Why the tech workforce is quietly splitting in two | Annual AI sentiment survey (Noam Segal)

[00:00] Bad news for the tech community. [00:03] 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 are you afraid of? Losing my job to AI is actually second to last. What we saw rise up to the top. [00:21] is the expectation to do more. [00:23] for the same time. [00:25] We did this survey on how people are feeling in tech right now. Burnout is increasing significantly. Optimism is declining. It's never been crazier.

When are we going to get to the optimistic part of this episode? Half of the people in tech are feeling incredible. And the other half, then she told us, my brain is rotting. My work feels worse. [00:55] 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... [01:06] of a massive shift [01:07] No one knows how it will end.

[01:10] But all you can do is... [01:13] Today my guest is Noam Siegel. [01:15] Noam and I go a long ways back, [01:17] We worked together at Airbnb for many years where he was my research partner. [01:22] Since then, he went on to be a research leader at Intercom, Twitter, Wealthfront, Meta, Zapier, and Figma. [01:28] Gnome is so amazing. [01:30] And over the past couple of 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. [01:43] And the results are so interesting. [01:45] I believe this is the largest survey of its kind, looking at how people in tech feel about their jobs and AI and layoffs and burnout and the future of their careers. [01:55] There's so much in this, and basically this episode is a conversation about the results. [02:01] At the end of the conversation, we go through a bunch of advice on what you might do if you are currently on the struggle bus and trying to figure out what to do.

I'm so excited for this 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. [02:20] Before we get into it, do not forget to check out Lenny's Product Pass dot com for a free year of the hottest and most well-crafted AI products in the world available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers. [02:31] With that, I bring you Noam Siegel. [02:37] Noam, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

[02:41] Thank you so much, Lenny. It's such an incredible experience to be here. Thanks for having me. [02:45] It's my pleasure. We've actually worked together for a long time. And a few people know this. You were the researcher on our team when I was at Airbnb. It was like 10 years ago. A decade ago. A decade ago, Lenny. So much has changed. So much has changed. So much has changed. Which is a great segue to what we're going to be talking about today. [03:04] which is we did this survey on how people are feeling.

[03:09] in tech right now. [03:11] It's never been 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 report. [03:21] tech sentiment survey that's going to track how tech people are feeling. Before we get into the takeaways, [03:26] What's kind of the... [03:28] Give us a little context just on this survey, like how you ran it, what were we looking at, anything people need to know.

[03:34] Yes, it's your point. This is the second time we're running this survey, which I really feel is unique. [03:40] in the 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 this at this scale, looking at these things. Last year, when we ran, I'm not aware of any [03:58] the similar tech sentiment, the first inaugural tech sentiment survey [04:03] 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 Armour framework, if you remember. And I'm really glad we did that. This year, [04:23] We surveyed about 6,000 people. [04:27] from product, engineering, technology, [04:30] design, research, pretty much any role, marketing, pretty much any role in tech. [04:35] And the results were... [04:37] Very interesting. So I'm very excited to jump into them. [04:40] Yeah, just remember when you shared the first draft of the analysis, [04:43] And I was just like reading it and I was like, holy shit, this is so interesting.

[04:47] And it just feels like it's putting words to... [04:50] the way I feel... [04:52] the way that I hear a lot of people feel. So I'm really excited that we're doing this. [05:22] drop-in APIs with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SaaS. Literally every startup that I'm an investor in that starts to expand upmarket ends up working with WorkOS. And that's because they are the best. Whether you are a seed stage startup trying to land your first enterprise customer or a unicorn expanding globally, WorkOS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready and unblocking growth.

It's essentially Stripe for enterprise features. [05:52] of actual engineers waiting to answer your questions. WorkOS allows you to build faster with delightful APIs, comprehensive docs, and a smooth developer experience. Go to com to make your app enterprise-ready today. [06:05] We're going to go through the top 10 takeaways. What's kind of the big picture takeaway from the report overall, if someone could take one big takeaway away? [06:13] Well, first I'll say that [06:15] You and I both noticed an incredible post from Elena Werner a couple of days before this pod was recorded.

And she's talking about the AI confidence process. [06:26] theater and how in conversations these days in tech, everything is dead, first of all. Coding is dead. Design is dead. SaaS is dead, et cetera. Obviously, that's not 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 [06:50] AI. And to me, this also ties to the fact that [06:54] If you're watching this and you work in tech, you probably answer...

[06:58] some sort of biannual culture amp style survey about how you're feeling. But the questions don't really dive any deeper than the effectiveness of your manager or leadership at the company you work at. [07:11] Whereas [07:12] the big picture in this survey and [07:17] And I think the thing that stood out to us the most is how bifurcated... [07:23] the workforce is right now. [07:25] And what you're going to see is that AI has... [07:29] an outlier level [07:31] outsize impact. [07:33] on how people feel about their work, more so than any other...

[07:39] characteristic of their job, whether it's their role, [07:43] the company they work for, the company size, their level, etc. [07:48] Half of the people in tech [07:50] are fitting incredible. [07:52] energized, [07:54] amplified, excited about the technology, [07:58] and the future of... [08:00] you know, that role. [08:01] and the other half [08:03] Feel... [08:04] Like the future is unclear, [08:06] They feel destabilized. They feel... [08:09] diminished other negative emotions around that. [08:14] 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 look at people in tech. Like it just... [08:28] It's so clear that this is happening. And what's interesting is it's 50-50. [08:31] in the results. I didn't expect to be so even. That was a really interesting takeaway. [08:36] 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 slide with the question that you and I both decided to add to the survey, which is how has AI shifted your professional identity?

[08:51] if at all. [08:52] And I'll actually call out, first of all, that only 3% of people reported that AI [08:57] hasn't shifted their identity. So clearly, AI has changed how we each view ourselves. That's first of all. [09:05] But then to your point, the most prominent thing here is that 50% of people in tech are feeling [09:11] amplified. They feel like they can do more [09:14] They feel like they can do better. It's a wholly... [09:18] Positives. [09:19] emotion. [09:22] And it's great. It's great. It's great for them. But the other half of tech...

[09:27] divide into three distinct groups. The first group is people who feel like their role is being redefined. [09:33] That group doesn't actually have... [09:36] that much clarity about [09:38] or specific positive or negative emotions around what's happening. They just don't really understand it. It's a very mixed bag type of emotion where it's very clear to me [09:49] that my role is fundamentally changing. [09:53] but I don't really know what it means. And that's 27% of our sample. [09:59] Then as we go down the line, we have two groups who have...

[10:04] clear negative emotions around what's going on. The first group, 14% of people feel destabilized. You know, the ground is shaking beneath them. [10:15] They have very little clarity on what's going on. They have high anxiety levels. They report having... [10:22] very negative and pessimistic views of what's to come. And then 5% of people feel diminished [10:32] They feel like the great powers of AI have taken something away. [10:37] from them [10:39] And something that obviously is never going to come back because what's the saying? AI and AI models are the worst today that they'll ever be.

They're only getting better. So people who feel diminished now. [10:53] will only feel more diminished. [10:55] in the future. [10:56] Probably. Super. So following that thread. Sorry for the bad news. Sorry for the bad news. There's some good news here. [11:03] so following that thread, uh, [11:05] These buckets correlate super strongly. [11:09] with basically every other measure of how people are doing. So you have this kind of regression on just like every other core [11:15] question you asked, and it's so interesting to see how connected these are. [11:19] And just to put [11:21] a couple of statistical terms on this to clarify how big the effect is.

In tech, we are somewhat obsessed with the notion of statistical significance, but the thing about [11:31] statistical significance is that if you have a large enough sample you can [11:36] 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 Cohen's D in this case. And what effect size tells you is practically how much does this thing matter? [11:55] So for example, [11:57] Last year, a couple of the largest effects we saw were, number one, your manager.

[12:03] 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. [12:14] 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 autonomy relatively to the typical employee. [12:33] This... [12:34] finding this insight around the impact of AI on your identity and on every single other variable around your job, [12:44] is about three times as large...

[12:47] as those other [12:49] effects. [12:51] 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... [13:00] anything else we've seen. [13:02] So let's actually look at that data of just how... [13:04] this sort of classification connects to just optimism, burnout, things like that. [13:08] And we're going to come back to just like what exactly is that divide? Just the question to ask. [13:13] That tells you which side you're on, but let's look at this first.

[13:16] 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 identity around career optimism. [13:32] burnout, lay off worry. [13:34] And an interesting one for me, and we'll talk about this further, would you recommend your role to someone coming into the industry? [13:44] now and what you can see [13:46] is that as you move from the people who feel amplified to the people who feel [13:51] diminished.

[13:52] career optimism goes down significantly. [13:55] Burnout. [13:57] or reports of burnout to go up significantly [14:01] layoff worry [14:03] also rises significantly [14:06] And perhaps the most significant finding of them all is that... [14:11] People would not recommend... [14:14] junior people, early career people entering [14:18] into the tech workforce at this moment. [14:21] given what's happening. [14:23] with AI. [14:24] And you're seeing these very linear... [14:27] clear and organised effects. [14:30] which just demonstrates to you [14:33] the impact that AI is having on all of these different [14:36] variables.

[14:38] 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. [14:45] And I feel like everyone listening is going to be like, OK, that's me. [14:49] So let's go through that. Yeah. So we're seeing these four tech workers. And the way we got to this is later on in the survey, we asked people about how they're feeling today. [15:00] and to report specific emotions. And people could choose as many emotions as they wanted, right?

And by the way, fun fact, on average, people selected five emotions [15:11] different emotions. And I think a couple of people selected 13 emotions that [15:17] their feeling, which is a lot. [15:20] So, [15:21] The first archetype we found is the energized tech worker. [15:26] And... [15:27] That's 41% of our samples. These are the people who were saying that products has become fun 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 technology. [15:54] that Koreans [15:55] The second group we called the conflicted, the ambivalent conflicted. [16:01] These are 35% of... [16:03] the sample. [16:04] These are people who are having, on the one hand, the most fun they've ever had, [16:10] as builders... [16:11] as PMs, as designers, as engineers, whatever their role is. And on the other hand, they're feeling the most uncertainty that they've ever felt. [16:22] in their careers. They just don't understand [16:25] where this is going.

[16:27] and whether they're building the things that will ultimately lead to the end of their careers as they know it. [16:36] The third archetype are the disoriented people, the people who feel like their role keeps going. [16:43] shifting [16:44] There's a quote that we saw from one of the respondents. We're like farmers on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. [16:51] And we just don't see a clear path. [16:54] To what's? [16:55] happening. [16:56] Very interesting comparison to that era – [17:00] And these are people who are feeling very disoriented around what's going on in their career and where things are leading.

And then finally, [17:08] 12% of the sample we... [17:11] categorized as resentful. They're feeling pressured, [17:15] They're feeling checked out. [17:17] they are not enjoying their work right now. They're saying things like, I've been forced to use AI or lose my job. [17:26] And even when I use AI, I'm still seeing people lose their jobs. I just hate it. You know, I hate it. [17:33] having to leverage this technology. [17:36] rather than do my own thing and maybe ignore it. [17:40] the technology, which obviously none of us can ignore at this point.

There's a lot of people clearly that are very unhappy. [17:48] resentful, disoriented. [17:50] I imagine that group can't imagine... [17:53] A lot of people are feeling extremely energized. [17:56] And I think vice versa. So I think this is just like [18:00] really interesting to see that many people are very [18:04] different from you. [18:05] There are many people that are having a really good time, a lot of people that are having a really bad time. [18:09] And it's just a good way to remember and basically have empathy. [18:14] for the other half, especially the folks not doing as well.

[18:18] because not everyone is as energized. [18:19] and we'll talk about it. [18:20] what that energized group looks like. [18:23] But I think that's just an important point. Like a lot of people are having a really hard time. [18:27] I really agree with you, Lenny, and I think that... [18:30] Given the pace of change of the technology, 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, loop engineering, whatever the next thing will be next week.

[18:51] And we're not spending enough time and focus on our relationships at work, on seeing our colleagues, on supporting our peers. [19:01] in also being able to work with this technology, thrive with it, succeed with it, [19:08] 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 developed. [19:16] perceived. So I personally would love to see [19:20] all of us, especially energized people, [19:23] Take some of that energy [19:26] and spend it on the people around you rather than, [19:30] the all-in focus on whatever the next thing is with AI.

Let's go to the next takeaway. Let's talk about... [19:38] burnout and optimism. [19:40] Yeah, so last year, we looked at burnout and we looked at optimism and burnout was... [19:47] At a worrying level... [19:49] enough that we published further research on it and we introduced the arm framework around how to deal with burnout and fight burnout. [19:59] And this time around, I'm not sure what I was expecting necessarily. [20:05] I think I was hoping that optimism would hold steady. [20:10] And that burnout wouldn't go up because supposedly with... [20:15] new abilities and even better models, perhaps you might think that we wouldn't have to work as hard or put as much energy into everything in a way that gets us burnt out.

And yet that's not what we're seeing now. [20:30] When it comes to significant burnout, burnout that's higher than moderate, we've gone up from 44.7%. [20:37] in 2025 to 54% [20:40] 0.7% in 2026. [20:43] So burnout is surging. More than half of our sample are feeling significantly worse. [20:49] burnt out at this point. And at the same time, [20:53] optimism around the future of [20:56] Our roles and our careers is falling from 54.8% in 2025 to 48.7%. [21:05] in 2026. [21:07] Bad news for the tech community. [21:11] I don't know what to say about this other than that sucks.

[21:13] I don't like this. [21:14] I get it fully. I can completely understand why people are feeling this. [21:19] Pretty worrisome, the rise to like a massive jump, like over 10%. [21:25] increase in burnout in just in a year. [21:28] Yeah, yeah. [21:29] And it's interesting, you've had... [21:32] several guests on in the past who've talked about things related to this. I loved your conversation with Jeff from Ramp. [21:43] um [21:44] And he shared that his worst burnout happened when velocity was lowest. So when you put effort into things that don't actually move, you know, [21:54] It doesn't feel good and that leads to burnout.

And I think... [22:00] that maps for me with... [22:02] certain theories around burnout where stagnation [22:05] leads to burnout. [22:07] I think what's going on now... [22:09] is the 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 a day, [22:21] or just doing so much more [22:25] In some ways that might be fun, but we are burning out more than we did before. [22:30] before. [22:32] And we're not working any less hard, clearly, right?

We're just taking on... [22:40] More stuff. [22:41] More stuff, more prototypes... [22:44] More PRDs, more PRs, more campaigns, more agents, more ads. [22:51] And it's leading to more burnouts. [22:54] Yeah, and that's actually one of the takeaways, which we'll get to. I don't know if you have this in this deck, but a glimmer of hope. [23:00] that you pointed out is that enjoyment of work is actually still [23:03] very high that it's burnout, but also people still at the same levels last year, actually really enjoying their work. [23:09] I think what we heard about enjoyment more than anything else, which does give me hope, [23:15] is it's a couple of things, I think.

[23:18] First of all... [23:20] people are able to bring out certain aspects of their identity and of their passions and [23:28] that they weren't able to before. You know, if you're... [23:33] currently a PM by roll. [23:35] but you have a designer within you, or you're a marketer, but really inside you have the engineer that's been [23:43] really wanting to come out, now you can, right? Various tools that are available to us these days enable you to bring out those sides. [23:53] of your personality and those professional aspirations. And that's something that people are [23:58] really enjoying the [24:00] we're sort of escaping our classic swim lanes.

[24:04] And a certain percentage of our roles are transforming into something else. [24:11] And then the second thing that people are saying that [24:13] they're finding enjoyable things [24:16] is that... [24:18] they are able to [24:19] to manifest [24:22] things that they've wanted to build that seemed impossible to [24:26] not very long ago. [24:28] you know, and that's whether it's in their main job or things that they're doing on the side, etc. [24:37] It is still... [24:38] For many people in tech... [24:40] an exciting time and an enjoyable time. [24:44] Because we can do things that we never thought we'd be able to.

[24:46] to do because the outside of our role [24:49] because they're out of what felt. [24:51] technically feasible [24:53] or for other reasons. [24:55] 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. [25:04] But before we get there, [25:06] One of the other really interesting takeaways was around layoffs and how layoffs impact [25:11] Fear of layoffs, impact burnout. Talk about that. [25:14] We did ask people how worried they are about being laid off.

And as you can see... [25:19] 72% of our sample are worried to a certain extent about being laid off, and 41.2% are at least moderately worried about [25:30] being laid off. So it is clear that people are feeling that they might be [25:37] cutting the branch that they're sitting on [25:40] when it comes to using... [25:42] AI, [25:43] People are reporting that their company is going all in on agents, all in on these technologies. And it does feel like they may be. [25:53] pushed out. [25:55] at some point. So the worry level [25:58] is high, and [26:01] 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 clashes between emotions.

[26:13] feeling energized and enjoying my job and at the same time not being very [26:17] optimistic. [26:19] about it and feeling tired from it and feeling worried that all of that enjoyment is going to end one day [26:26] when the company I work for decides that I'm no longer needed. [26:30] I feel a lot of people listening are probably feeling all this and [26:33] feeling heard [26:35] 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. [26:47] Burnout is increasing significantly. [26:49] optimism is declining. [26:51] Talk about just those two kind of how you think about those two side by side, this idea of [26:56] Many people are much happier and having the best time of their life. [26:59] 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'll speak for myself a second and say that, you know, I've also never had as much fun in my career as when using these technologies.

And I've been using it for decades. [27:18] too many hours a day playing about and building. I think many of us [27:24] Even those who aren't as energized by the technology, we still feel like we're in this fascinating technological playground. [27:32] And it's very, very hard to disengage from that technology and technology. [27:37] touch grass, read a book, whatever you love to do in your spare time as well, Lenny. [27:43] 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 ways. [27:57] context 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. [28:09] these days, whether that's an official thing within a company, [28:12] or not. [28:13] And so I think that naturally... [28:17] This leads to these clashing emotions, these exciting feelings. [28:24] around what's possible and how fun it is to use AI [28:28] and on the other hand the realization [28:31] that the reason this technology is so exciting [28:33] is because it's so powerful.

[28:36] And because it's so powerful, it might be coming for us. [28:41] And to take our jobs, right? [28:44] Did you grow up on the Terminator movies? I keep thinking about the Terminator movies. I don't know if I grew up, but yes, I watched them early in my life. Oh my gosh, I love those movies. And I just can't help but wonder, you know... [28:57] when the robots are coming for us. So, uh... [29:00] Incredible technology. [29:03] Might be coming for us at some point. SkyNet is being built right now.

SkyNet is coming. [29:08] So there's a there's going to be a really great takeaway around this before we get to that one. Actually, it's like every single one is so interesting. I'm just like, man, this one's interesting, but they're all interesting. Let's get to the next takeaway around people's sense of their own career and whether they recommend it. [29:22] This is a wild one for me, because at least within the research community, I am known as the net promoter score hater. [29:31] I even built a website dedicated to fighting NPS,

com. [29:39] Kind of fetch on that. [29:41] It's an actual website. Fun fact, by the way, I dislike NPS so much that I even brought the domain com and I forward people from that to com. That's how committed I am. [29:57] to fighting NPS. But... [29:59] But you and I were both genuinely curious. [30:04] About... [30:05] whether people who are already a few years in [30:09] and there may be senior or above senior in their roles. [30:13] what would they say to the person [30:16] entering the industry now. [30:18] Or what would they say to a person considering entering the industry now?

Would they recommend their role and the tech industry more broadly? [30:27] to a friend [30:28] or relative of theirs, [30:31] And the answer is, [30:33] was shocking. [30:35] Absolutely shocking. So let me show you [30:39] the data around this and let me [30:41] 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. [30:56] right? And the scale goes from zero to 10. [31:01] 10 being you would absolutely recommend your role, and zero being you would absolutely not recommend your role.

But then NPS as a whole, when it's calculated, goes from minus 100... [31:14] which is absolutely terrible, to plus... [31:17] one hundred. [31:19] and the zero point [31:21] represents neutrality. [31:23] It represents that the sample as a whole is neutral, [31:27] It's not a promoter. [31:30] to use NPS speak. [31:33] meaning I would promote my role to other people. I would recommend it to other people. And they're not detractors either, which means I'm not negative about my role. [31:42] So that's the zero point. [31:44] What you're seeing here [31:47] is that no one [31:49] is a promoter of their role in tech right now.

Not even founders... [31:55] who are by far the happiest... [31:58] Happy-go-lucky people. [32:00] in tech right now. [32:02] founders would not recommend their roles. Neither would people in sales or go to market, PMs, operations, engineering, and the worst of all, [32:11] designers and researchers [32:14] my community [32:15] are the least likely. [32:17] to recommend their role to other people coming into tech. [32:21] It's sort of like saying, you know, I'm kind of – [32:25] swimming in this pool, [32:27] The water's kind of okay, but you shouldn't come into these tech waters.

[32:31] They ain't for you. [32:34] My God, what an interesting... [32:36] 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 [32:46] Like, you know, [32:47] We're going to talk about how founders are the happiest people in tech. [32:50] But still, it's like a very stressful hard job. [32:53] Uh, [32:54] I'm surprised it's the least. You would think many founders would be the craziest... [33:00] gnarliest job you should not do this sucks but it's interesting they're the least [33:04] Unhappy, but they're the least likely to recommend.

[33:07] 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. [33:17] There's a ton of conversations around the solopreneur. [33:21] or the duopreneur, right? So there's a ton of conversations around how this is the era. [33:28] to be a founder. [33:29] And yet people who are currently in that role [33:32] aren't very excited about recommending it to other people. There's also another layer to this, which is [33:38] As you go... [33:41] down in seniority [33:43] you're less likely to recommend your role.

So execs, VPs, [33:49] maybe even directors... [33:51] are sort of [33:53] more likely to recommend their role than people who are [33:57] Prices. [33:58] That's an interesting one. I've seen all sorts of explanations [34:02] for that [34:03] One explanation, for example, is that [34:07] 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. [34:21] Whereas ICs are each scrambling to build all of these micro SaaS products within the companies they work for, no one knows what anyone else is doing.

[34:34] There's also a duplicative... [34:36] work. [34:37] It's a lot easier to build products these days, but a lot harder to maintain them. [34:44] And so I think a lot of I sees a feeling like there's a saying, [34:48] 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 anywhere. I think that that's the feeling that lots of ICs are having these days with these technologies. Like I keep building these things. [35:02] but I'm not having the impact I want.

[35:05] Everyone else is building to... [35:07] There's a lot of confusion. [35:09] And it's just not worth it anymore. [35:12] There's like this interesting also trend, you know, there's this whole idea. [35:16] meme of don't become part of the permanent underclass. [35:20] And I feel like there's like a few of these threads throughout this. In here, it's like... [35:24] Okay, I'm like a PM, but like it's too late. [35:27] don't do this. Like the door is closing for this role. Things are changing. [35:31] And that's not just PM, it's every role.

[35:33] Everyone's just like, maybe should do something else. [35:36] Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think it's unfortunate that [35:41] I... [35:43] I feel like [35:44] in the past... [35:45] people were pushed to CS to learn to code. [35:52] I know that these days, for myself as a parent, you know, I don't know what to... [35:58] 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... [36:05] confusing times and I think tech employees are feeling that as well [36:10] they don't understand what's in line for them in the future.

So they certainly don't know to recommend to others like, yeah, you know, in five years, [36:19] It's going to be great. [36:20] Get into plastics. Yeah. It's like no one knows. It's just like, just like zoom out for a moment. It's just... [36:27] It's so insane how much change we're living through right now. [36:31] This is not a result we would have seen a year or two ago. [36:35] This is like [36:36] so unstable and [36:40] uncertain and this is very new for for people in tech i think [36:45] Yeah.

[36:46] I like to use certain... [36:49] Uh... [36:51] metaphors or sort of examples from, you know, other areas in my life to explain these things. So, [37:01] I believe you spoke in the past to Scott Wu, the co-founder of Cognition. Mm-hmm. [37:07] Yeah, Ben. [37:08] And they are the makers of Devon. [37:12] And I recall that when he described the product, he talked about this... [37:17] This ladder. [37:19] that the product progressed on. It went from a high school CS student to a college intern, [37:26] to a junior engineer and at this point probably a senior or staff level engineer [37:32] I would say...

[37:33] that we are all [37:35] watching this technology, [37:38] Climb the rungs. [37:40] of this ladder [37:42] and advance. And we feel like the technology is pulling those rungs from under us. [37:49] And so... [37:50] The further we've gone up, the lads are the better we feel about [37:54] our careers and the more stability we have. But the lower we are on that ladder, those rungs getting pulled under our feet. [38:03] And so it makes a lot of sense that we wouldn't recommend, you know, being on that ladder to anyone else because the lungs are disappearing.

[38:11] Man, there's so much to talk about with all these, 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, it's interesting that sales and PM are the least important. [38:23] uh, [38:23] bad at don't get into this role. Like, [38:27] That's interesting. I did not. I wouldn't expect that. [38:29] Salespeople. [38:30] Not as scared about the future of the role PM. Interesting. That's a big audience here. Not as scared. [38:36] As you said, research design, the most don't do this.

[38:41] As a researcher, you touched on this a little bit, but I'm just curious, how does it feel seeing this? [38:45] seeing this result. [38:48] It's tough. I think the research community has lived with a lot of [38:55] concerns and trauma and anxiety over the years around having a seat at the table, [39:03] around finding meaning in our work, [39:07] around topics like the democratization of research and, you know, other people taking on our roles and eventually – [39:16] replacing us, it definitely hurts a lot. [39:19] to see this. I think that's a very important role...

[39:22] that research process, [39:24] needs to play. [39:26] in the future of building products [39:29] I think that as this technology progressive, we should become... [39:33] "'Even more thoughtful.' [39:35] about [39:36] what we built rather 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've heard this in a recent conversation. [39:49] as well [39:51] I would suggest that [39:53] 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, and design, [40:01] has a very important part to play. [40:03] in raising the ceiling of what's possible. Whereas AI has mostly lowered the bar, but it hasn't [40:12] hasn't raised the ceiling. I can also tell you that [40:16] PMs being... [40:18] somewhat more likely to recommend their roles, even though they're not likely to recommend their roles. [40:24] does actually make sense to me [40:26] 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 AI era.

[40:37] I'm the most surprised by sales and go to market, because if we are indeed in some sort of sasspocalypse, which I don't personally believe we are, but, you know, it's been said... [40:47] then I don't think sales and go-to-market people should be feeling too great about recommending their roles. [40:56] But maybe they believe that, you know, sales at this point... [41:00] cannot be done [41:02] by AI. Yeah, there's just like so much I want to talk about here. 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. [41:13] This is just saying people in that role right now [41:15] the narrative in their head is [41:18] Don't do this. [41:19] does not mean this is over. [41:22] Because it could just be all this hype that we keep hearing. Just like, you know, I'm guilty of... [41:28] adding to it from various guests. But, you know, this is just how people feel. It doesn't mean this is what's happening. [41:34] 100% this entire [41:36] unique project in tech. [41:39] is all about how people feel [41:41] it's not about the realities of working in tech.

It's about people's emotions, about how people feel, [41:46] 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... [41:55] an image of reality. This is an image of how people are feeling in tech right now. [42:00] Another quick data point that we want to make sure to communicate here, you touched on this, but I don't know if you actually made this as clear to people as it should be, is... [42:08] So this is looking at would you get it?

Would you recommend people get into my role? We also asked just how are you feeling about your role? [42:16] Like, are you happy being in this role? And the result there was... [42:19] I'm actually doing okay. I'm happy. I'm happy to design a researcher. So as you said, it's this kind of like the water's fine, but don't get in. [42:26] Talk a little bit about that just to make sure that point is clear. [42:28] When we ask people things like, are they... [42:33] enjoying their job, as we talked about earlier.

Most people said that overall, yes, you know, they're having fun in their role. [42:45] I think what's going on here is that [42:48] Again, people are... [42:50] lacking optimism compared to what they were, right? Optimism has gone down. [42:55] So there's a big difference between... [42:57] how people are feeling now... [42:59] about their role given what they've achieved in their careers and where they are on the ladder. [43:06] compared to what they're extrapolating might happen [43:11] in a year, in three years, in five years. [43:14] And what people are extrapolating might happen is clearly [43:18] more negative than their current experiences.

So yeah, I mean, [43:22] All in all, we're doing okay as an industry. We're enjoying, we're trying new things, we're experiencing... [43:29] complete paradigm shift. [43:32] in how we work. [43:35] And that's fun. [43:36] For a while, [43:38] But it seems like people feel like this is not going in the best of... [43:43] directions. And of course, I hope we're all bonk. [43:46] I hope we're all well. [43:47] Me too. As a natural optimist, I'm like... [43:50] It's going to be all right. [43:51] So we'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 [44:00] get to some of that as well. [44:02] This episode is brought to you by Mercury. Radically different banking loved by over 300,000 entrepreneurs and now with command. I've been a customer of Mercury's for over six years. I have never once thought about leaving. Mercury is basically what happens when banking is built by product people, not by bankers. They make it so easy, dare I say fun, to send invoices, move money around, set up virtual cards for folks on my team.

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10 seconds later, I have an answer. It is so freaking cool. Visit com to learn more and apply online in minutes. Mercury is a fintech [45:11] group. [45:12] and Column, members FDIC. [45:15] Let's talk about takeaway four. Looked at productivity, looked at quality, [45:19] Look at just kind of the upside of AI. [45:22] This was a very interesting one to me. In last year's survey that we did on the impact of AI specifically on productivity and quality, [45:34] People were rather bullish about the technology and how much better it makes them, not just more efficient.

[45:41] but better and this time around we saw some some interesting findings let me start with with this [45:50] And this is sort of the initial view, but it leads to something very different than I thought would happen. When we simply ask the question, how much better are you at your job thanks to AI? [46:01] Unequivocally, the answer was yes. You can see here that 97.2% of people are saying that AI is making them better at [46:10] their job. And close to 50% of people are saying that AI is making them very much or extremely [46:17] Besser.

[46:18] at [46:19] their job. So it's very clear, [46:21] that high-level... [46:24] however you interpret better, which we'll get to in a second, people feel like AI has had [46:29] and impact but when you dive deeper [46:32] into what that means and you go below the surface level as you can see here [46:38] We're doing better [46:41] actually means something rather different than what [46:45] you might think. So when I heard people say they're doing better... [46:49] I thought... [46:50] They meant that literally I thought the quality of their work,

[46:54] was better, that AI was contributing to better quality of work. [46:57] In fact, it's the exact same. [46:59] opposite. [47:00] What we heard from people were two concerning things. [47:04] The first is that [47:06] I can do more. [47:07] faster [47:08] but not better. [47:10] So again, AI is sort of [47:12] lowered the floor of what's possible and enabled people to put out a lot more work [47:19] than they ever have before, whatever that work is, whether it's PRs, PRDs, research projects, prototypes. [47:27] But they're not [47:28] the output is [47:30] isn't of [47:32] Higher quality [47:34] And perhaps the even more concerning effect, which we heard about, the deeper cost of [47:39] of all of this.

[47:41] is the cost... [47:42] of [47:44] using AI on thinking and judgment. [47:48] People essentially told us, my brain is rotting. [47:52] My work feels... [47:54] worse. [47:55] And this is related to [47:58] phenomenon [47:59] I've heard about recently, like, is it cognitive rot? [48:03] I think is what I've heard recently. [48:07] Basically, this phenomenon where... [48:10] you sort of see the initial output of... [48:13] an AI model [48:16] And you sort of just accept it [48:18] you don't apply your judgment to it, you don't apply your thinking, [48:21] to which [48:22] And you slowly...

[48:24] Let your mind, your involvement in your work, your agency sort of collapse into this environment. [48:33] rotting state, so to speak. [48:36] Yeah, this is such an interesting takeaway. Just 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. [48:48] And nearly 50% say very much or extremely better, which may correlate with that original, just the spifurcation. Like the people that feel like AI is making them better at their job, probably the people feel like most energized.

[48:58] So whether it's true or not, [49:01] So I think there's a couple of happy points. That's one. People feel AI is making them better. They feel that. So that's, you know, that's real, even if it may not be. [49:09] And at the same time, I think they're self-aware. The quality is... [49:13] 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 that this is happening not just I'm killing it all my stuff is higher quality and it's much better than ever.

[49:28] 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. [49:35] on this [49:37] 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 possible. [49:47] Perfect. [49:48] And, you know, the best thing that ever happened to us since sliced bread or whatever typical Americans say was,