Dammit, they’re gonna buy up all the remote small farms.
yup this is me, 25 years in the industry and I’m getting out for my birthday in October. I can’t do it anymore, sick of it. I had hoped that CTOs and various managers would have turned their backs on ai agents after the absolute cluster fuck they’ve all collectively witnessed first hand but no, they doubled and tripled down. I’ve lost hope.
I’ve lost hope of a bubble bursting and what have you. I don’t think it’s going happen now. months ago I said “any day now” but how I’ve seen them all dig their feet in they’re in for the long haul regardless of what it will cost them. they’re all in too deep and are going to make this thing “work” even if it kills people.
So I’m out. Good luck to everyone else, but i have no more faith.
They’re asking us to scale back our usage.
I give it another year. The markets are souring on it, big time. Unless something big and good happens w/ spaceX (because retail investors are underwater on that) the next set of AI IPOs are going to be a disaster.
Ask yourself why all these companies are scrambling to IPO now. Thier investors see the writing on the wall: it isn’t going to happen. The breakthrough. The singularity. An army of virtual workers with the ability to actually do the job. The only thing left for investors to do is push the IPOs to get any kind of return.
They think we’re at a peak of perceived value, and a higher plateau isn’t anywhere in the foreseeable future. Judging by how quickly ALL these private companies are suddenly interested in IPOs, I actually think they think they’ve passed the peak already and are sliding.
You gotta understand, the C-Suite, even the CTO, need to collectively “paint a picture” for investors. And that is art, and art is subjective. If investors wanna hear “we are prepared to leverage a new technology so that we can remain competitive”, then you gotta paint that picture. The buy in, the double down… take it for what it’s worth.
Did you think your C-Suite has ever actually been honest with you about plans, priorities, the value proposition of your work… anything really? Don’t ever confuse what they “say” with what the actually think or believe.
You SHOULD quit, I WISH I was in a position to do so. I’d spin by we could crack a cold one. Hella jealous.
Just like… for your soul… don’t think this is the new normal. Some neat and good and useful stuff is going to come out of this… but the impact that this tech will have on the workforce is being wildly overestimated.
I hope to be on that path. I’m in my 40s and tired of the grind. Nowhere close to retirement yet, but I am likely on track to pay off my house early in the next two years (maybe 7 years into a 30 year mortgage) which will go a long way.
I’m saving as much as I can and hoping I can retire lean in my mid or late 50s.
Right now though all I can think of is that I need a sabbatical after my current job ends (either layoffs or just quitting) because I really need a break.
Best of luck to you. I’m in a similar boat, but thankful I have a good job I don’t dread that makes an effort to take good care of me. I’m on track to retire in my 50’s, but if my investments do better than expected and I hit my number earlier, I’m out.
But I’ve also never understood why anyone works longer than they need to if they have the means to live comfortably in the first place.
Institutionalization.
It’s like that one movie…pretty sure its Shawshank Redemption? There’s that one guy that gets out of jail and then commits suicide in a few months or so, because he can’t handle the real world after spending most of their life in jail.
I think work operates in a similar way…but the cruelty of the trap is that the things that make life worth living, i.e. hobbies, friends, a life outside of work, etc. kind of interferes with your ability to get that high level income you need for early retirement.
I think a lot of people that work even though they have the means to live comfortably for the rest of their lives are there because…work is their entire life. They have nothing outside of it. No purpose.
We talk about retirement as a question of resources: do we have the financial resources to live x years? What we don’t talk about is every other resource. Social, emotional, physical (in the does your body work sense) etc. Sure, you’ve got the house and the money…but your friends are all at work, and making new ones is pretty hard…even if you manage to make bank and retire in your mid 30s.
But I’ve also never understood why anyone works longer than they need to if they have the means to live comfortably in the first place.
In the USA one of the best reasons to keep working is the healthcare gap before Medicare kicks in.
Also, when you’re approaching “early retirement age” you’re likely at the peak of your earning potential. Working 1 more year could be equal to 3x or 4x a single year of retirement spending.
Another thing happens when you’re still working but you don’t absolutely need to. You recognize working is optional and you can take the risk and push back on work you don’t like. It gives you the power to take the risk. If you get fired, you’re already set up to continue life without working. This makes the work itself usually much more pleasant/tolerant so there’s a lower desire to quit early.
Depending who we are talking about, good riddance.
Will be missed- The jaded technical guy who has 3 decades of institutional knowledge and can sight read machine code like its the Matrix.
Won’t be missed- The middle management corpo-speak fat fuck with turkey waddle jowls, spouting the latest efficiency reminders from his SVP (so he hits his own compensation-linked performance targets) while struggling to find the right button to screenshare on the Teams call.
The first group is leaving, they do not want to teach AI
Yup, the second group were always the corporate survivors, willing to do anything to keep their (and if needed, only their) jobs.
To be fair, doing anything in teams is hard
… retirement?
I thought we were just gonna lose our jobs and be societally murdered instead.
Some of us in the mid career point actually have. Nothing like back to back to back societal issues fucking your entire life
I have come close to home ownership 3 times. Its just not supposed to happen. I just want to fit A/C…
I’m in this statistic already and found your last bit comforting knowing that it at least will end.
For real though a lot of us are also fed up and starting our own boutique i.t things these days.
Yeah, its the only thing I’m actually good at and I write code for the sake of the game, it just happens to be that I get paid for it
When the jobs go, I’ll be still writing code for the game of it.
If I’m being paid to, great. No idea what I’ll be doing if there’s no demand in the post-collapse.
Either AI gets great and I’m unneccisary, or its just outsourcing slop again like 2012… Either way I’ll be writing better code without the AI slop…
It’s never been a better time to cash out those 401ks full of tech stocks.
Well, maybe six months ago. Or pretty much any time before March.
DOW is back over 51k. That means everything is good and nobody is allowed to complain.
FYI, DOW doesn’t stand for anything. “Dow” is commonly used to refer to the “Dow Jones Industrial Average.”
And yet, you knew what they meant.
Sure, this time I managed to figure it out. Next time they screw up an acronym, somebody else might not.
Dow stands for Charlies Dow, the co-founder of Dow Jones & Company.
No, his name is Dow. DOW doesn’t stand for anything.
DOW is just his name in capital letters
THIS IS JUST A COMMENT IN CAPITAL LETTERS
Don’t bother with that user. They were arguing a few days ago that the economy is fine, that the current stock values weren’t intentionally pumped and that Trump didn’t straight fuck the market back in 2025 by applying tarrifs to our trade partners.
Edit: ah there it is, another string of down votes on my comments lol, keep it up fuckass I dare you
Ah, so that’s why I have them tagged as “fascist simp.”
QQQ and VOO are both up handsomely year-to-date.
paywalled. heres an archive https://archive.ph/EXPAp
Being frugal, doing certifications at a young age, being in cyber security (high salary even within tech) and investing almost everything I earned, and being privileged (coming from a financially stable family, getting a highschool education, having a computer from an early age, etc) means that at 25 I essentially didn’t have to worry about how much I earn anymore and could just do what I want (still need to earn some money so that I wouldn’t start chipping at my savings) and know that as long as there isn’t some crazy financial collapse, my savings should be able to casually grow into a retirement on their own.
I recognize that I am really lucky to have gotten the opportunities that I then used to the best of my abilities. I am still living very frugally (in general, but extremely compared to my coworkers) but to some degree that is in my nature. I still find myself sometimes deep diving into my finances to make sure I am correct in my predictions and budget as it is insane to me that I was able to do this.
Important notes for why this is even possible, on top of the stated reasons above:
- I don’t intend to ever buy property, even if I could. I will rent until my parents pass away, after that, I might reconsider. (Long term this is the best financial option as investing in stocks yields generally more for less risk, and for now I don’t have a place that I want to “settle down” in)
- I am child free and have invested around $3K to get a vasectomy (yes, I see it as an investment to avoid unwanted and expensive consequences, plus it basically pays itself back after a decade of not needing other forms of birth control) So no huge budgetary lifestyle changes expected until my health deteriorates.
I’d be curious to know your logic why renting is cheaper than buying.
To explain: Even disregarding that a later sale price is an intrinsic inflation recoup, paying a mortgage also means any principle is recouped on sale, meaning only interest is the actual monthly “rent” after a sale, maybe decades later. Finally it’s rare property value doesn’t go up, which also reduces the costs. Despite all these benefits, you still found renting and investing the difference gave better returns?
I guess it is a varying thing. Where I am from, the housing market in basically any place that isn’t super remote is already insane, buying basically any property in the region I am living in currently would cost me about 80% of my money as a down payment. I would have to work for about another decade just to get back to the same amount of savings, but the housing market is so crazy that I really have no idea where it will be a decade from now, there is a very real possibility of a collapse that will devalue the property. The advantages of renting for me are basically:
- I am okay with extremely tiny homes, so I am able to rent an apartment that was illegally split and because it is tiny the rent is very low (and no roommates which is great) (my current place is 15m² or 160ft² or 1.2 Cybertrucks or 5 golf carts or 1200 big macs)
- I am still not settled on which region I want to live in for the long term, so renting gives me the flexibility to move as I need
- Being a landlord sucks and I don’t want to do that
- my current savings being invested make significantly more revenue than any rent I would be able to take from any property within my price range.
- The stock market is low commitment and variable in both size and risk of investment. If I fear that there might be a financial collapse soon I can sell my stocks and buy something else (other stocks, gold, monero, cash, etc) while if a housing crisis seems to start, selling my house would take weeks-months.
If somehow I find myself really settling down in a specific area, and find a really good deal, I still might do it, but I really really doubt, it will only happen if it is a really good deal on a place that I really want to live in.
All fair points, thank you for sharing. I guess in a crazy overvalued property market, the huge mortgage down payment does make the biggest difference since compound returns on that same investment could be huge in the stock market (until of course an AI crash wipes out all our investments and retirement accounts). In a less overvalued market property may make more sense.
I want 5 more years. That’s all.
I really hate what this industry has become.
@sanitation, one thing that gets underweighted in the ‘early retirement’ conversation is that human capital — basically the present value of future earnings — is itself a bond-like asset on most people’s balance sheets. Tech workers walking away in their 50s are removing a large, relatively stable income stream earlier than planned, which changes the math on how much equity risk the financial portfolio should carry. Counterintuitively, that might argue for less equity exposure initially, not more. We wrote up the human-capital-to-portfolio handoff framework at https://cxgo.ai/l/JSt4tMF if it’s relevant to where the thread is going. Research content only, not financial advice. Investing involves risk.
