The Inner Crisis of Middle-Aged Programmers at Big Tech Companies
I. The Cohort That Benefited from 13 Years of a Boom
Computer science students born between 1985 and 1995 caught a major boom in the decade or more after graduation.
But even if we consider only those who stayed at major tech companies and had relatively smooth promotions—a large number work elsewhere or have changed careers, and their incomes are not that high—their current ranks are roughly P7–P8. Very few have reached P9 or 3-2, and very few managed to cash out substantial stock options when their companies went public. Over more than a decade, their cumulative pretax income has been between 8 and 10 million yuan, with after-tax income between 5 and 6 million yuan, plus shares or options worth several hundred thousand to a few million yuan. The main windfall for this generation of programmers has been the relatively stable, high salaries at major tech companies, rather than startup IPOs.
A minority received help from their families of origin, bought homes early, and benefited from rising property prices. Even these people have given back most of their paper gains during the downturn. Many others bought at the peak and are stuck with losses, while quite a few also have to support their families of origin. All of this is far removed from the Silicon Valley dream of an IPO windfall they once imagined.
The gray rhino of being pushed out as an older employee was always just a subject for jokes. Only when it actually approached and began trampling people did panic suddenly set in. During 2023–2024, these former classmates were all, one after another, “optimized out” of major tech companies. Their outlook underwent a fundamental change, and their petty-bourgeois dreams shattered.
They now generally face an age crisis and periodic layoffs. They cannot quite manage to lie flat, yet they no longer have the energy to keep competing. They frantically send out résumés, vent to one another, and research lying flat in smaller towns, remaining childfree as a couple, and retirement, while still feeling unwilling to settle and afraid of meaninglessness. AI brings new opportunities as well as new challenges. Severe existential anxiety is widespread among them.
Over the past few years, I have witnessed the upheaval in these people’s thoughts and inner lives.
Further reading:
“You Cannot Be an Elitist and Social Darwinist Only When Luck and Success Are on Your Side: A Common Pattern Among Programmers at Major Tech Companies and Finance Professionals”
II. Seeing Other Groups and Classes
If even this cohort is in such a situation, what about computer science students who graduated after 2018? What about ordinary people in every other line of work?
Conversely, ordinary people in other industries suffer more, yet their existential crises are often less severe. This is what makes petty-bourgeois malaise so frightening: the backlash from elitism, the exam-solving mindset, and related issues.
That ordinary people retain their simple goodness, sincerity, and appreciation of beauty amid suffering is ironclad evidence of innate wholeness. Ordinary people also have fewer karmic obstructions than the petty and small bourgeoisie, so they are closer to awakening.
Yet when the petty and small bourgeoisie face existential crises during a period of decline, they often become more frenziedly far-right. This is an observation in Fromm’s famous work *Escape from Freedom*, his study of Nazism among Germans and the crisis of modernity.
Most personal problems are problems of the times. For psychological self-rescue, the petty and small bourgeoisie need Marxism.
Further reading: “Petty-Bourgeois Malaise,” “The Small-Town Exam-Solver’s Malaise,” “The Fundamental Contradiction Facing University Students”
III. The Alienation of Life at Major Tech Companies
Complicated feedback, inefficiency, bureaucracy, slacking off, involution, and internal friction. A lack of accomplishment, meaning, connection, and a sense of existence.
The “chicken rib” dilemma of the path to a million-yuan annual salary: it cannot truly move you into another class, cannot be sustained over the long term, and is insufficient for a life of luxurious idleness, yet giving it up to think independently, explore, and strive on your own is too difficult.
Institutionalization like the prison in *The Shawshank Redemption*, becoming a complacent old hand at a major tech company. Personal dependence on the company. This is why so many people have such strongly feudal and bureaucratic tendencies.
The essence of 996 is not efficiency or hard work, but a lack of private life, blurred boundaries, the loss of agency, and being submerged in the system. This happens both intentionally and unintentionally.
IV. Existential Crisis
Empty-heart syndrome, meaninglessness, emptiness.
The loss of a sense of superiority and a sense of existence: the frustration and loss of identities they have relied on all along—high IQ, genius, IT elite, graduate of an elite Project 985 university, elitist, social Darwinist, successful person, and so on. They feel a sense of nothingness, meaninglessness, and unease.
Social upheaval, downward class mobility, technological change, and anxiety about AI intensify that unease.
Lost, with nowhere for the soul to rest. Many seek a farther shore in philosophy and spiritual teachings, only to fall into the elitism of spiritual-practice malaise.
Death anxiety.
V. Broken Connections with the Five Elements of Life: Studies, Career, Social Life, Body, and Mind
When we are not in a state of connection, we are often in a state of entanglement. (“Connection vs. Entanglement”)
(1) Losing connection with technology, scholarship, the IT industry, and professional networks;
Losing the skills and mental energy to socialize.
Losing the confidence and mental energy to plan a career and adapt to change.
Losing the courage to develop independently, explore independently, and live independently, even with the support of a substantial sum of money that ordinary people do not have.
Losing the confidence, initiative, curiosity, sense of a bright future, flexibility, and adaptability they had as undergraduates and graduate students;
So when they see the AI wave, what they feel is fear rather than excitement or inspiration.
Entangled in the systems of internal friction and involution at major tech companies, in writing weekly reports, and in technology stacks.
(2) Losing connection with their own bodies and minds;
Losing the experience of innate wholeness, unconditional confidence and existence, and the initiative and adaptability with which they grew independently as young people from small towns. Are today’s challenges really harder than those that young person from a small town faced back then?
Elitism and social Darwinism, losing connection with ordinary people, and fearing lying flat and being useless.
Losing agency and the ability to think independently. Losing steadiness, confidence, and clarity, and suffering the karmic fires of ignorance. Ethical discipline, meditative concentration, and wisdom; rightness, steadiness, clarity, and emptiness.
Entangled in various forms of bodily abuse, neglect, and indulgence.
Lost amid all kinds of psychological breakdown, disorientation, indulgence, and entanglement in karmic obstructions.
(3) Losing connection with others
A narrow worldview, *The Truman Show*, the influence of the people around you.
Surrounded by empty-heart syndrome: the family of origin, a nuclear family formed without much thought, classmates and colleagues, and the atmosphere of pushing children relentlessly to excel in Beijing’s Haidian District.
The syndrome of being surrounded by the petty and small bourgeoisie: living in their world—Houchangcun + Huilongguan, Caohejing + Jiuting, Zhihu and Douyin on your phone—and losing an understanding of unpretentious people, the proletarian, the masses, the world, nature, and the universe.
Involution among peers: few friends, only classmates and colleagues, with competition, envy, and jealousy among peers.
Entangled in all kinds of poor-quality, toxic relationships: toxic mirroring, idealization, and twinship alter egos.
(4) Losing connection with society, history, and the world
Losing connection with the countryside, workers, and peasants. Their understanding of society and history is a kind of homegrown right-wing narrative of elitism and social Darwinism.
Without left-wing concern for ordinary people and those at the bottom of society, they naturally lack a deep understanding of and concern for their own fate.
(5) Losing connection with nature and the universe
Traveling, hiking, and going abroad at a frantic pace on weekends and holidays, seeking the most spectacular natural scenery and posting all sorts of exquisite breakthroughs on their social feeds, yet finding it difficult to establish a real connection with nature.
VI. Directions for Self-Rescue
I have written many articles on the following, so I will not elaborate here. See the earlier article “On Living in the Present” and the series on connection.
- Living in the present
Keeping a diary to record awareness, strolling, gathering your energy, and doing small things.
For example, a friend recently began cutting down on sugar, exercising, walking to and from work, and keeping a diary.
- Connection
Connecting with the five elements of life: studies, career, social life, body, and mind. For example, a friend recently began writing a technical blog and facing AI head-on.
Connecting with yourself—innate wholeness, lava, your past self, your present self, and so on. “How Ordinary People Can Connect with Innate Wholeness,” “Be Grateful to Your Past Self, Be Grateful to Your Present Self”
Connecting with others. “Selecting Your Social Relationships”
Connecting with the simple goodness, sincerity, and beauty of working people at the bottom of society. “How to Connect with the Simple Goodness, Sincerity, and Beauty of Working People at the Bottom of Society,” “Literature in PDD’s Comment Sections and Healing at the Produce Market”
Connecting with nature—unconditional existence, freedom, and ease. “Why Is It Difficult to Connect with Nature”