#AI impact

#AI impact

Just as software finished eating the world, zero interest rates ended. Companies optimized for cash and slowed hiring. The market didn't shrink, but stopped growing at the breakneck pace we all expected. The result: a glut of entry level talent groomed for jobs that never materialized. This would explain a more competitive entry level market. But it doesn't explain the entry-level market shrinking, despite overall industry growth. In short: demand for senior talent is rising, but has fallen off a cliff for juniors.

Tailwind, like many startups, has a small head count. In a podcast posted on X, Wathan said that the company had four engineers on staff. Now, there's one. Wathan's post highlights the challenges that startups, which already face tough odds of success, can encounter as AI models grow more capable. The CEO founded the web developer tool in 2017. Tailwind's model is free and open-source, with a paid "pro" tier driving the company's revenue.

The colonial Indian government decided the cobra population should be reduced, and decided the solution was to pay a generous bounty for every cobra carcass it received. What the government hadn't anticipated was that some enterprising individuals would start breeding cobras, because cobras were now lucrative. This was bad, but what happened next was worse - the government cancelled the program, and everyone who'd been breeding cobras suddenly had no incentive to keep the snakes, so all the captive cobras were released into the wild.

It sounds a little trite. But it's true. True whether we're putting a spotlight on a massive new xAI data center in Memphis or digging into the potential state takeover of our largest public school system or highlighting new restaurants and chefs doing amazing things or telling the stories of immigrants of all backgrounds who've made Memphis their home. It's true in the enterprise reporting we do.

2025's words of the year reflect a generation frustrated with job prospects, AI, and online culture. Platforms have chosen terms like "fatigue," "AI slop," and "rage bait." For the first time, Dictionary.com chose a word that is also a number as its Word of the Year. Everyone is over 2025. Various platforms and dictionaries released their word of the year in December, and the choices widely reflect a sense of inescapable uncertainty, exhaustion, and skepticism of the tech world.

The median base salary for HBS's 2025 graduates rose to $184,500, up from $175,000 the year before. Of the 65% of the class seeking employment, 90% received at least one job offer within three months of graduation, and 84% accepted-both improvements from the classes of 2024 and 2023. Data from PayScale, analyzed by Poets & Quants, estimates the median lifetime income of an HBS graduate at over $8.5 million.

Many of us have heard of "boomerang employees"-someone who leaves a company and later returns-but there's a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang. Maybe you've seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck.

The cybersecurity landscape is a dynamic arena in which innovation and threats evolve relentlessly. ISACA's State of Cybersecurity 2025 report - drawing insights from more than 3,800 professionals worldwide - offers a critical snapshot of this environment. It highlights persistent staffing shortages, the transformative impact of AI, rising stress levels and constrained budgets. Together, these findings underscore the delicate balance organizations must strike between technology, talent and well-being.

Reddit announced earnings late last week and it boggles me how people love this stock. I am not a financial expert of analysis but Reddit has been saying for some time that 50% of its traffic comes from Google Search. Reddit also said on this Q3 earnings call that its search traffic is flat and that AI is not a traffic driver, at least not yet.

By the numbers: Confidence dipped one point from the previous quarter, to 48, per the report from the Conference Board, a nonpartisan think tank and the Business Council, an association of CEOs. A number below 50 reflects more negative than positive responses. 64% of CEOs said that they are preparing for a mild economic slowdown with slightly increased inflation pressure - a one-two punch known as stagflation. Only 22% said they were preparing for a "balanced economy with trend growth and gradual reduction in inflation pressure."

The percentage of companies led by co-CEOs hasn't changed much over the past five years, data firm Equilar found. It hovers around 1.2% of the Russell 3000 index, a broad measure of the US stock market. Yet more companies could adopt this structure, even temporarily, as forces like AI create a dizzying pace of change for leaders and prompt companies to rethink operations.

I don't think we've necessarily seen a material change in the cadence of budget flow ... There's definitely shifts and changes - tariffs impact auto, tariffs impact everything. So as macro changes happen, that definitely has an impact on individual marketing plans. But I don't think it's materially - year-over-year - vastly different from where it was before.

When I first came to the US a decade ago, I wasn't sure how I'd fit into the job market. I wasn't from here and didn't know the playbook. Through trial and error, I eventually found myself in the then-booming role of UX designer - a job that felt relatable, in demand, and easy to explain to others at the time. Like many in the field, I leaned heavily into the mantra of "data-driven" design. Every choice had to be backed by numbers, validated by user tests, or confirmed by analytics. Every choice had to be backed by numbers, validated by user tests.

In 2025, attracting top developers is more challenging than ever. A competitive pay package is table stakes, remote flexibility is expected, and AI is reshaping how teams operate and what engineers value. College isn't necessary for big tech jobs SignalFire's data reveals a new reality: a handful of companies have cracked the code to build cultures where top engineers flock to, stay, grow, and multiply their impact. These outliers have achieved something rare: both high talent density and high retention, at scale.

Microsoft is potentially set to experience a significant rise in profitability over the coming years, driven by AI-enabled cost reductions and enhanced AI-based product offerings.

Kanika Mohan's journey illustrates the challenges faced by tech graduates amidst a hiring slowdown, highlighting the need to broaden job searches beyond traditional tech roles.