High-paid tech workers are cutting life down to the basics so they can invest and retire by 30 One Meta engineer makes over $300K a year and still owns no car, couch or TV More successful Gen Z are choosing calm life over career and money

Over 92,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2026. It's only May. The total since 2020 is approaching 900,000. Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs starting May 20. Microsoft offered employee buyouts for the first time in its 51-year history, covering roughly 8,750 positions. Both companies are pouring tens of billions into AI infrastructure the same quarter they're cutting headcount. The workers aren't being replaced by other workers. They're being replaced by systems. One executive coach called it "a fundamental structural shift rather than a temporary market correction."

Wealth advisers are pitching newly rich tech workers on increasingly sophisticated ways to reduce taxes on concentrated stock fortunes. The boom has helped push $1.2 trillion into direct indexing within separately managed U.S. accounts. Full story:

🔥BITWISE CEO: AI WORKERS SHOULD LOOK AT CRYPTO Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley says tech workers worried about AI replacing jobs should consider crypto. His point: crypto still has big problems to solve, and that creates opportunity.

TECH LAYOFFS PASS 100,000 IN 2026 AS AI RESETS HIRING TNW reports more than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off this year across roughly 250 events. LinkedIn is cutting about 5% of staff even after reporting 12% revenue growth. Cloudflare is cutting more than 1,100 jobs, about 20% of its workforce. Challenger says AI was the top reason cited for job cuts in both March and April. AI has been tied to 49,135 announced cuts so far this year.

China's once overworked but well-compensated tech workers have seen an erosion of office perks, job cuts and falling pay as a regulatory assault and Covid-19 lockdowns batter the industry