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With an insatiable curiosity, host Ari Daniels covers history, science, and culture.

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There was what I would say is kind of a magic beans jobs narrative that the tech industry campaigned on.

Computer science is interesting and important, but it came with this promise of learn to code and you'll be rich and powerful, you'll be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

And that was part of what we believed culturally.

I've been laid off a few times in my life.

Once in 2013 from a motorcycle dealership that, in retrospect, was totally correct to let me go.

Then again, in 2020, when I was in production for a video series for a company that

shuddered without telling us.

And I remember that for a long time, there was a common refrain that

some people parroted to newly unemployed folks like myself as soon as they could. Learn to

code. I heard these words all the time. Like there was an idea that getting a coding job in tech was your one-way ticket out of desperation and into the good life.

And this wasn't just true for people already in the workforce.

STEM education became a priority for both K-12 and colleges.

But today, learn to code holds almost no weight.

The tech industry is hemorrhaging jobs.

According to one estimate, there have been over 700,000 tech workers laid off since 2022.

And according to the Federal Reserve's data released last year,

the unemployment rate for computer science grads was double that of art history majors in 2023. But this all has me thinking,

how did we get here? And if a cushy position in tech isn't the quote unquote good job anymore,

what is? I'm joined by Raya Jetta, tech culture reporter for the San Francisco Standard.

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