The year tech jobs stopped being easy

Hi all, it’s Sarah Frier in San Francisco. Tech jobs over the last decade gained a reputation for being lucrative, comfortable and stable. T [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [by Sarah Frier]( Hi all, it’s Sarah Frier in San Francisco. Tech jobs over the last decade gained a reputation for being lucrative, comfortable and stable. This year changed that. But first… Three things you need to know today: - Micron is optimistic about the [memory chip market](. - Activision's longtime chief said [goodbye]( to his staff. - Swisscom eyes a bid for [Vodafone Italy](. Need a job? The rise of tech giants like Google and Facebook ushered in the era of coddled tech workers: Engineers nestled in perfect habitats for producing code, with all their major needs met – snacks, artisan coffee, outdoor space, pingpong. And low interest rates created an insatiable appetite for high-risk, high-reward investing, fueling another kind of tech character: the employee who joined a startup early enough to get a major windfall from an eventual acquisition or initial public offering. The archetypes are so familiar they’ve been spoofed in movies and [TV shows](, where the modern-day all-powerful [villain]( is a tech bro. The pandemic supercharged tech firms’ growth, as the work-from-home class relied even more on mobile devices and e-commerce. But in 2023, tech jobs suddenly became quite unstable. In several rounds of cuts this year, Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook, laid off [thousands]( of people, including some of its highly paid [managers](, citing the need for greater efficiency in a tough economic environment. So did Google owner [Alphabet Inc.](, [Amazon.com Inc.](, [Microsoft Corp.]( and Salesforce Inc. Tech workers, many with expensive mortgages in the San Francisco Bay area, scrambled for other employment, but startups weren’t really hiring either. With interest rates up and more opportunities for high-yield investment outside of tech, venture capitalist fundraising is on track to be the lowest since 2015, according to [PitchBook](. So startup financing rounds were delayed and canceled; several companies were forced to shut down. The surprise collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March [ramped up anxiety](, too. In all, 1,167 tech companies cut 259,703 jobs so far this year, according to [Layoffs.fyi](, which has been tracking the industry. That’s up 57% from the prior year. Instead of spending on growth, companies have focused on churning out products faster and ramping up profits. Marketing and sales staff, even at software-hawking king Salesforce, [lost power]( amid fewer willing buyers. Issues that were considered essential while tech companies felt like they were on top, such as [ethical reviews]( for products and [content moderation](, now are viewed more like nice-to-haves. Meta cut many of its policy staffers and contractors reviewing content; they’re trying to do more of that with artificial intelligence. Investors [love this](. Meta is on track for its best-performing year ever, with its stock close to tripling in value, after its worst-performing year in 2022. The industry’s bright spot has been the immense public and corporate interest in generative artificial intelligence. But so far, the enthusiasm hasn’t translated into stability for tech workers. Actually, it could make them less essential: Large language models are pretty good at coding, and only getting better. —[Sarah Frier](mailto:sfrier1@bloomberg.net) The big story Apple is running production at [full speed for its Vision Pro headset](. The company is preparing to have its new mixed-reality headset ready for customers by February, according to people familiar with Apple’s planning. Get fully charged Brazil’s first lady clashed with Elon Musk over her [hacked X account](. Researchers found that a large AI dataset had[more than 1,000 child abuse images](. Crypto wallet maker Ledger will [reimburse hack victims](. Looking back at 2023 Huawei shocked the smartphone industry with its new Mate 60 pro powered by [advanced chips](. Big tech had a hard time going through with [job cuts in Europe](. 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