The hottest new spot for tech workers is their therapist's couch.
A combination of layoffs, AI, and massive paydays has Silicon Valley questioning … everything.
BI's Tracy Connor spoke to Silicon Valley therapists about how the people building the next great tech revolution are feeling pretty rattled.
Tech workers have always had plenty of complaints about their jobs — from the long hours to the industry's cutthroat nature. But now they're getting a front-row seat to the disruption their inventions can cause, which can manifest in colleagues getting the boot.
One therapist called it "complicity grief."
How quickly this is happening has only exacerbated the problem. As we covered in The Great Coding Reset series, new AI models released late last year changed what many in the industry believed was possible in just a few weeks.
Even those who've reached their professional peaks are struggling. The post-IPO glow doesn't last long when you realize chasing the dream was a way to mask bigger problems, Bay Area psychotherapist Annie Wright said.
"Work is the most socially acceptable addiction," Wright told Tracy.
AI's still giving the rest of us plenty to worry about.
A top concern for employees and their bosses is how to evaluate people's AI use, writes BI's Amanda Hoover.
AI leaderboards and tokenmaxxing have fallen out of favor, forcing companies to get creative when grading workers' AI usage.
A big reason is that, to put it mildly, no one knows what the hell they're doing.
A hypothetical AI directive might go a little something like this:
You definitely need to use AI. Just don't use it too much. We have a budget to consider. Unless it saves us a ton of money, which would be good. But we don't really know how to measure that either, so any help on that front would be great too.
The best evidence that everyone's figuring things out on the fly is what some executives told Amanda they value most: an employee who teaches their colleagues the best way to use AI.