Stability is the new status symbol. But we won’t find true stability in a credential, career ladder, or industry. We will find it in ourselves, our craft, and our people. The stability that lasts will come from closer in.
This hit hard ! Solid point....sort of like investing the minimum viable stability of home, friends and self when outside world is free falling !
“You get to feel safe and righteous at the same time. That’s a hard combination to walk away from. For now at least, being inside the thing that will replace you still feels better than being outside it”
I left a tech startup that I was at for two years to work as a server in a restaurant. I realize it’s not financially sound, but my mental health has definitely improved drastically. Having something very personal, like my passion for building things, used to create capital for a world that commoditizes the entire internet, without permission from the creators of the content, and then sells it back to you in the form of chatbot services, burned me out to say the least.
I haven’t coded for 6 months now or applied for any other jobs in tech because I just have no desire to right now. Instead of building my portfolio I would rather just code something pointless and fun when I get back into it.
“If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.” — I feel like with all the doom and gloom, we underestimate the value of living in the present and doing what’s right for us personally.
Lol yes. I quit my job to be a full time solopreneur back in October. So I'm as risk-on as can be right now. 😅
So with the risks of being a solopreneur, as well all the AI/macroeconomy fears, I want to stack as much cash as possible. Is it optimal? No.
But it helps me sleep at night. And like Morgan Housel shares, if doing the irrational thing helps you sleep at night, that's fine. I'm optimizing for stability and security, not for maximizing returns.
"We live inside the tech bubble, so we forget that most people don’t want to make their own apps, let alone anything else they use, if they can avoid it. Even if personalization is sexy, the gold standard of every kind of thing will still build fandoms; that pull will be both an edge and an incentive to keep improving it."
There is also another problem - reliability. I don't think most people wanna deal with databases and stuff like that. Even if you create a product for yourself, you must ensure that the data won't disappear at any random moment.
Great perspective. The whole economy is starting to feel like the later parts of a game of Jenga where we aspire higher while the structural stability gets less sound. I, like many, used to take stability for granted. There would always be decent jobs that paid a living wage for those willing to work hard right? Especially if you got a degree. Well that turns out to be much less steady ground than we were promised. I see a lot and think a lot myself about controlling expenses to fabricate stability through a reduction in needs but, with rising prices and a weakening dollar, that seems less promising by the day. Risk seems more necessary than ever as there is no path without risk now that everything is tied to a tech vertical that eats itself every few years. Crazy time to be alive.
well said - increasingly seems clear that controlling expenses, which was once a strategy that let you realize the American Dream, no longer works with the way we’ve set up new society and wages vs. prices - don’t save more, make more - but the making is in threat … we are humans so we will scramble to find security somewhere and hope for systems to stabilize
Good one! This reminds me of Indian parents who wants their kids to join in Google or some big companies to have secure and powerful jobs. The ending is thought-provoking.
Ha, I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about how, suddenly, the 9-to-5 job my mom did at one government company her entire life suddenly seems like an amazing flex. About five years back, it would have sounded so boring to me. Now, however, given I'm getting older and the world is changing so rapidly, it feels like the ultimate stable, happy setup. It gave her purpose while also allowing her time to spend with her family without thinking about work beyond those hours, and it helped her financially as well. Sure, she didn't have a massive upside of getting super rich, but then maybe that isn't a metric that's gonna make you happy anyway.
Agreed, think we’ll a modern version of this become aspirational, for some ideally more on the frontier so it’s less readily made obsolete, and still opportunity for upside it feels like
This really crystalized the grief of chasing the known path of getting educated, getting a degree, getting a job, and climbing the career ladder, only to realize that it will probably no longer exist. We humans are always good at adapting, but it now seems that for the first time, we are unable to catch up to the mess that we have created. Amazing read!
🙏 collectively we will figure it out, but there’s always collateral damage in these shifts, so surviving that unfortunately is an individual game - good to have a tribe to navigate!
Stability is the new status symbol. But we won’t find true stability in a credential, career ladder, or industry. We will find it in ourselves, our craft, and our people. The stability that lasts will come from closer in.
This hit hard ! Solid point....sort of like investing the minimum viable stability of home, friends and self when outside world is free falling !
🤝
“You get to feel safe and righteous at the same time. That’s a hard combination to walk away from. For now at least, being inside the thing that will replace you still feels better than being outside it”
I left a tech startup that I was at for two years to work as a server in a restaurant. I realize it’s not financially sound, but my mental health has definitely improved drastically. Having something very personal, like my passion for building things, used to create capital for a world that commoditizes the entire internet, without permission from the creators of the content, and then sells it back to you in the form of chatbot services, burned me out to say the least.
I haven’t coded for 6 months now or applied for any other jobs in tech because I just have no desire to right now. Instead of building my portfolio I would rather just code something pointless and fun when I get back into it.
“If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.” — I feel like with all the doom and gloom, we underestimate the value of living in the present and doing what’s right for us personally.
Good luck out there y’all!
No words of disagreement, funnily enough this would feel like the most risky thing for many people to do, I wrote some words on a similar thread … https://www.workingtheorys.com/p/pursuits-that-cant-scale
I love it - long time reader here, but I can feel the shift you're sharing.
Even as my wife and I talk through our finances, I am over-indexing on cash just because of how unstable everything feels. It's a rocky place to be.
🙏 any career specific changes or thoughts? the cash fear is real but I think linked to more geopolitical / macroeconomy instability?
Lol yes. I quit my job to be a full time solopreneur back in October. So I'm as risk-on as can be right now. 😅
So with the risks of being a solopreneur, as well all the AI/macroeconomy fears, I want to stack as much cash as possible. Is it optimal? No.
But it helps me sleep at night. And like Morgan Housel shares, if doing the irrational thing helps you sleep at night, that's fine. I'm optimizing for stability and security, not for maximizing returns.
"We live inside the tech bubble, so we forget that most people don’t want to make their own apps, let alone anything else they use, if they can avoid it. Even if personalization is sexy, the gold standard of every kind of thing will still build fandoms; that pull will be both an edge and an incentive to keep improving it."
There is also another problem - reliability. I don't think most people wanna deal with databases and stuff like that. Even if you create a product for yourself, you must ensure that the data won't disappear at any random moment.
agreed, the subconscious criteria for trusting a product with important things is that it will work and persist
Great perspective. The whole economy is starting to feel like the later parts of a game of Jenga where we aspire higher while the structural stability gets less sound. I, like many, used to take stability for granted. There would always be decent jobs that paid a living wage for those willing to work hard right? Especially if you got a degree. Well that turns out to be much less steady ground than we were promised. I see a lot and think a lot myself about controlling expenses to fabricate stability through a reduction in needs but, with rising prices and a weakening dollar, that seems less promising by the day. Risk seems more necessary than ever as there is no path without risk now that everything is tied to a tech vertical that eats itself every few years. Crazy time to be alive.
well said - increasingly seems clear that controlling expenses, which was once a strategy that let you realize the American Dream, no longer works with the way we’ve set up new society and wages vs. prices - don’t save more, make more - but the making is in threat … we are humans so we will scramble to find security somewhere and hope for systems to stabilize
Good one! This reminds me of Indian parents who wants their kids to join in Google or some big companies to have secure and powerful jobs. The ending is thought-provoking.
There are flavors of that but the ‘kids’ are the seekers themselves, New Corporate is ideally still at the frontier
Ultimately, it comes down to what you are optimizing your life for.
The wickedly talented Anu delivers again. Can't wait for pt.2 when you strike back with another solid piece.
🙏
Omg so so many thoughts like thank you for another banger
🙏🙏
Ha, I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about how, suddenly, the 9-to-5 job my mom did at one government company her entire life suddenly seems like an amazing flex. About five years back, it would have sounded so boring to me. Now, however, given I'm getting older and the world is changing so rapidly, it feels like the ultimate stable, happy setup. It gave her purpose while also allowing her time to spend with her family without thinking about work beyond those hours, and it helped her financially as well. Sure, she didn't have a massive upside of getting super rich, but then maybe that isn't a metric that's gonna make you happy anyway.
Agreed, think we’ll a modern version of this become aspirational, for some ideally more on the frontier so it’s less readily made obsolete, and still opportunity for upside it feels like
This really crystalized the grief of chasing the known path of getting educated, getting a degree, getting a job, and climbing the career ladder, only to realize that it will probably no longer exist. We humans are always good at adapting, but it now seems that for the first time, we are unable to catch up to the mess that we have created. Amazing read!
🙏 collectively we will figure it out, but there’s always collateral damage in these shifts, so surviving that unfortunately is an individual game - good to have a tribe to navigate!
Thank you 🙏
🤝
Another Anu banger. This one hits very close to home.
🙏 would love a round table on this …
Thought-provoking as usual, thank you!
🙏 thanks for reading
this was one heck of a read
thanks for reading!
this essay is missing the point by a mile.
It is never about stability .Agency is more powerful than ever. AI labs is about optionality and not stability.
Optionality seeking is self-protection
misses the point. Self protection is defensive. Agency is generative. Optionality is agency.