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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

The End of the Tech Boom

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Daily News

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After decades as America’s booming industry, tens of thousands of tech workers have been laid off in November alone. Is the venture-capital, low-interest-rate wind leaving the sails temporary or is this the end of the hunt for “the next big thing?”


Guest: Timothy B. Lee, reporter for Full Stack Economics covering labor markets, technology, and housing.


Host: Lizzie O’Leary


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Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by Best Buy. This year let Best Buy be your holiday

0:05.3

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0:09.3

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0:14.7

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0:20.9

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0:26.9

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0:32.6

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0:37.8

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0:43.2

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0:49.4

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0:54.7

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1:08.1

On the morning that Julia got laid off, she walked out of the gym and checked her email.

1:13.2

The actual day I went to my gym, I come out of the gym, it's like 830 in the morning,

1:18.5

I've just come out of Pilates class, I just checked my phone as I do and it's like

1:22.0

straight HR, your rule at Stripe. That's not a note anyone wants to get and it was a shock.

1:31.5

There were no rumor mill, there was no, there was nothing. Like I'm telling you I've been in

1:37.9

companies, you know, there usually is some sort of water quote like this was stealth, absolute stealth.

1:45.5

Julia, by the way, is not her real name, but that's what we're calling her today. She knows

1:50.8

her way around tech, she's worked at a bunch of the big name companies, including Amazon and

1:55.0

Microsoft. And she joined Stripe, the online payment processor, a little over a year ago to work on

2:01.2

company partnerships just before a big expansion. It was the highest valued privately held company.

2:10.6

I think it was at that time it was like 95 billion, you know, as a rocket ship.

...

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