Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs Near, but Laid-Off San Francisco Engineers See None of the Riches
Jobless Tech Workers Are Being Left Out of San Francisco's AI Boom
As Anthropic and OpenAI prepare blockbuster IPOs expected to shower wealth on San Francisco, a quieter scene unfolds across the Golden Gate Bridge: more than four dozen laid-off tech workers hike Mount Tamalpais together, led by a former Google employee. Bloomberg's Francesca Maglione reports on the widening gap between the AI boom's enormous fortunes and the city's layoffs and uncertain job market.
The coming IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI are set to rain down riches in San Francisco. Just across the Golden Gate bridge, a recent gathering captured the flip side of the AI boom.
- Avicebron
- atleastoptimal
I applied to Anthropic a few years ago but didn’t pass the bar on their coding test. I read recently that if I had been hired in that period, my equity would be worth over 40 million based on their current valuation (and i remained employed the entire time there)
It’s hard to mentally reconcile that if I had performed better on a few coding tests a few years ago i would be 100x wealthier than I am today. Whether or not you met the right bar, got into the right company at the right time is the difference between a tedious endless struggle and securing your family’s wealth for the rest of the century.
- mbgerring
These layoffs are happening because the entire tech industry is sinking all of its free cash into AI capex. H1B abuse and offshoring have both existed for decades, and neither are the proximate cause for these layoffs. If you’re blaming immigrants for this, you are either doing so in bad faith, or you are embarrassingly gullible.
- paxy
Sure, but let’s not forget that ~90% of the Bay Area does not work in tech. They are all being left out of the AI boom, similar to how they were left out of every tech boom before it. Don’t see why we need to specifically weep for these ex-FAANG engineers because they couldn’t get into OpenAI or Anthropic.
- tuveson
> Demand for software engineers in the Bay Area has fallen 42% since 2022, according to Lightcast, a labor-market analytics firm. Jobs tied to AI-related IT and computer science, meanwhile, have jumped 37%.
How much of this is just everything IT-related being rebranded as AI?
- Animats
And SF tech workers don't even have a hukou that gives them the right to go back to their village.
China has a "return to village" program for people who didn't make it in the big city. Here's the propaganda version of that.[1] Return to the land. Go back to being a peasant. Survive on 0.3 hectare? That's a back yard, not a farm.
[1] http://english.scio.gov.cn/in-depth/2024-07/30/content_11733...
- burger_moon
The dichotomy of groups who say AI is making us so efficient we don't need as many SDEs and and knowledge workers and we also need to import skilled workers and also if you don't do that then they'll just offshore those jobs so why are they onshoring them in the first place.
It's just all so contradictory and dishonest. It's an important topic to discuss because the gravy train is ending for all of us, regardless of which border you reside within, but too many people get way too emotional as soon as you bring it up.
- 01284a7e
"A group of more than four dozen laid-off workers gathered at 11 a.m. on a Monday to hike Mount Tamalpais, a majestic peak overlooking the San Francisco Bay. They descended the mostly deserted trail in groups of about a dozen, led by Basem Istanbouli, a former Google employee sporting a bucket hat and a pair of toe shoes."
I'd rather hike than sling JavaScript for a bunch of finance goofs, but that's just me.