Lenny Rachitsky(@lennysan)

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:53:02 GMT

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

My newsletter and podcast wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t taken a sabbatical.

Seven years into my time at Airbnb, I took a three-month break. It was the first time I’d taken more than two weeks off in my more than 15-year career. I spent those months tinkering, reading, and traveling—and even snuck in a 10-day silent meditation retreat. 

At the end of it, I realized my heart wasn’t in the work anymore and that it was time for something new. So I left my job without much of a plan and spent the next six months exploring. Those six months turned into a year, that year turned into my newsletter, and the rest is history.

Looking back, I can say those were among the three most important months of my life, because they led me to what I do now—the most interesting, fulfilling, and impactful work I can ever imagine.

Life makes it hard to get off the default path and back onto a road of your own design. Sometimes that looks like leaving your job, like I did. Other times, it means reconnecting to why you’re doing the work you’re already doing. Either way, in my experience and that of many friends, significant time away from your day-to-day is necessary for the mental, physical, or emotional shift that will reveal what’s next. What you need is what today’s newsletter guest author @djdidonna calls “Big Time Off.”

DJ is the founder of The Sabbatical Project, and today DJ’s book Big Time Off comes out! It’s a deeply researched, beautifully written book on the value of taking time off, with tangible advice, real-world case studies, and practical considerations for anyone who wants to shake things up.

In today's newsletter, DJ shares some excerpts from his book to help you start thinking about what a sabbatical might look like for you now or down the road.

I’ve always wished there were a guide to help me think through this decision and make the most of this precious time off. We finally have one.

Enjoy: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-take-…

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.@Netflix's CPTO Elizabeth Stone on the rise of generalists "The days of very narrow deep specializ...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:10:00 GMT

.@Netflix's CPTO Elizabeth Stone on the rise of generalists

"The days of very narrow deep specialization feel limited to me. I still believe we'll need some specialized practitioners, but as a general rule, compared to 5-10 years ago, we'll have fewer specialists and more generalists."

Listen to the conversation here: youtube.com/watch?v=t0GiTy…

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right behind @bchesky). Her second visit is already trending far beyond that.

A lot has changed since I first spoke with Elizabeth 2.5 years ago. She was promoted to CPTO at @Netflix, taking on product and design orgs, on top of the engineering and data orgs she already led. Also, AI.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why all the top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture
🔸 Why Netflix is hiring more "systems thinkers" — and fewer narrow specialists
🔸 How she protects quality when AI makes output nearly infinite ("If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter")
🔸 The most impactful AI use cases internally
🔸 How Elizabeth builds "excellence as an operating system" 

Listen nyoutu.be/t0GiTyz4syYhDfldl

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"What is my job anymore?" A lot of people are asking this right now, and Elizabeth Stone (@Netflix...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:30:00 GMT

"What is my job anymore?" 

A lot of people are asking this right now, and Elizabeth Stone (@Netflix CPTO) has one of the most useful answers I've heard.  

"Any time a new technology comes along, you go through a storming phase before you go through a forming phase. We're in the middle of that right now. It's healthy for there to be some fluidity in the roles during this time. This doesn't mean functional expertise is obsolete.”

Listen to the full conversation: youtu.be/t0GiTyz4syY

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right behind @bchesky). Her second visit is already trending far beyond that.

A lot has changed since I first spoke with Elizabeth 2.5 years ago. She was promoted to CPTO at @Netflix, taking on product and design orgs, on top of the engineering and data orgs she already led. Also, AI.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why all the top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture
🔸 Why Netflix is hiring more "systems thinkers" — and fewer narrow specialists
🔸 How she protects quality when AI makes output nearly infinite ("If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter")
🔸 The most impactful AI use cases internally
🔸 How Elizabeth builds "excellence as an operating system" 

Listen nyoutu.be/t0GiTyz4syYhDfldl

🔗 View Quoted Tweet

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My newsletter and podcast wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t taken a sabbatical. Seven years into my time a...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:34:51 GMT

My newsletter and podcast wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t taken a sabbatical.

Seven years into my time at Airbnb, I took a three-month break. It was the first time I’d taken more than two weeks off in my more than 15-year career. I spent those months tinkering, reading, and traveling—and even snuck in a 10-day silent meditation retreat. 

At the end of it, I realized my heart wasn’t in the work anymore and that it was time for something new. So I left my job without much of a plan and spent the next six months exploring. Those six months turned into a year, that year turned into my newsletter, and the rest is history.

Looking back, I can say those were among the three most important months of my life, because they led me to what I do now—the most interesting, fulfilling, and impactful work I can ever imagine.

Life makes it hard to get off the default path and back onto a road of your own design. Sometimes that looks like leaving your job, like I did. Other times, it means reconnecting to why you’re doing the work you’re already doing. Either way, in my experience and that of many friends, significant time away from your day-to-day is necessary for the mental, physical, or emotional shift that will reveal what’s next. What you need is what today’s newsletter guest author @djdidonna calls “Big Time Off.”

DJ is the founder of The Sabbatical Project, and today DJ’s book Big Time Off comes out! It’s a deeply researched, beautifully written book on the value of taking time off, with tangible advice, real-world case studies, and practical considerations for anyone who wants to shake things up.

In today's newsletter, DJ shares some excerpts from his book to help you start thinking about what a sabbatical might look like for you now or down the road.

I’ve always wished there were a guide to help me think through this decision and make the most of this precious time off. We finally have one.

Enjoy: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-take-…

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I asked @Netflix's CPTO Elizabeth Stone what skills are trending up with the rise of AI. Her answer...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 21:09:09 GMT

I asked @Netflix's CPTO Elizabeth Stone what skills are trending up with the rise of AI.

Her answer: systems thinking.

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right behind @bchesky). Her second visit is already trending far beyond that.

A lot has changed since I first spoke with Elizabeth 2.5 years ago. She was promoted to CPTO at @Netflix, taking on product and design orgs, on top of the engineering and data orgs she already led. Also, AI.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why all the top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture
🔸 Why Netflix is hiring more "systems thinkers" — and fewer narrow specialists
🔸 How she protects quality when AI makes output nearly infinite ("If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter")
🔸 The most impactful AI use cases internally
🔸 How Elizabeth builds "excellence as an operating system" 

Listen nyoutu.be/t0GiTyz4syYhDfldl

🔗 View Quoted Tweet

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Elizabeth Stone crushing

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:42:55 GMT

Elizabeth Stone crushing

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right behind @bchesky). Her second visit is already trending far beyond that.

A lot has changed since I first spoke with Elizabeth 2.5 years ago. She was promoted to CPTO at @Netflix, taking on product and design orgs, on top of the engineering and data orgs she already led. Also, AI.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why all the top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture
🔸 Why Netflix is hiring more "systems thinkers" — and fewer narrow specialists
🔸 How she protects quality when AI makes output nearly infinite ("If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter")
🔸 The most impactful AI use cases internally
🔸 How Elizabeth builds "excellence as an operating system" 

Listen nyoutu.be/t0GiTyz4syYhDfldl

🔗 View Quoted Tweet

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@netflix Don't miss our full conversation https://t.co/Gr2GhhMddM

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:48:39 GMT

@netflix Don't miss our full conversation youtube.com/watch?v=t0GiTy…

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My biggest takeaways from @Netflix's Chief Product and Technology Officer Elizabeth Stone: 1. Eliza...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:45:59 GMT

My biggest takeaways from @Netflix's Chief Product and Technology Officer Elizabeth Stone:

Elizabeth believes that “systems thinking” is becoming the most important skill in the AI era. In engineering and product, this means people who can see across business domains and build the common capabilities that let many teams move quickly. In design, it means experience designers who create templates and design systems so that non-designers can ship work that stays coherent and on-brand. The underlying driver is velocity: when more people are doing more types of work at higher speed, you need to be good at building common scaffolding.

Systems thinking is learnable: zoom out one level from your specific problem. Given a task, step back one click—what bigger problem does this serve the business, will it scale across the product surface areas, should it become a platform capability? The companion habit: do your job in a way that helps your manager do theirs. This will force you to think about how all the pieces fit together.

Expect a storming phase before a forming phase. The role confusion people feel right now (“What is my job anymore?”) is the predictable middle of any transformative technology. Elizabeth’s advice: focus on high-quality source-of-truth data, guardrails on what ships, and constant internal reinforcement that humans own what they create.

The top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture. High agency, high talent density, top-of-market pay, bottom-up thinking, fast experiments—the traits Lenny hears constantly from AI labs were in Netflix’s early culture deck. Elizabeth’s explanation: excellence comes from hiring exceptional people, trusting them to do great work, and holding them accountable.

Netflix’s culture is centered around building “excellence as an operating system.” High talent density, radical transparency, context not control, and the keeper’s test. These work together to create an environment of trust and accountability, without bureaucracy. But it’s also uncomfortable. It requires tolerating people making decisions you’d make differently, resisting the reflex to add process when things go wrong, and letting people carry the weight of their own choices. Elizabeth describes the hardest part as “being comfortable in that discomfort.”

The keeper’s test is as much about recognizing great people as it is about removing the wrong ones. The test—“If this person told me they were leaving, would I fight to keep them?”—is often cited in its difficult form: the moment you realize someone isn’t the right fit. But Elizabeth uses it predominantly as an entry point for honest performance conversations that are deeply positive. Most of the time the answer is “I would fight so hard to keep you,” which creates the opening to articulate strengths, discuss impact, and name what’s working. Good feedback hygiene needs a forcing function; the keeper’s test provides one.

Specialization is trending down—adaptable generalists are trending up. We’re shifting away from narrow stack-layer specialists (pure frontend, pure backend) toward people who can navigate fluidly across layers. The same logic applies to business domain knowledge: the mindset of “I’m a payments expert, full stop” is less valuable than “I know payments well enough and I’m willing to imagine what the future version of this looks like.” The meta-skill is learning to learn, not locking into a single lane.

Netflix’s approach to AI fluency is a universal principle, not a level-specific expectation. Rather than rewriting career ladders to specify what AI competence looks like at each level, Netflix added a single aspiration across all roles and levels: AI fluency. What fluency means varies by function and seniority, but the non-negotiable minimum is the same everywhere—an open-minded, experimental mindset, genuine curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity.

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast: 🏆 @WorkOS — Ma...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:01:13 GMT

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast:
🏆 @WorkOS — Make your app Enterprise Ready, with SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more:workos.com/lennyH
🏆 @mercury — Radically different banking, now with Commandmercury.comwR

Also available on:
• Spotifyopen.spotify.com/episode/4WipPx…Gz
• Applepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/net…eA

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Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right b...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:01:12 GMT

Elizabeth Stone's first visit to the podcast was my second most popular episode of all time (right behind @bchesky). Her second visit is already trending far beyond that.

A lot has changed since I first spoke with Elizabeth 2.5 years ago. She was promoted to CPTO at @Netflix, taking on product and design orgs, on top of the engineering and data orgs she already led. Also, AI.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why all the top AI labs converged on Netflix’s culture
🔸 Why Netflix is hiring more "systems thinkers" — and fewer narrow specialists
🔸 How she protects quality when AI makes output nearly infinite ("If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter")
🔸 The most impactful AI use cases internally
🔸 How Elizabeth builds "excellence as an operating system" 

Listen nyoutu.be/t0GiTyz4syYhDfldl

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PMs: What's one specific way AI has significantly and consistently impacted your productivity? What'...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 20:03:41 GMT

PMs: What's one specific way AI has significantly and consistently impacted your productivity? What's something you do very differently now vs. a couple of years ago that makes your work much faster/better?

(Other than prototyping, and using AI to craft/give feedback on your docs/writing)

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Recently discovered @DavidDCain's newsletter, and it's my new favorite https://t.co/b1UKv4lQ8R

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:23:33 GMT

Recently discovered @DavidDCain's newsletter, and it's my new favorite

raptitude.com

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Great read

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 23:45:06 GMT

Great read

George Sivulka@gsivulka

x.com/i/article/2075…

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One of the most underrated shows ever https://t.co/URvRFnLxIv

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 23:26:25 GMT

One of the most underrated shows ever play.hbomax.com/show/50c8ce6d-…

Soleio@soleio

Hope I’m around long enough to invest in founders who grew up watching Scavengers Reign.

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I like how toddlers ask you a question with one correct answer that they already know, and then get ...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:39:49 GMT

I like how toddlers ask you a question with one correct answer that they already know, and then get pissed if you can’t figure it out.

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Last day to sign up for the course! You'll learn to take a feature idea from discovery to productio...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:03:52 GMT

Last day to sign up for the course!

You'll learn to take a feature idea from discovery to production using AI coding agents, use MCPs for data analysis, prototype using the latest AI tools, ship a feature to prod, and so much more.

This is currently the second most popular course on Maven, and Lenny's Newsletter subscribers get up to $1,000 off the course price.

Grab your spot here: maven.com/tech-for-produ…

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

🚨 Announcement: I’ve co-developed a live course with my frequent collaborator and new Head of Education, Colin Matthews.

It's called Become an AI-Native Builder, and you'll learn how to use the latest AI tools—including Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other popular AI tools—in your day-to-day work as a PM.

Over 4 weeks, Colin will teach you how to use skills and MCPs to support discovery, create prototypes using your real codebase, ship changes to production using GitHub, and set up evals to automate and improve the quality of your work. 

This is the course I’ve always wished existed. And it’s not just for PMs. It’s great for designers, ops, researchers, sales, and basically anyone who’s non-technical and wants to get their hands dirty.

The first cohort kicks off on July 13th. Grab your seat here:maven.com/tech-for-produ…N

If you’re a Lenny’s Newsletter subscriber, you get $600 off the course (Insiders get $1,000 off). Get your discount code here:lennysworkshops.com/course-discountF

In addition to this course, Colin is hosting a handful of free workshops with leaders from @OpenAI, @cursor_ai, @Linear, @Replit, and @Lovable. These will be live and hands-on, and you’ll learn and practice new skills alongside other people in the trenches. These workshops are exclusive to paid Lenny’s Newsletter subscribers, and you can sign up for them here:lennysworkshops.com8

Colin is one of the most talented instructors of AI that I’ve ever met. We’ve done four guest posts together (one is my third-most-popular post of all time) and, like me, he’s low on hype and high on pragmatic advice. He’s taught AI and technical skills to tens of thousands of PMs at leading companies like @OpenAI, @Google, @Stripe, @Figma, @Microsoft, and more. He’s a longtime product leader, a founder, and has shipped more than 10 SaaS products solo.

To mark the launch of this course, Colin wrote a guest post that will help you understand what’s possible with AI right now and where you stand on the “ladders of leverage.” Read it here:lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-top-pms-…z

I'm thrilled to be partnering with Colin on the course, and so excited to hear what you think.

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My biggest takeaways from @noamseg, diving into the results of our large-scale survey of tech worker...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:31:32 GMT

My biggest takeaways from @noamseg, diving into the results of our large-scale survey of tech workers in 2026:

The #1 fear in tech right now is not losing your job to AI—it’s being squeezed to do more work for the same pay. When asked to identify their biggest concerns with AI, “losing my job to AI” ranked near the bottom of the survey results. What people are actually worried about is being squeezed: having to do more for the same pay, and watching the quality of their work slip. AI raised the bar for output, and the reward was...more work for the same pay.

Manager effectiveness is the biggest lever for employee well-being. Workers with highly effective managers report roughly 65% higher job enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout. The problem is that only 25% of respondents rated their manager as highly effective (and 36% rated their manager as ineffective). This finding has held consistent across both years of the survey. The squeeze employees are feeling is something managers are best positioned to protect against.

Most people in tech wouldn't recommend their own role to someone entering the industry today. Using an NPS-style question (scale of 0–10), not a single function scored above zero when asked if they’d recommend their career path to others. Founders came closest to neutral; designers and researchers scored worst.

AI is splitting the tech workforce in half. When asked how AI has shifted their professional identity, 50% of respondents said they feel amplified—more capable, more productive, more excited about their future. The other half feel their role is being redefined (27%), that they’re feeling destabilized (14%), or that they’ve been diminished (5%). Which category you’re in correlates with your career optimism, burnout, and layoff worry—an effect about three times as large as the next-biggest factor (manager effectiveness).

Burnout surged 10 points in a single year, while optimism fell 6 points. Shipping faster is burning people out. More prototypes, more PRDs, more agents, more output. As the report puts it, “the speed AI unlocked got plowed straight back into expectations.” The one glimmer: job enjoyment held roughly steady year-over-year. Many people are burned out and still having fun. As @nikhyl put it, many people are in a state of "smiling exhaustion."

Quality of people's work is suffering. 97.2% of respondents said AI is making them better at their job; close to 50% said “very much” or “extremely” better. But when asked what “better” actually means, the answer consistently came back as “more, faster”—not higher-quality work. Even more concerning: people reported a phenomenon Noam calls “cognitive rot.” They see the AI’s initial output, accept it without applying their judgment, and gradually let their own critical thinking atrophy.

Designers and researchers are the most negative group in tech, for the second year in a row. They lead in feeling destabilized or diminished by AI, reporting high rates of anxiety and overwhelm, worries about losing their roles to AI, and unwillingness to recommend their careers to others. Noam’s read: this doesn’t mean these roles are becoming irrelevant—if anything, he argues the opposite. Taste, craft, judgment, and the ability to create genuinely novel experiences remain stubbornly human. “The industry needs us,” he says. “This is a call to get in there and do our thing.”

Founders are still the happiest people in tech. For the second consecutive year, founders score highest on optimism, job enjoyment, AI excitement, and lowest on burnout and layoff worry. The “there’s never been a better time to build” narrative holds emotionally, at least for now. Founders have agency, autonomy, and direct relationships to the output.

Company size is linearly correlated with employee misery. Across burnout, optimism, layoff worry, and career recommendation, outcomes degrade in a straight line from 1-to-10-person startups to 5,000-to-10,000+-person enterprises. There’s no size at which things get better before they get worse again.

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The most common response to last week's tech sentiment report: "This put words to exactly what I've been feeling."

I sat down with @noamseg (who ran and analyzed our large-scale survey of tech workers) to discuss the results:

+ Why the tech workforce is quietly splitting in two
+ Why managers matter more than almost anything else in your control
+ Why burnout jumped 11 points in a single year
+ The #1 fear in tech right now: not losing your job to AI, but the "do more for the same pay" squeeze
+ The growing "AI guilt" among early-career folks
+ Concrete advice for what employees and leaders can do right now

From a listener: "I was going to pass on watching this podcast because I have already read the article, my omg this was an excellent interview. Glad I stuck around."

Listen now 👇youtu.be/_cmpIveXnvEh

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Current status: "Smiling exhaustion"

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 23:06:00 GMT

Current status: "Smiling exhaustion"

Your browser does not support the video tag.

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The most common response to last week's tech sentiment report: "This put words to exactly what I've been feeling."

I sat down with @noamseg (who ran and analyzed our large-scale survey of tech workers) to discuss the results:

+ Why the tech workforce is quietly splitting in two
+ Why managers matter more than almost anything else in your control
+ Why burnout jumped 11 points in a single year
+ The #1 fear in tech right now: not losing your job to AI, but the "do more for the same pay" squeeze
+ The growing "AI guilt" among early-career folks
+ Concrete advice for what employees and leaders can do right now

From a listener: "I was going to pass on watching this podcast because I have already read the article, my omg this was an excellent interview. Glad I stuck around."

Listen now 👇youtu.be/_cmpIveXnvEh

🔗 View Quoted Tweet

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast: 🏆 @WorkOS — M...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:02:12 GMT

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast: 
🏆 @WorkOS — Make your app Enterprise Ready, with SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more:workos.com/lennyH
🏆 @mercury — Radically different banking, now with Commandmercury.comwR

Also available on:
• Spotifyopen.spotify.com/episode/5dDyuN…iO
• Applepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how…Ku

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The most common response to last week's tech sentiment report: "This put words to exactly what I've ...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:02:11 GMT

The most common response to last week's tech sentiment report: "This put words to exactly what I've been feeling."

I sat down with @noamseg (who ran and analyzed our large-scale survey of tech workers) to discuss the results:

+ Why the tech workforce is quietly splitting in two
+ Why managers matter more than almost anything else in your control
+ Why burnout jumped 11 points in a single year
+ The #1 fear in tech right now: not losing your job to AI, but the "do more for the same pay" squeeze
+ The growing "AI guilt" among early-career folks
+ Concrete advice for what employees and leaders can do right now

From a listener: "I was going to pass on watching this podcast because I have already read the article, my omg this was an excellent interview. Glad I stuck around."

Listen now 👇youtu.be/_cmpIveXnvEh

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Tech right now

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 16:45:01 GMT

Tech right now

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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@mosseri Our full conversation https://t.co/uyXoBV5BlP

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:58:36 GMT

@mosseri Our full conversation youtube.com/watch?v=yQ_EWm…

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.@mosseri: "My experience is that the strongest product leaders are less visionaries and more curato...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:56:01 GMT

.@mosseri: "My experience is that the strongest product leaders are less visionaries and more curators. They curate teams and ideas, and many of their greatest success stories are often ideas from other people."

Your browser does not support the video tag.

🔗 View on Twitter

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"It feels like the dominant narrative about AI and work has been about replacement: the robots are c...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:56:15 GMT

"It feels like the dominant narrative about AI and work has been about replacement: the robots are coming for your job. Clearly, that’s not what tech workers are most afraid of. In our survey, 'Losing my job to AI' came in near the bottom of the list, at 22%.

What people are actually worried about is being asked to do more for the same pay, and watching the quality of their work slip.

We have a workforce that’s more productive than ever but quietly dreading what comes next. The speed AI unlocked got plowed straight back into expectations. Every gain becomes the new baseline, and the people expected to hit it are running out of room to breathe."

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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.@mosseri on the canonical product team in 2026: 4-6 generalist engineers and a new role he calls "p...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:14:20 GMT

.@mosseri on the canonical product team in 2026: 4-6 generalist engineers and a new role he calls "product staff"

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) leads @Instagram, used by over 3 billion people (1 in 3 humans). He started at Facebook in 2008 as an IC designer, rose to lead News Feed, and took over Instagram from @kevin and @mikeyk in 2018. Since then, Instagram has more than tripled its user base, and Adam is now months away from having run it longer than its founders did.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 The rise of the “product staff” role
🔸 Why Adam is bullish on designers
🔸 What the Instagram algorithm knows about you
🔸 What the rise of AI-generated content means for IG
🔸 The two biggest product failures of Adam’s career—Facebook Home and the first version of Reels

Listen nyoutu.be/yQ_EWmtfWvQUSFrwH

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Thank you to our sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast: 🏆 @WorkOS — Make your a...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:55:01 GMT

Thank you to our sponsors @WorkOS and @Mercury for supporting the podcast: 
🏆 @WorkOS — Make your app Enterprise Ready, with SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more:workos.com/lennyH
🏆 @mercury — Radically different banking, now with Commandmercury.comwR

Also available on:
• Spotifyopen.spotify.com/episode/5BSSw3…cF
• Applepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ada…da

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Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) leads @Instagram, used by over 3 billion people (1 in 3 humans). He started ...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:55:00 GMT

Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) leads @Instagram, used by over 3 billion people (1 in 3 humans). He started at Facebook in 2008 as an IC designer, rose to lead News Feed, and took over Instagram from @kevin and @mikeyk in 2018. Since then, Instagram has more than tripled its user base, and Adam is now months away from having run it longer than its founders did.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 The rise of the “product staff” role
🔸 Why Adam is bullish on designers
🔸 What the Instagram algorithm knows about you
🔸 What the rise of AI-generated content means for IG
🔸 The two biggest product failures of Adam’s career—Facebook Home and the first version of Reels

Listen nyoutu.be/yQ_EWmtfWvQUSFrwH

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The greatest gathering of product leaders in history.

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:29:10 GMT

The greatest gathering of product leaders in history.

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The Lenny and Friends Summit is officially SOLD OUT. If you're coming, see you in September. We pla...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:05:41 GMT

The Lenny and Friends Summit is officially SOLD OUT.

If you're coming, see you in September. We plan to announce 1-2 additional very exciting speakers soon.

If you weren't able to grab a spot, we'll release recordings afterward, and we aim to make this a yearly thing going forward (with more capacity). This is just the beginning.

Follow along here: lennyssummit.com

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"The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work in 2026 is no longer 'What...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 19:23:12 GMT

"The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work in 2026 is no longer 'What do you do?' or 'Where do you work?' It’s 'What has AI done to your sense of who you are?'

Four archetypes emerged from our survey data, and you almost certainly recognize them:

1. The Energized (41%). The all-in adopters. They lead with “excited” (91%), “curious” (83%), and “hopeful” (59%). They’re the most optimistic group, the least burned out, and the only segment with a clearly positive read on their field. For them, AI truly seems like a superpower.

e.g. “Product has become fun again! You become an explorer, you play around . . . you spend long hours full of excitement. We’re in an amusement park.” —PM, Principal IC

2. The Conflicted (35%). The ambivalent center of gravity—and the largest group after the Amplified. Their signature emotions are “conflicted—holding positive and negative feelings at once” (68%)—and “curious” (64%), trailed closely by “overwhelmed” (56%) and “tired” (55%). They haven’t soured on AI; they’re just exhausted by the work of keeping up with it while holding two feelings at the same time.

e.g. “I’m simultaneously having the most fun I’ve had as a product builder and also feeling the most uncertainty I’ve felt. I’m confident I’ll be able to keep my skills sharp and adapt, but I’m not yet sure what it is that I’ll need to adapt into.” —PM, Senior IC

3. The Disoriented (12%). Defined almost entirely by one feeling: “disoriented—my role keeps shifting,” layered with “overwhelmed” (74%) and “tired” (73%). These are people watching their job change shape beneath them faster than they can find their footing again. They still think AI is somewhat useful. They’re not “refusers.” They’re just losing the thread of their role in the workplace.

e.g. “Things are so uncertain, we’re like farmers on the cusp of the industrial revolution. We know going into farming is the wisest long-term career choice, but we don’t see a clear path. This kind of uncertainty crowds out productivity.” —VP Product

4. The Resentful (12%). The burned-out and checked-out. Every one of them selected “resentful—I feel pressured to use AI,” and they cluster with “tired,” “conflicted,” and “overwhelmed.” They report the lowest optimism, the lowest willingness to recommend their field, and the lowest sense that AI is helping them at all. This is AI fatigue transformed into resistance."

“Tech overall kind of sucks right now. We used to adopt new technology because we were excited about the cool new things we could do. Now all we hear is ‘Use AI or you will lose your job’—and then people get fired anyway. I hate it.” —Director of Product

Full report: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

🔗 View Quoted Tweet

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Managers are the biggest lever for happiness at work "Tech workers with an extremely effective mana...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:34:30 GMT

Managers are the biggest lever for happiness at work

"Tech workers with an extremely effective manager report much higher job enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout than those with an ineffective one."

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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cc @garrytan

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:32:50 GMT

cc @garrytan

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Raise your hand if you're a @clairevo archetype 👋

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:30:53 GMT

Raise your hand if you're a @clairevo archetype 👋

claire vo 🖤@clairevo

hey @lennysan@noamseg you were missing a category, fixed it for ya

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"Company size predicts burnout with almost eerie consistency. Walk from the smallest companies to th...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:01:51 GMT

"Company size predicts burnout with almost eerie consistency. Walk from the smallest companies to the largest, and every measure of well-being gets steadily worse as the company grows."

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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Here's the full report https://t.co/1w2WJ5zRnS

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:32:28 GMT

Here's the full report lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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Founders are the happiest people in tech

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:22:11 GMT

Founders are the happiest people in tech

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We asked my readers: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend a career in your role to...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:56:14 GMT

We asked my readers: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend a career in your role to a friend starting out today?

More than half of working tech professionals would actively steer a newcomer away from their career path.

Founders are, by far, at least as pessimistic about their path (and also the happiest people in tech).

Designers and researchers are the most bearish on the future of their roles.

At the same time, though, people in these roles today are feeling happy about their career choice.

In other words: “The water’s fine, but don’t come in.”

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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Designers and researchers are at the epicenter of AI anxiety Our large-scale survey of tech workers...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:45:58 GMT

Designers and researchers are at the epicenter of AI anxiety

Our large-scale survey of tech workers found that designers and researchers are the most negative across nearly every measure of how they feel about their careers.

Amongst user researchers, 51% are “anxious about my job security,” and are the most likely to fear “losing my job to AI” (36%, just behind Data/Analytics at 38%).

Among designers, 63% feel “overwhelmed by the pace of change” and 61% feel “tired,” the highest of any role. and designers are the most likely to feel the comp squeeze (61% selected “expected to do more for the same compensation”). 

Both functions also report the lowest willingness to recommend their field of any role, and designers report the worst-rated managers in the survey.

We saw this trend in last year's survey, but it's gotten even worse a year later.

Full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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Massive shoutout to @noamseg for creating the survey, analyzing the results, and writing this report...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:46:43 GMT

Massive shoutout to @noamseg for creating the survey, analyzing the results, and writing this report.

Podcast episode with Noam diving deeper into the results coming soon 👀

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The tech workforce is splitting in two A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech ...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:45:24 GMT

The tech workforce is splitting in two

A year ago, we ran the first large-scale survey of how tech workers feel about their jobs and careers. What emerged we summarized in four words: burned out, but optimistic. Today, we're back with the results from our 2026 survey, and it's a tale of two workforces.

Half of tech right now feels amplified by AI—more capable, more confident, more excited than they've been in their entire career.

The other half feels shaken by it—less sure of their value and whether there’s still a place for them.

Which side of that line you fall on predicts how you feel about your career more than anything else, including your role, seniority, company size, or any other measure we collected. 

The workforce is bifurcating into two realities.

A few other takeaways that surprised us:
+ Significant burnout jumped from 44.7% to 55.7% in one year, while career optimism fell from 54.8% to 48.7%. A worrisome trend.
+ 53% of tech workers would steer a newcomer away from a career in their own role, even when they're optimistic about their own future.
+ The biggest AI fear is of being squeezed to do more work. Only 22% worry about “losing my job to AI.” Far more worry about being expected to do more for the same pay, getting trapped in an unsustainable pace, and the quality of their work declining.

The question that best predicts how a tech worker feels about their work, in 2026, is no longer "What do you do?" or "Where do you work?" It’s "What has AI done to your sense of who you are?"

Read the full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-wor…

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Emerging challenge for engineers: loneliness

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:11:44 GMT

Emerging challenge for engineers: loneliness

Your browser does not support the video tag.

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Fiona Fung (@Nerdi_Yogi) leads the teams behind Claude Code and Cowork at @AnthropicAI (overseeing all of eng and PM, including @bcherny and @_catwu). Before Anthropic, she spent 11 years at @Microsoft building Visual Studio and TypeScript and then moved to @Meta, where she helped build Meta’s first VR and AR glasses, started Facebook Marketplace (now generating over $100B in GMV annually), and led @Instagram's infrastructure, growth, and safety teams. She’s been an engineer for over 25 years and has such a unique lens into where things are heading for product teams.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Specific ways her team uses AI
🔸 The emerging context-switching and loneliness problem for engineers
🔸 How her teams do planning
🔸 What she’s learned about running teams shipping 8x more code
🔸 Which roles AI will transform next
🔸 What keeps her up at night

Listen youtu.be/Ybrl4FYM57c9IakE9x

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Grab your seat! https://t.co/G6DpTOnED6

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:52:31 GMT

Grab your seat! maven.com/tech-for-produ…

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LFG

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:50:42 GMT

LFG

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Already 2nd most popular course on Maven LFG

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Really good

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 20:05:38 GMT

Really good

Phil Chen@philhchen

x.com/i/article/2072…

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"People overemphasize the aesthetic part of what taste. Paul Graham clearly has great taste and wea...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 16:12:37 GMT

"People overemphasize the aesthetic part of what taste.

Paul Graham clearly has great taste and wears cargo shorts.

There is an aesthetic part to it, but there's also a systems thinking part of it, there's a 'where are we going' part of it, there's a 'how to present this to users' part of it. 

A lot of what it is is about a wider context. That I think is actually the real taste question."

@ajambrosino

Your browser does not support the video tag.

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.@OpenAI's Codex app lead: "A lot of companies are getting rid of the product role, and saying every...

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:32:36 GMT

.@OpenAI's Codex app lead: "A lot of companies are getting rid of the product role, and saying everybody's just going to be a builder.

I think that's a terrible idea.

This whole discipline of product has been built up over the years, and has real best practices, and real things that have been tried and failed. That just gets abandoned because people are like, oh I wrote some code.

Not everybody can work on everything. Every discipline has a skill component. Which a lot of engineers are guilty of not recognizing. Yes, you can use Excel, but you cannot work on the finance team."

Your browser does not support the video tag.

🔗 View on Twitter

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Andrew Ambrosino (@ajambrosino) leads the team behind the Codex desktop app at @OpenAI. Codex usage has 6x'd since February, reaching over 5M weekly active users, and nearly 100% of OpenAI's employees use the Codex app regularly (and not just the engineers).

Andrew's personal mission is to build "the best desktop app that has ever existed, full stop." If you've used the Codex app lately, you know he's not far off from that goal.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 The "zone defense" model of how PMs at OpenAI operate
🔸 Why AI is so bad at design
🔸 Why Andrew thinks the Codex app would have flopped if they'd shipped it in November instead of February (same product—only the model changed)
🔸 What “taste” really means as a professional skill
🔸 How Andrew uses Codex to run his workflows
🔸 His vision for Codex + ChatGPT

Listen youtu.be/P3KDebPTUrwohRbCiu

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Important post from @ElenaVerna https://t.co/FrdRNaHUjV

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 20:13:01 GMT

Important post from @ElenaVernaelenaverna.com/p/please-stop-…

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@OpenAI @ajambrosino Don't miss my full chat with Andrew https://t.co/KAozixB5gS

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:57:37 GMT

@OpenAI@ajambrosino Don't miss my full chat with Andrew youtube.com/watch?v=P3KDeb…

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Don't miss my full chat with Andrew https://t.co/KAozixB5gS

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:57:30 GMT

Don't miss my full chat with Andrew youtube.com/watch?v=P3KDeb…

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paging @clairevo

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:51:25 GMT

paging @clairevo

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