I had a couple posts teed up about how bad things have seemed with all these layoffs and a couple ways you should try to support your team in the midst of this torrent of negative news. Corporate restructurings, crypto bankruptcies and daily Twitter drama – the company and the content. But do you really need to read any more of that? I pulled my quill out a couple times but the ink ran dry. Frankly, like many of you I’m sure, I needed a couple weeks to rinse off the negativity. And then we ran face first into Thanksgiving.

To summarize, things are not great in tech land. You know this.

Also, what is it with cutting like 13% of your workforce? If you wanna get nuts and say you messed up with over hiring, at least get nuts! Furthermore, if I see anyone else post this AIM “forward to 10 friends or you’ll be lonely forever” gobbledygook on LinkedIn one more time I’m going to scream:

Welp, as my good friend Harvey Dent used to say, “the night is darkest just before the dawn”. Don’t go reading what happened to him next. It’s not great either. ANYWAY, let’s play a game!

What if we skipped ahead to the end of the negative headlines where the rebuilding starts to happen. Depending upon your perspective, that could be right now. Or to keep it clean January 1st, 2023. Undoubtedly we have reached an inflection point of the technology industry with the past few years of excess being flushed out of the system. Still, there are tremendous opportunities to create lasting value in the years ahead.

Truly, these are incredible times. If you can look past the ad supported internet wreckage or the app based smolderings there are some unbelievable technology companies being built out there. Almost every single venture firm that links to startup job opportunities is hiring. Here are just a few examples:

• a16z has 6000+ portfolio job listings
• Sequoia has 6,500+ portfolio job listings
• Builtin, a local tech market aggregator, has 10,000+ jobs nationwide across 6,000+ companies

Product led growth companies are still growing rapidly. AI can paint a Renaissance painting or write a freaking blog post for you now! Databases can extract, transform, and load more ways than you can count. Luckily we have supercomputers that can do the counting for you too. There are dozens of industries using pen, quill and fax machines coming online. The continued migration to the cloud is still ripppping.

If you’re looking for another company that’s sourcing leads more efficiently or doing better ad targeting, professional life might be a continued slog. But if you’re going out there to help remake industries and, dare I say, attempt to make the world a better place there might just be daylight ahead!

I’ll leave you with a favorite story of mine. In the 1950s there was a struggling Boston raised actor living out in LA named Leonard Nimoy. He drove a cab at night to pay the bills while he auditioned for roles during the day. One day he picked up a young Senator from Massachusetts at the Bel Air Hotel by the name of Jack Kennedy. They chatted about their careers, politics and show business, realizing there was a lot in common between the two. Nimoy recalled Kennedy remarking “Lots of competition in your business, just like in mine” And then JFK said “just remember there’s always room for one more good one”. Words to live by Nimoy remembered. And he did. You might know Leonard Nimoy by his signature acting role playing Spock, on Star Trek, that he landed just a few years later.

There is always room for one more good one. Today, with inflation where it is, there’s probably even room for two more good ones! You don’t need to go find one hundred ways to make a living, ten startups, or three different jobs. You just need one. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice.

The holidays are upon us. I’m thankful for these times and for all of you. Make sure you log off the Internet a bit and smell the Christmas trees. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, you gotta live long and prosper!