Hello and welcome. You are listening to Patrick Boyle on Finance, a podcast exploring ideas from quantitative finance,

examining events occurring in markets right now and financial history to see what lessons can be taken away,

including interviews with some of the most interesting people in the world of finance. To learn more about the podcast, visit onfinance.org.

Big tech is slashing hundreds of thousands of jobs and blaming artificial intelligence,

but there may be more to the story than that. Intel just announced 15,000 layoffs yesterday,

causing their stock price to plunge. Big Tech, who for over a decade, provided all sorts

of employee perks, may no longer be the dream place to work. In 2009, a friend of mine who

had quit his job in investment banking, joked that in the wake of the financial crisis, being an investment banker was like being an airline stewardess.

The job used to be glamorous and well paid, and now it was neither.

After the financial crisis, central banks around the world slashed interest rates to near zero,

which was bad for banks but good for startups and the tech industry.

According to the St. Louis Fed, over the five years after the financial crisis, jobs in the

tech sector expanded by more than 20% compared to 11% job growth in the overall US economy.

Tech sector wages, which were already high, grew at roughly 5% per year over the same period.

It became the place to be.

While other businesses offered employees benefits like pensions and healthcare, tech firms

attracted staff by offering perks like free food, offices that look like playgrounds, nap

pods, the ability to bring your pet to work, on-site massages, meditation rooms, office jam

sessions at Spotify, and something Disco Yoga. Google and Facebook

offered employees a free laundry service, which is only so much of a perk when their employees

mostly wear shorts and t-shirts. I don't know, maybe the laundry service went to their

homes and picked up their dirty laundry from their bedroom floors.

...