans say. Um, but we've realized

Americans say. Um, but we've realized it's not quite there yet. And yes, the models are the worst they're ever going to be. They're only getting better, but

to be. They're only getting better, but there's still so much they need to get better before we can really say, "Yeah, like my work is just so much better."

and I don't need to be as involved with it. Uh you had Simon Willis on on this

it. Uh you had Simon Willis on on this show talking about how people are worried about skill atrophy. Um that

they're not learning enough and that we need to be consciously resistant to this and not let ourselves cognitively rot.

And I think this data suggests that we're losing that fight a little bit. We

need to put to put a little bit more energy into it into fighting this cognitive rot that that we're feeling

and to make sure that as the bar continues to rise and this technology continues to evolve that we're meeting that with deliberate practice,

deliberate thinking, deliberate judgment. People are just so bad at

judgment. People are just so bad at that. Just like if I have an easy

that. Just like if I have an easy button, I will press it. I no I shouldn't, but I'm just going to going to eat those Doritos. So that's the challenge I think for people is just like because you could do it the easy way. It's so hard to resist. And that

way. It's so hard to resist. And that

connects again to this ladder that's being raised that people are just getting into this stuff. It's just they have to make themselves do it the hard way to learn how to do it for real. And

I'm really curious how that plays out with junior folks in the market learning how to actually code, how to do writing, how to write a PRD from scratch with your fingers versus talking to Clott about it.

>> Yeah, there's so much to say here. I

think um the the more I think people miss feeling smart sometimes, you know.

I think I I thought >> once upon a time about myself that I'm I'm smart and then you encounter these these models, most recently Fable Five that just came out for the second time

and you don't feel that smart anymore and you sort of lose this sense of self-efficacy that that you used to have. And and the second thing to say

have. And and the second thing to say about this is that every time you you not the AI solve a problem and get over

a barrier, it increases it raises your baseline of self-efficacy, of self-confidence, of self-belief. And

every time you offload that to your favorite AI model, you're lowering that baseline and your thinking and your judgment is watching. And that's a serious problem. So maybe to just wrap

serious problem. So maybe to just wrap up this takeaway, the sentence used in this report I love. I'll just read the productivity gains are real, but the quality of the work and the sharpness of the person producing it are taking a

hit.

>> Absolutely.

And well, maybe we'll get to this in the end, but we should keep a close eye on this and really try to work on our own self-efficacy.

>> We need like evals for people like are humans becoming >> eval for people. Let's let's do that.

>> Your smartness. Okay, let's talk about takeaway number five, which I also thought was extremely interesting. My

god, so much so much interesting in this. Let's talk about the fifth

this. Let's talk about the fifth takeaway. Yeah. So, I think the dominant

takeaway. Yeah. So, I think the dominant narrative right now in in our community is is the fear of being replaced. And as

we talked about, a lot of people in tech do fear and are worried that they're going to be replaced, that they're going to be laid off. And so it would make

sense that if we had a question and one of the options to respond to that question were, I'm worried about losing my job to AI, that it would rank fairly

high. But when we look at this slide and

high. But when we look at this slide and when we look at when people are asked, you know, what are your concerns and what's bothering you right now? What

what are you afraid of in tech? Losing

my job to AI is actually second to last on that list. And instead, what we saw rise up to the top is the expectation to

do more for the same pay. It's almost as if we we're all feeling like we're being squeezed and squeeze and squeeze some more to

accomplish more things in less time for the same pay. And so that fear of being overworked is by far the the dominant

fear alongside the second item in this list which is that the pace is becoming unsustainable.

And by pace I mean both the pace of the work and the expectation of work velocity just how much you have to put

out a day every single day and the pace of change of the technology which requires you to invest a significant

amount of time in learning the new model the new framework the new way to use the technology which of course takes away

from your core focused working time. So,

it's sort of an evil downward spiral that really prevents you from uh feeling like you're able to accomplish anything of of meaning. You just feel very

overworked, very tired.

I'm confident everybody listening uh understands exactly what you're describing here. Uh obviously connects

describing here. Uh obviously connects to that burnout point we made earlier.

Uh I'll close this takeaway with uh another quick read from your post.

You're such an amazing writer, Nom.

>> I love read I love reading your uh your summaries of of what you learned. So,

I'll just read this. The speed AI unlocked got plowed straight back into expectations. Every game becomes the new

expectations. Every game becomes the new baseline and the people expected to hit it are running out of room to breathe.

>> When are we going to get to the optimistic part of this uh of this episode?

>> Maybe we'll find something. Okay, let's

talk about 6, which has a little bit of optimism.

>> Oh, yeah. Okay. a lot of ambival ambivalence is another way you put it.

>> Yeah, I mentioned this earlier. The

industry is definitely in a state of ambivalence. We we try to capture all of

ambivalence. We we try to capture all of the emotions that people are feeling at work right now. And I am happy to report

as you can see here that the top two emotions are positive emotions, curiosity and excitement. And that's

wonderful. that is optimistic. I'm glad

that's the case. People are sharing that they're excited about the technology, about the the capabilities, about what they're able to achieve. They're feeling

curious about what the future might bring and what else they could do as these models and systems continue to evolve. So, that's wonderful.

evolve. So, that's wonderful.

But as you go down this list, you can see that there's this very interesting mix of positive, negative, and neutral emotions. People are also feeling

emotions. People are also feeling overwhelmed. People are feeling

overwhelmed. People are feeling conflicted. People are feeling relieved

conflicted. People are feeling relieved in certain ways um about, you know, what AI has taken from them in a in a good sense, you know, what they've been able

to offload to AI. And then people are feeling tired, burnt out, just working hard and hard as

we said, uneasy, anxious, and then hopeful. So, as you can see, there is a

hopeful. So, as you can see, there is a wide variety of of emotions here. And

it's uh it's really tough to to figure out what exactly is going on.

But one thing I I definitely wanted to mention which uh Nikil Singal mentioned in an episode with you, I know he's a friend of the pod and such an incredible

leader in in product and in general in the tech community. He talked about smiling exhaustion.

And I just love that term because I think it captures this ambivalence. the

the old type of emotion, the old type of burnout was just completely grim, you know, it it's it it was all about these

negative emotions that come from disengagement and exhaustion. Whereas

now, when Kill talks about signing exhaustion, it's about people almost feeling reborn on the one hand. You

know, I'm shipping again. I'm building.

I'm creating these incredible things with AI. There's never been a more

with AI. There's never been a more exciting time, but there's no off switch. There's no off switch. And so,

switch. There's no off switch. And so,

the tempo is absolutely brutal. The

rules keep rewriting themselves every single day. It's a very relentless pace.

single day. It's a very relentless pace.

And so, we're smiling through that exhaustion that that we're feeling. And

I think that captures the ambivalence more than than anything really.

>> I think it's also good to kind of come back to one of the core points you made earlier that half of people are actually feeling very like they are working very hard probably exhausted at times but

they're also just like really into they're going all in uh feeling good energized about where things are going.

So I think it's important to always remember like kind of come back to that as we share all these negative elements.

There's actually a large group of people that are actually loving this time and doing super well. There are I think more than anything what I would like to

highlight here is that you know we tend to think of things way too often in black and white >> Yeah.

>> terms. We see people as either people who are just full of hype or people who are is it doomers would that be the right >> you know or haters or whatever you want

to call it. What we're seeing here is that as always in life, if you ask me, things aren't as simple. Um, behind that facade, behind the theatrics that Elena

Bernard discussed, >> we all have both the height person within us and the doomer to a certain extent. And the only difference between

extent. And the only difference between us is that we have different amounts of each. But we're not just one or the

each. But we're not just one or the other. And there really is a ton of

other. And there really is a ton of ambivalence and and I just want people to know that it's okay, you know, it's okay to be excited and curious, but also

feel overwhelmed. It's okay to feel

feel overwhelmed. It's okay to feel relieved and tired. It's okay to feel resentful. Even if all in all you feel

resentful. Even if all in all you feel positive about the technology, those emotions can coexist within us. It's

very natural. Don't let this narrative that you're either or um to to dominate and to convince you that anything's wrong with how you feel because really

all of these emotions are very understandable given the times we're in.

Such an important point. I love that you said that.

Okay. So the next takeaway what we did here is when we were looking at this bifurcation that you found, we looked at just which functions are having the best time and worst time. And uh we had a

hint at this earlier uh and it turns out there's a couple that are just overall having the worst time right now and feeling the least happy. So let's get into that.

Yeah. So definitely definitely and we saw this last year by the way as well.

We are seeing that designers and researchers are the most negative. And

just to clarify what I mean by that, what you can see in this slide is that when it comes to AI identity shift, designers and researchers are the highest in feeling either destabilized

or diminished. When it comes to emotions

or diminished. When it comes to emotions like feeling tired, overwhelmed, or anxious, researchers and designers uh lead the pack in in a negative way. Of

course, when it comes to worries about losing Guan's job to AI, again, researchers and designers are pretty much as high as one can be. And then

finally, when it comes to these NPS- like scores of whether people would recommend their role to a friend or to a colleague, researchers and designers are the least likely to recommend entering

their role at this point.

>> We talked about this earlier. I don't

know how much more there's to add here.

Basically, it's again, it's not that this function is in big trouble necessarily. It's this is how people in

necessarily. It's this is how people in that function are feeling right now. You

know, I'm not objective because I'm part of the research community and the design community. Um, if I may, I just want to

community. Um, if I may, I just want to tell people that in this community that um, I truly and honestly believe that

there's never been a more important time for our roles to manifest in the products that we build. Um, you've

talked about this with many people, Lenny, in in previous interviews about concept like taste, about concepts like craft,

about concepts like quality. I'm

thinking of people like Kari Line's CEO who talked so beautifully about the importance of quality and how you build products. I'm thinking about people like

products. I'm thinking about people like uh uh like um >> Katie Dill comes to mind. She had a we had a whole conversation around taste

and beauty and value. Katy D uh recently uh Jenny Wen who leads design uh for uh Claude at Anthropic and so many other

people who talk about the importance of taste of judgment of design. So I I honestly hope that designers and researchers make a comeback when it

comes to how they feel about this industry because the industry needs them. The industry needs us. And so I

them. The industry needs us. And so I hope we see a change next year and this is the call to all designers and researchers to get in there and do our thing because

it's incredibly valuable at this era.

>> Yeah, I've been I've had a few conversations recently about just design and in particular just why why is design not a huge value add and differentiator today knowing AI is just so bad at it.

We just had the head of the Codex app on talking about why AI like AI is not good at design and you could clearly tell AI designed this thing and you would think this was the moment for design to become

such a value add and differentiator for companies seeing all this AI slop that's being produced. So I'm optimistic

being produced. So I'm optimistic that'll emerge as people are like I'm so sick and tired of all these generic things. I I want to actually build

things. I I want to actually build something great. Yeah. And moreover, if

something great. Yeah. And moreover, if I recall correctly, you you in that conversation talked about how some of the issues around AI doing design are

perhaps tractable problems, but some of them are even intractable I I would say or definitely much much harder to solve for. It's still the case that creating

for. It's still the case that creating incredible novel creative experiences not something that this technology is quite capable of. So, we'll see what

happens, but I I really do hope that the designer research community turn around and change their minds about the industry next year.

>> Yeah. Man, I can't wait to do next year already. What's it going to be? But if

already. What's it going to be? But if

you actually look at the losing my job to AI bucket, there's actually a role that is even more worried about losing their job. And I believe that is data

their job. And I believe that is data analytics. Our shades are kind of uh

analytics. Our shades are kind of uh very similar to keep it to keep the message clear, but that's really interesting. the data anal data analysts

interesting. the data anal data analysts basically are the most worried about losing their job.

>> I think we're we're seeing uh incredible capabilities coming out.

>> Makes sense.

>> Yeah. With the different the different models out there to to run data analysis. I'm seeing this in the

analysis. I'm seeing this in the research realm as well. I would suggest that we're also seeing incredible advancements in coding. So I was

expecting engineering to be higher in in certain places here and and it's not. Um

but again this isn't about the objective reality of how far AI has come in terms of its capabilities doing each of these roles. This is about how people are

roles. This is about how people are feeling in these roles and there isn't a onetoone correlation uh between between those things.

>> Speaking of that, let's talk about who the happiest people are. Who's doing

great? Who's doing best?

>> So, the happiest people in tech. Um,

this is something that did not change between last year's survey and this year's, it's still founders and people

who are working in smaller companies.

And I do feel the need to say that when it comes to founders to your point earlier being not that I know but being a founder is an incredibly challenging all-encompassing

job and there is a certain selection bias here in the sense that these are people who are currently in the active

role of a founder in a startup that is is still running rather than founders who had to shut down their startup.

purple, whatever it might be. So, I just want to make that clear around who we're looking at. But but yes, when we look at

looking at. But but yes, when we look at founders and when we look at in this case, you're looking at um company size

as well, you can see that whether it's optimism, whether it's uh uh burnout, layoff worry, or whether people would

recommend their job, uh you're just seeing these these uh increases or decreases depending on on the question.

It's very clear that founders are top of nearly every measure. They're 71%

optimistic. Uh they're enjoying their jobs the most. They have the lowest burnout, the lowest layoff worry, the most AI excitement. It's a it's a

medium-sized effect compared to other effects we saw. Um but very significant.

And and that said, you know, if we talk about founders, even having that ownership and even having that agency has its limits, um founders are still uh

you know, many founders are still moderately or at least moderately burnt out. 47% of founders that would be um

out. 47% of founders that would be um and as we said earlier, even founders aren't very likely to recommend being a founder to other people right now, which

is very interesting. I think it's also important to note uh there's definitely this as you said this kind of meme of there's never been a better time to build. People may see this and be like I

build. People may see this and be like I got to start a company. It's the best place to be. It may be this moment currently where people feeling most excited about it and then as the bubble you know I don't know if it's a bubble

but as things start to get harder there may be a shift away from that. So this

so far interesting that we've seen two years in a row founders are the happiest but I wonder if that changes if the market changes if some you know that kind of thing. So this isn't saying you're going to be happy if you become a

founder but it is really interesting that two years in a row of all of the like the most uh clear one of the clearest takeaways is just founders seem

to be happiest across every dimension.

>> Yeah. And then company size uh as well.

Again, uh optimism goes down if you're working for a larger company. Um you get more burnt out if you're working for a larger company. You're more worried

larger company. You're more worried about layoffs if you're working for a larger company. And you're less likely

larger company. And you're less likely to recommend your role if you're working for a larger company. So that also

remained consistent. And if we look just

remained consistent. And if we look just at burnout specifically, then you can see very clearly here that burnout

climbs in very significant ways in between working for a small 1 to 10 person startup and working for a 5,000

or 10,000 person enterprise company.

>> It's so wild. It's wild how linear this is. like there's no bump and then those

is. like there's no bump and then those two at the end there as you point out here in the chart they're statistic >> it's within margin of error yeah >> it's like wild here just like only goes up there's not like a sweet spot and

then it comes down again and then if you go back to the previous chart exactly the same thing it's just like very linear everything goes up uh and gets worse as your company size grows that's

wild >> absolutely I would say one thing to highlight here like if you look at burnout for example is that even the the

the lowest is still fairly high, right?

So, I would say people are feeling somewhat less burnt out, somewhat healthier working for a startup. But I I would view these levels of burnout, of

worry as uh as worrisome. I'm worried

about the level of worry right now in in tech. It is not a good vibe. You know,

tech. It is not a good vibe. You know,

you mentioned how we met a decade ago at Airbnb. I do feel like the vibe was very

Airbnb. I do feel like the vibe was very different then in in tech. So, I am a bit concerned about the numbers that we're seeing here. But yes, from a

relative sense, a relative point of view, um perhaps one should consider doing a shift and starting your own thing or working for a smaller company.

>> Yeah, exactly. That'll be one of the takeaways. You know what would be

takeaways. You know what would be awesome is if we do one of these for non tech. I'm really curious just like you

tech. I'm really curious just like you think people are scared and worried in tech. I'm so curious how that would

tech. I'm so curious how that would compare to you know like say the blue collar folks or other functions like I don't know if we have the audience to do that but that'd be really interesting. I

mean I think my uh HVAC technician is feeling pretty great about his career right now burning hot in Florida.

Everyone needs air conditioning. That's

not going to change anytime soon. U take

a hack. Yeah. To start a company, >> we should do that.

>> Start a filming business. Oh, man.

>> So, what I love about this doing the survey again is we're starting to find things that are consistently true. And

the next takeaway is another really good example that we saw last year, too, uh, around managers. Let's get into that.

around managers. Let's get into that.

Yeah. So, I mean, perhaps people are aware of this. Managers matter a ton.

who your manager is probably matters more than most other characteristics of your role. And we found this very

your role. And we found this very explicitly last year and this year again um manager effectiveness. So we

basically asked people how effective is your manager? How would you rate your

your manager? How would you rate your manager? And what you can see here is

manager? And what you can see here is that the more effective your manager is, the less burnt out you feel and the more

you enjoy your job. And this is a massive massive effect that we're seeing. So if you have an extremely

seeing. So if you have an extremely effective manager, for example, you're reporting around 65% higher job

enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout. The problem is

burnout. The problem is is the the supply. um only about 25% of

the sample rate their manager as highly effective and 36% of the sample rated their managers as ineffective which by

the way is a very small change from from last year. So we're seeing managers be

last year. So we're seeing managers be rated not so well and at the same time we're seeing that when managers are

effective which is clearly uh not often enough the impact that has on people's enjoyment burnout and other aspects as well is incredible.

That's wild. like like I think we're adding new uh insight into the world here just finding this I like I've never never seen this before just how impactful a manager is that we always

hear anecdotes we always hear like you know people only leave they don't leave jobs they leave their manager but this is wild just how much that impacts you and clearly one of the takeaways might

be go if you're having a bad time find a better manager as you said easier said than done >> yeah but there's a couple of things here I want to I want to also note before we move on. First of all, we are in the era

move on. First of all, we are in the era of the great flattening. We're in the era of founder mode. People have more direct reports now than ever before. Um,

we're trying to keep things as flat as possible and remove hierarchy. I'm

concerned about this. I think, um, obviously there are good arguments for flatness and lack of hierarchy. Um but I

am curious to see where this goes given the importance of who your manager is on your well-being. And then the second

your well-being. And then the second thing is we talked earlier about being overworked about this squeeze that AI has on us. Who's the person more than

anyone else who kind of manages that squeeze? It's your manager, right? It's

squeeze? It's your manager, right? It's

your manager who protects you. It's your

manager who in many ways almost dictates uh how much you may be overworked or not. And so yeah, this this matters more

not. And so yeah, this this matters more than ever before. And I'm definitely concerned that some of the negative phenomenon we're seeing are a function

of what we're doing to managers in tech and how we're building out our organizations. Such an interesting

organizations. Such an interesting point. we whether we do it now or next

point. we whether we do it now or next time just looking at these metrics for managers like how much more burned out are they how much less happy and optimistic are they would be really interesting there's a couple notes here

in in the actual post that I want to highlight that I thought are really interesting one is just core takeaway here is the biggest lever you have to increase retention in your company is

improve your managers put people on with connect people with better managers basically so interesting that's like a thing you can do obviously easier said than done but that's the biggest lever of things you can change. And then the

other thing you noted is the worst rated managers cluster in data analytics and design poor design. Yes. So, and I'm not

sure there's a clear explanation uh for that. Um I think one possible

that. Um I think one possible explanation is that again you know managers are just people too and so

design managers and data and analytic managers are are in design and in analytics they are

suffering clearly based on what we saw and I think it's hard to separate how you feel in tech from your job as a

manager, it's hard not to put some of your negative energy onto your team and the people you work with. And and so I I have a lot I have a lot of empathy for

design managers, research managers, data and analytics managers, and other managers in tech who are having a hard time right now and they're not feeling energized. And unfortunately, some of

energized. And unfortunately, some of that is being pushed on to their direct reports.

And then [clears throat] >> and then I very much appreciate in some of the companies I've worked for having the opportunity to go through manager training which is something that's still

all too rare I feel within organizations. If you're listening to

organizations. If you're listening to this and you're a leader in an organization, if you're seuite at a company, please invest more in your

managers. And if you're looking for a

managers. And if you're looking for a job right now, consider carefully who your manager might be because probably nothing will have more impact on your well-being than who that person ends up

being.

And to build on how uh difficult things are for companies right now, the level of poaching and offers throwing out thrown out at the best people, just

imagine how sucky it is to find a great manager, train people to become awesome managers, and then they get, you know, >> only to lose them >> only to lose them to, you know, the labs, people with infinite money. So,

it's just extra hard. which is a good segue to our final takeaway, which is a really good summary of just what is what people are feeling right now.

>> Yeah, it is the the wildest it's ever been. We asked people to describe the

been. We asked people to describe the state of the tech industry right now. We

got thousands of responses. These were

essentially open-ended responses, and we just sort of clustered those descriptions into this uh this word cloud. I still love wordcloud. Some

cloud. I still love wordcloud. Some

researchers are sort of anti-wordcloud.

I love I'm not gonna apologize for the word cloud.

>> No, this is amazing.

>> It's like such a clear. Look at this.

Just look at this. This is exactly what it feels like.

>> Yeah. We're seeing change. We're seeing

chaos. We're seeing speed. We're seeing

excitement, flux, hype, a lack of stability, a potential bubble, but also crazy opportunities. Everything's

crazy opportunities. Everything's evolving. Everything's unstable. It

evolving. Everything's unstable. It

comes with costs. It's better. It's

worse. It's huge. It's confusing.

All smooshed together into a more chaotic industry than it's ever been.

Um, I don't understand anything about baseball or maybe it's cricket, but we got this quote. Do you understand baseball? Does

baseball? Does >> hopefully if you're watching you understand these things, but we got this quote. We're in the second inning of a

quote. We're in the second inning of a massive shift. No one knows how it will

massive shift. No one knows how it will end, but all you can do is keep taking at bats. Is that a cricket thing? A

at bats. Is that a cricket thing? A

baseball.

>> That's baseball. I think it's I don't know how many innings. I don't know if there's innings in cricket, but it's definitely baseball. Uh it works for

definitely baseball. Uh it works for baseball at least.

>> Yeah. Basically, it's just saying keep trying. Just keep taking shots. Shots on

trying. Just keep taking shots. Shots on

goal. A lot of metaphors.

>> Yeah. So many good quotes. Another one I I see here which was which was good one.

Tech is manic. Half out of touch, clinging to the bandwagon, porbing into the overhype. The other half are

the overhype. The other half are exhausted by the first half that came from a senior PM. Um yeah, fascinating

stuff. When we look at this overall,

stuff. When we look at this overall, it's crazy how we see again this bifocation that 37%

of the words used when we ran sentiment analysis were positive, 37%

were negative, and the the remaining 26% or so were neutral. Basically, an even split.

We're all seeing the same thing, but half of us find it thrilling, the other half find it terrifying. Um, I was I was, you know, rather taken aback when I

when I saw these data. It's pretty wild how equally uh uh divided we are.

>> Yeah, man. And uh I think you used this quote earlier that this is the most normal it's ever going to be.

>> I mean, I I don't know. Um, the prophecy was given to the fool, so I'm not going to try and be a be a prophet. But, um,

yes, I I doubt it's going to get, you know, more normal and normalized statistically than than this. So,

we'll we'll wait and see, I guess.

>> Yeah. Like, if we zoom out, we're living through history right now. The amount of change and like this is unprecedented.

You know, the industrial revolution is always the metaphor people use, which is accurate. uh maybe crazy or maybe not,

accurate. uh maybe crazy or maybe not, but it's that's the interesting part.

Like what an interesting time to be living through. Elon had this really

living through. Elon had this really interesting way of describing it. Like

we're definitely living in a simulation if we're if we're alive right now when we're about to start building data centers in space and AI is going to be as smart as human brains. Like what are

the chances you are alive at that moment? Uh which is probably okay. Maybe

moment? Uh which is probably okay. Maybe

some higher intelligence is simulating the most interesting time in history.

Uh, I don't know if that's a good rap, but >> listen listen, I have a lot of respect

for for uh Elon. Um, people like Elon have chosen to focus on the universe and what's out there and the laws that

govern the universe and that's their focus. I became a psychologist by

focus. I became a psychologist by academic training at least because my focus has always been on people. And if

I had to share a closing thought to wrap up all of this research, I would say that having the most advanced AI and the

access to the best models in the world won't won't determine whether your organization succeeds. We have to

organization succeeds. We have to remember that underlying all of this stuff are people.

People we as people are going through the most massive shift and changes that we ever have in our lives. And it's

people who are feeling excited and exhausted and hopeful and scared often all at once.

and we're all taking part in crafting and building this future that we hope still has a place for us in a few years.

And so I keep that in mind all the time.

Um, it's people driving these innovations. It's incredible people

innovations. It's incredible people building these technologies. My focus

will always be on on the people. And I

hope that if you're out there watching this, you take care of yourself.

You touch grass. You take a moment to reflect on what you want for yourself in in your career. And you remember again that it's fine to feel all of the

emotions and you should just uh do whatever works for you to get through this wild period in the tech industry.

So, kind of building on that, you you spend a lot of time thinking through the results and what people can actually do with this data because it's one thing to just report. Here's what people are

just report. Here's what people are feeling. Okay, cool. Uh what should

feeling. Okay, cool. Uh what should people do? So, there's a really

people do? So, there's a really important section at the end of the report that uh that we should spend a little time on, which is just what where do we go from here? What does this tell us we should be doing if we can do anything to kind of move ourselves

basically into a happier place? So

starting with if you're an employee, you know, especially if you're an IC working at a company, one thing we saw people who feel amplified and energized

reporting is that they actually went deep on specific tasks and specific jobs to be done rather than trying to be the

generalist who does everything. I think

it's the people who try to be or or lean too much into being a generalist who end up getting severely burnt out, right?

And so I just want to caution people a little bit away from the narratives that you need to be a generalist at this point and just do all of the things and completely ignore the core parts of your

role. I think that's a bad bad idea and

role. I think that's a bad bad idea and based on what people are reporting, it's not going to end up with you at least feeling good, right? Um, I also would

love for people to watch out for this squeeze being overworked for the same pay. We deserve better. We've linked in

pay. We deserve better. We've linked in the article to a burnout test. Take the

test. See where you're at on the burnout scale. And then, you know, based on

scale. And then, you know, based on that, reflect on where you are. Talk to

your manager. Scope out your work again.

you know, reccalibrate, realign with your manager on your work and make sure that you're not being uh squeezed out of of uh you know, being positive about

about your role and being successful in your role. Um, as you're going through

your role. Um, as you're going through this list, let me just make sure people fully understand the frame there were because you made these two buckets basically things you can do based on this results. One is just if you're an

this results. One is just if you're an employee, I think you have five pieces of advice. If you're a company, you have

of advice. If you're a company, you have fiveish pieces of advice. So, just to be super clear, the first one is just uh pick a couple things you want AI to be useful for and just go deep on those

couple things versus trying to spread it all around and AI has to be doing everything for you. Pick a couple things that you're most excited about and then just go really deep there. The other is this what you said, just watch the squeeze. Watch you being squeezed and

squeeze. Watch you being squeezed and talk to your manager about, hey, my scope's increased, nothing's changed compwise, that kind of.

>> Absolutely. And then speak of managers.

Again, the third point is that your manager clearly matters more than pretty much anything else when it comes to how you feel about work. Protect that

relationship. Invest in that relationship. Build up good

relationship. Build up good communication lines with your manager.

[snorts] Learn to manage up.

That investment in that relationship will pay off greatly in terms of how you feel. Um and then beyond that,

feel. Um and then beyond that, um first of all, if you want to try out working for a smaller company or starting your own company, clearly there

are some advantages to that and so it might be worth considering. And then if you're earlier in your career and you feel like the rungs of the ladder are

slowly disappearing and it's becoming harder to climb that ladder, um I'm a huge believer in mentorship and the value of mentorship. Strong mentorship

is still an incredibly effective thing.

Seek the teams, seek the managers, seek the people who are willing to invest in developing you. Um it's incredibly

developing you. Um it's incredibly valuable, especially in this era. So

that's what we have for employees. And

then if you're leading a team, if you're leading a company, then again, as we mentioned before, invest in your managers. It's probably some of the best

managers. It's probably some of the best money you'll ever ever spend. Um it's

it's sad to me that only a quarter of our sample and perhaps tech workers in general rate their manager as highly effective. That to me is a major major

effective. That to me is a major major red flag. It's a major issue in tech.

red flag. It's a major issue in tech.

And so if you want to improve burnout, if you want to elevate enjoyment, if you want to improve retention with these crazy job offers flying around from from

AI labs, you have to invest in your managers. Um, and then otherwise

managers. Um, and then otherwise manage that squeeze. People are feeling how AI is raising bars in ways that aren't sustainable. So you have to

aren't sustainable. So you have to figure out the right level of expectations and the right level of productivity. Um don't let that bottom

productivity. Um don't let that bottom rung of the ladder rot. You know, make sure that you're doing what you need to for entry- levelvel people to advance

because those early career people are also probably some of the most AI native people you can find, right? They find it very natural to use these technologies

in some ways more so than people who have been uh you know too uh used to

previous paradigms. So um and then selfishly [snorts] I hope that leaders pay a little bit more attention to design and research and other roles who

are feeling uh more negative than than other roles. And keep in mind that this

other roles. And keep in mind that this technology AI is lifting some people and destabilizing others. And you really

destabilizing others. And you really have to pay attention to that. We are

clearly not experiencing this technology in the same way.

>> Amazing takeaways. I want to double down on that burnout survey that you um that you mentioned. I want to make we're

you mentioned. I want to make we're going to link to it in the show notes, but I actually people like it sounds like dumb and why am I going to do that?

I've like I've definitely gone through periods of burnout and wasn't aware that that was was happening and it's so helpful to like oh wow this is not normal what I'm feeling right now and

knowing this that you're okay you're extremely burned out right now you you then you can decide what you want to do with that information often it's you know talk to a coach talk to your manager take some time off if you can but just knowing that is actually really

powerful and he made this really great uh quiz based on actual science and research that that uh that we'll link you >> 100%.

>> Awesome.

Uh now, um is there anything else that we haven't talked about? Anything else

you want to leave folks with? We've

covered a lot, so I don't know if there's anything left. We'll obviously

link them to the report where they can go deeper. We're also going to do a

go deeper. We're also going to do a follow-up based on what comes out of this conversation, what we see in the comments because this is a lot of information and a lot of uh scary stuff, some optimistic stuff. um we can't, you

know, we're not gonna have answers to everything, but we're planning to do a follow-up of just here's what came up.

Let's see if we can find any answers.

But other than that, is there anything else that you want to share? There's one

interesting phenomenon that I wanted to to mention. um we're starting to see

to mention. um we're starting to see this AI guilt and in particular amongst people who are early in their career in the sense that people who are early in

their career feel like leveraging the technology is a little bit like cheating in a sense and that guilt declines with

seniority. Um, and in particular, we're

seniority. Um, and in particular, we're seeing people in actually product marketing and data and analytics, which showed up previously in a couple

of places, feeling the most guilt. Um,

this is related to the well-known and well-established imposttor phenomenon, right? Like, I'm not good enough. Um,

right? Like, I'm not good enough. Um,

competent people feeling like their success isn't really theirs, it's someone else's. except this time we're

someone else's. except this time we're putting that on AI on a technology rather than other people. Um, I would say to all of you who might be feeling

that guilt, AI is an incredible technology. Um, leverage it. Learn how

technology. Um, leverage it. Learn how

to leverage it. I doubt it's going away.

Um, it's the worst it's ever going to be today. It's only getting better. Um, so

today. It's only getting better. Um, so

there's no no reason to feel guilty about leveraging it. on on the contrary.

Um I I think inevitably we all are all the time. So

the time. So >> well to close note, I just want to appreciate you. It's incredible the work

appreciate you. It's incredible the work that you've done here and the work that we've done together over the many surveys. Uh it's just like it's like a

surveys. Uh it's just like it's like a side thing you do with me. Uh running

like I don't know one of the biggest surveys out there around this stuff.

Maybe the biggest analyzing it, writing it uh so beautifully. Uh so, uh I think this is a really unique and and special report and I appreciate you for doing

this with me. It's uh I'm really uh I'm really happy about where this all goes and and just the what we're doing for folks.

>> Thank you so so much.

>> Well, with that, Noam, where can people find you online if they want to reach out, maybe follow-up questions, and how can listeners be useful to you?

>> Yeah, so the best places to find me are on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with

on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with anyone who wants to connect on LinkedIn or within Lenny's community within uh your Slack. Um I hang out there and

your Slack. Um I hang out there and always happy to talk to people within the community. So please catch me on

the community. So please catch me on LinkedIn or on Slack. That would be best.

>> How can listeners be useful to you? No

one.

>> If you're watching this, what I would like to convey is that um I hope this research has been helpful to you and more than anything I hope that you consider participating in future

research projects of ours. Um, I'm

really really glad that we get to do these things, Lenny. And and I want to give all of you watching the opportunity to learn more about what's going on in

tech, how you can be better at your job, you know, how you can feel better about your job and all things in in between.

We plan to continue conducting both um quick polls of the community in-depth longer form surveys, interviews, all

sorts of things. And so if you get a message, an email, a Slack about a research project, please participate.

Would love to hear your voices, hear your perspectives, and then share that back with the community. And hopefully

it makes us all better at our jobs and also feel better about our jobs because I do hope that even though much of this was a little bit tough and perhaps

negative, I too Lenny am an eternal optimist. I'm a techno optimist. I I

optimist. I'm a techno optimist. I I

believe this is going in good directions and I want to make sure we capture that accurately. So yeah, please participate.

accurately. So yeah, please participate.

We'd love to see you in our next research project.

>> Excellent. Ask with that. Noam, thank

you so much for being here. Thanks a

bunch.

Thank you so much for listening. If you

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