Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
As Silicon Valley and the broader tech industry face a season of layoffs, workers are unprepared for the ordeal and management has little experience with the wrenching process.
Driving the news: Meta is expected to announce large-scale job cuts as soon as Wednesday, the first ever in its history. That comes on the heels of major layoffs at Twitter and many other flagship tech firms.
Why it matters: At most companies, layoffs are a business decision for top execs but a deeply personal experience for everyone else.
The big picture: The industry's phenomenal 20-year run of largely unimpeded growth means that most of its workforce doesn't have much idea what to expect from widespread layoffs.
Here's a brief guide:
1. For those laid off, the pain is personal.
2. While no one should shed tears for the managers, they're having a hard time too.
3. For companies, layoffs leave slow-healing psychic wounds.
Between the lines: Layoffs that are tied to the shutdown of a specific product line or division can be written off as strategic in nature. Broader layoffs are a sign that a company grew too fast, took too many risky bets, or just never hit overly ambitious goals.
To be sure, many tech workers have been generously paid and are relatively well-off compared with other industries. But losing your job is still losing your job.
My thought bubble: I'm a veteran of a dotcom era startup that went public and then laid off half its staff more than two decades ago, and I still get flashbacks.
Yes, but: When laid-off developers filled the coffeeshops of San Francisco and other tech hubs after the bust in 2000-2001, they used their newfound don't-give-a-damn state to hatch passion-project ideas.
