Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:24:55 · Lenny Rachitsky, Noam Segal
[00:24:55] S1: And this is another data point at the end of this, that you have a bunch of recommendations of what to do with all this information, and that connects to something that you recommend later. ... what to do with all this information, and that connects to something that you recommend later. But before we get there, one of the other really interesting takeaways was around layoffs and how layoffs impact fear of layoffs impact burnout. Talk about that. [00:25:14] S0: We did ask people how worried they are about being 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 cutting the branch that they're sitting on when it comes to using AI. People are reporting that their company's 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 worry level is 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 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.
00:25:14 · Noam Segal, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:25:14] S0: We did ask people how worried they are about being 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 cutting the branch that they're sitting on when it comes to using AI. People are reporting that their company's 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 worry level is 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 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. [00:26:30] S1: I feel a lot of people listening are probably feeling all this and feeling heard. So what's interesting is so far the two takeaways. One is this bifurcation that's happening, and these archetypes that break that group up a little bit further. At the same time, just broadly, burnout is increasing significantly. Optimism is declining. Talk about just those two, 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. My people are having a really bad time, but then broadly, this optimism and burnout shift.
00:27:03 · Noam Segal, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:27:03] S0: I think there's something addictive about this technology, and I'll speak for myself for a second and say that I've also never had as much fun in my career as when 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 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 these days, whether that's an official thing within a company or not. And so I think that naturally this leads to these clashing emotions, these exciting feelings around what's possible, and how fun it is to use 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 grow up on The Terminator movies? I keep thinking about The Terminator movies with time- [00:28:49] S1: I don't know about growing up, but yes, I watched them early in my life.
00:28:49 · Lenny Rachitsky, Noam Segal
[00:28:49] S1: I don't know about growing up, but yes, I watched them early in my life. [00:28:52] S0: Oh my gosh, I love those movies, and I just can't help but wonder when the robots are coming for us. So incredible technology might be coming for us at some point. [00:29:04] S1: Skynet is being built right now. [00:29:07] S0: Skynet is coming. [00:29:08] S1: So 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. [00:29:23] S0: 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 to fighting NPS, npsistheworst.com. [00:29:39] S1: That an actual website? [00:29:40] S0: It's an actual website. Fun fact, by the way, I dislike NPS so much that I even brought to the domain npsisthebest.com, and I forward people from that to npsistheworst.com. That's how committed I am to fighting NPS. [00:29:58] S1: Amazing.
00:30:00 · Noam Segal
[00:30:00] S0: But you and I were both genuinely curious about whether people who are already a few years in and they may be senior or above senior in their roles, what would they say to the person entering the industry now? Or what would they say to a person considering entering the industry now? Would they recommend their role 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 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 zero to 10, 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, which is absolutely terrible, to plus 100. And the zero point represents neutrality, it represents that the sample as a whole is neutral. It's not a promoter to use NPS speak, 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, so that's the zero point. What you are 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 tech right now. Founders would not recommend their 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, "I'm kind of swimming in this pool. The water's kind of okay, but you shouldn't come into these tech waters, they ain't for you."
00:32:33 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:32:33] S1: Oh my God, what an interesting takeaway and part of this research. So I'm just looking at this chart just as people are seeing this. Everyone's like, "Nope, don't do what I do." It's interesting. We're going to talk about how founders are the happiest people in tech, but still it's a very stressful, hard job. I'm surprised it's the least. You would think many founders would be like, "This is the craziest, gnarliest job. You should not do this, it sucks." But it's interesting they're the least likely to recommend.