Will there be more software developers working next year?
For the first time, the number of software jobs in the US has stagnated. This coincides with the broader trend of lower labor force participation across sectors.
Previously, recent college grads always had a lower unemployment rate than the general workforce. That has flipped — now recent grads have a notably higher unemployment rate.
Societal shifts because of new technology tend to be more noticeable over a decade than over a single year. Is AI different?
Brian Brackeen says there will be fewer software developers working in the United States a year from now. I call bullshit.
We're making a bet of it: Loser has to wait in line to buy the other a cheesesteak from South Philadelphia's beloved Angelo's — since we'll both be in that city for a tech-inspired celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence around the next Technical.ly Builders Conference (Here's coverage of our most recent one).
Contrary to what I say to my friend's face, Brackeen is no fool. The proven entrepreneur–turned–provocateur venture capitalist has a point.
Two big changes are hitting software development at the same time, making it difficult to distinguish between them: Higher interest rates have chilled speculative tech building, and new artificial intelligence tools are creating new efficiencies. Further complicating the trend, pandemic habits boosted international tech hiring, and the decades-old digital transformation appears to be aging. Expensive software developers seem an ideal role for executives to replace.
In 2024, the American economy added new software developer jobs at the slowest year-over-year rate on record.
All this comes in a strange macroeconomic moment.
Take the first quarter of 2025: Tech hiring didn't just stall — it retreated. Software developer job postings were still falling even long after the pandemic-fueled bonanza had faded, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Tech unemployment climbed above the national average, peaking at 5.7% in February.
Other than robotics, most current AI excitement is concentrated in knowledge work, something college graduates specialize in. (The plumber I once worked for used to say that getting a college degree was a way to buy a chance to work in air-conditioning). So as economists research whether AI is affecting job prospects, they're focusing on degree holders.
A real change is underway. For decades, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was almost always lower than the overall unemployment rate. Following the Great Recession, unemployment peaked in June 2010 at 9.5%; It was bad for recent college graduates too, but that rate never got above 7.8%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank. The same thing happened in the recessions of 1990 and 2001.
But those figures have flipped in recent years — and the gap is widening. The first quarter of 2025 ended with an unemployment rate for recent college graduates that was almost one-and-a-half times higher (5.8% versus 4% for all workers). Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees this week that over the next few years, the online commerce giant 'will reduce [its] total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.'
Any move toward the end of knowledge work bodes poorly for software development, an especially well-paid (and occasionally rote) trade.
Fewer people are working — but not (yet) because of AI
This coincides with a broader trend: Labor force participation remains down from pre-pandemic levels. A recent explainer from the Federal Reserve underlined the stakes: Either we grow our economy by improving productivity or by adding more workers. With aging demographics and early retirements, we've been trending in the opposite direction.
That drop isn't theoretical. There are 1.7 million fewer Americans in the workforce now than in February 2020, per the US Chamber of Commerce. That means many jobs, including tech roles, are going unfilled.
So software developers are harder to come by. But I'm still betting we'll have more of them by next year. Why?
For one, the trends don't line up with AI breakthroughs. The unemployment rate for recent college grads crested above the overall rate way back in 2018 – though the gulf has gotten larger. Something else is happening.
Next, pricing pressure can create surprising outcomes. Often called the Jevons Paradox, falling costs in something (like the price of building software) can boost demand for it (resulting in more need).
The time required for any given software development can shrink, even as the need for people to do adjacent work can grow. Job titles can change — witness the decline of ' computer programmer ' — and job descriptions too. But software skills will remain in-demand for the foreseeable future.
The third reason I took the bet is the maxim credited to Bill Gates: We tend to overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can in a decade. (Note: I was less sure about taking Brian up on a bet over 5 years, but jumped at the bet for a year out — check the video here.)
Early this year, University of Oxford researchers published a paper documenting the impact automation has had on language translators. It's changing the job and shifting the skills needed, but certain tasks remain stubbornly human.
Will AI be different from other tech advancements?
No question getting a job, especially a first job, in tech is harder than it has been.
The leader of one coding bootcamp told me there's been 'a collapse,' and they're feverishly adapting their model. At present, that is more to do with higher-interest rates and general macroeconomic trends, with AI as window dressing. Focused on the medium term, boosters remain bullish that the growth in tech apprenticeship will continue.
Brackeen's side of the bet is that AI is different from past technologies, and that the speed will sneak up on us. AI legend Geoffrey Hinton recently argued the same. My side of the bet is that even if this is right, it will happen slower than we think, and that titles like software developer will adapt, and therefore grow, for at least a while longer.
We'll settle it over cheesesteaks. See you in Philadelphia next May.
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Technical.ly
a day ago
- Technical.ly
Will there be more software developers working next year?
For the first time, the number of software jobs in the US has stagnated. This coincides with the broader trend of lower labor force participation across sectors. Previously, recent college grads always had a lower unemployment rate than the general workforce. That has flipped — now recent grads have a notably higher unemployment rate. Societal shifts because of new technology tend to be more noticeable over a decade than over a single year. Is AI different? Brian Brackeen says there will be fewer software developers working in the United States a year from now. I call bullshit. We're making a bet of it: Loser has to wait in line to buy the other a cheesesteak from South Philadelphia's beloved Angelo's — since we'll both be in that city for a tech-inspired celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence around the next Builders Conference (Here's coverage of our most recent one). Contrary to what I say to my friend's face, Brackeen is no fool. The proven entrepreneur–turned–provocateur venture capitalist has a point. Two big changes are hitting software development at the same time, making it difficult to distinguish between them: Higher interest rates have chilled speculative tech building, and new artificial intelligence tools are creating new efficiencies. Further complicating the trend, pandemic habits boosted international tech hiring, and the decades-old digital transformation appears to be aging. Expensive software developers seem an ideal role for executives to replace. In 2024, the American economy added new software developer jobs at the slowest year-over-year rate on record. All this comes in a strange macroeconomic moment. Take the first quarter of 2025: Tech hiring didn't just stall — it retreated. Software developer job postings were still falling even long after the pandemic-fueled bonanza had faded, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Tech unemployment climbed above the national average, peaking at 5.7% in February. Other than robotics, most current AI excitement is concentrated in knowledge work, something college graduates specialize in. (The plumber I once worked for used to say that getting a college degree was a way to buy a chance to work in air-conditioning). So as economists research whether AI is affecting job prospects, they're focusing on degree holders. A real change is underway. For decades, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was almost always lower than the overall unemployment rate. Following the Great Recession, unemployment peaked in June 2010 at 9.5%; It was bad for recent college graduates too, but that rate never got above 7.8%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank. The same thing happened in the recessions of 1990 and 2001. But those figures have flipped in recent years — and the gap is widening. The first quarter of 2025 ended with an unemployment rate for recent college graduates that was almost one-and-a-half times higher (5.8% versus 4% for all workers). Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees this week that over the next few years, the online commerce giant 'will reduce [its] total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.' Any move toward the end of knowledge work bodes poorly for software development, an especially well-paid (and occasionally rote) trade. Fewer people are working — but not (yet) because of AI This coincides with a broader trend: Labor force participation remains down from pre-pandemic levels. A recent explainer from the Federal Reserve underlined the stakes: Either we grow our economy by improving productivity or by adding more workers. With aging demographics and early retirements, we've been trending in the opposite direction. That drop isn't theoretical. There are 1.7 million fewer Americans in the workforce now than in February 2020, per the US Chamber of Commerce. That means many jobs, including tech roles, are going unfilled. So software developers are harder to come by. But I'm still betting we'll have more of them by next year. Why? For one, the trends don't line up with AI breakthroughs. The unemployment rate for recent college grads crested above the overall rate way back in 2018 – though the gulf has gotten larger. Something else is happening. Next, pricing pressure can create surprising outcomes. Often called the Jevons Paradox, falling costs in something (like the price of building software) can boost demand for it (resulting in more need). The time required for any given software development can shrink, even as the need for people to do adjacent work can grow. Job titles can change — witness the decline of ' computer programmer ' — and job descriptions too. But software skills will remain in-demand for the foreseeable future. The third reason I took the bet is the maxim credited to Bill Gates: We tend to overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can in a decade. (Note: I was less sure about taking Brian up on a bet over 5 years, but jumped at the bet for a year out — check the video here.) Early this year, University of Oxford researchers published a paper documenting the impact automation has had on language translators. It's changing the job and shifting the skills needed, but certain tasks remain stubbornly human. Will AI be different from other tech advancements? No question getting a job, especially a first job, in tech is harder than it has been. The leader of one coding bootcamp told me there's been 'a collapse,' and they're feverishly adapting their model. At present, that is more to do with higher-interest rates and general macroeconomic trends, with AI as window dressing. Focused on the medium term, boosters remain bullish that the growth in tech apprenticeship will continue. Brackeen's side of the bet is that AI is different from past technologies, and that the speed will sneak up on us. AI legend Geoffrey Hinton recently argued the same. My side of the bet is that even if this is right, it will happen slower than we think, and that titles like software developer will adapt, and therefore grow, for at least a while longer. We'll settle it over cheesesteaks. See you in Philadelphia next May.
Technical.ly
09-06-2025
- Technical.ly
GEC 2025: What the Global Entrepreneurship Congress says about American entrepreneurial leadership
Among the greatest of American exports, hip-hop and basketball have gone entirely global. Entrepreneurship too. Back to antiquity, the first businesses were in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The modern corporation is a European invention, and the longest running company is Japanese. But the Americans made it cool. From the 1980s-era 'greed is good' to post-Great Recession social entrepreneurship, the United States put get-rich businesses on magazine covers and humble small business owners on primetime reality TV. Fitting, then, that the Global Entrepreneurship Congress is an American product that has been mostly held abroad. With origins in the early 2000s, this first-of-its-kind globally-minded pro-startup conference was held in 2009 for 200 attendees in Kansas City, with funding from the entrepreneurship-obsessed Kauffman Foundation. Founded by trained economist and policy wonk Jonathan Ortmans, the conference is organized by what is now called the Global Entrepreneurship Network (or GEN, pronounced like the name Jen), which Ortmans leads. This year boasted more than 3,000 attendees. 'Entrepreneurs are the new diplomats of the world.' Jonathan Ortmans, Global Entrepreneurship Network Over the following 15 years, the Congress was held the world over, including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Last week, GEC was held in the United States for the first time since its start — in Indianapolis, a growing city in a Midwestern state with bipartisan support for business growth and a hook into federal research dollars. 'Entrepreneurs are the new diplomats of the world,' Ortmans said on stage. His opening remarks lamented fading enthusiasm for an interconnected global economy. Elsewhere, he spoke optimistically of what remains bipartisan support for business creation. In the conference's keynote conversation with entrepreneur-turned-celebrity investor Mark Cuban, Ortmans boasted that GEC was held in Moscow in the weeks that followed the Russian invasion of Crimea. Back in March 2014, for the conference-attending entrepreneurs and their supporters from around the world, 'nothing was different.' Whether that sounds like a hardworking ethic or aloof indifference, Ortmans argues entrepreneurs crave stability, clarity and transparency, which benefits everyone else. Alongside Ortmans, Cuban presented as even more optimistic, and idealistic, for Entrepreneur The Diplomat. Cuban gushed about the promise of artificial intelligence to unlock the entrepreneurial spirit around the world, leveling the playing field with just an internet connection. Famously, Silicon Valley notables broke toward supporting Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but Cuban was a prominent outlier and frequent MAGA critic. He was less directly critical at nonpolitical-striving GEC, and Ortmans encouraged him to widen his lens to consider a global audience in the convention hall that came from at least 130 countries. Tellingly, there was no formal delegation from the American federal government, nor its DOGE-cost-cutting Small Business Administration. (One member of a GEC advisory group politely declined to comment and sensibly encouraged this reporter to focus on the international presence and bipartisan support among state and local American officials.) 'There are plenty of places to talk about politics. If you're an entrepreneur, be an entrepreneur. If your business succeeds, the politicians will come to you,' Cuban advised. 'You want your business to outlast any one politician.' In some sense, it's a hopeful throwback to a more innocent time when a jet-setting elite believed commerce would lead to peace and prosperity. That's the optimistic worldview that led the American government to welcome the Chinese Community Party into the World Trade Organization, and the same that encouraged the German government to rely on the Russian state for its energy security. In recent years, there's been a reversal: Global citizens of international capitals have been humbled into a choice, say more, or say less. During the pandemic, social justice protests demanded that entrepreneurs speak out on a growing list of political issues. Ortmans, Cuban and the spirit of GEN's GEC seem to say something different. As one GEC collaborator has told me: 'Entrepreneurship is my politics.' Informed by the modest, Midwestern style of the Kauffman Foundation, the conference was filled with practical advice for entrepreneurs and local economic development leaders. Common-sense policy discussions happened alongside meet-and-greets between commerce ministers from dozens of countries. Each GEC features a dedicated 'compass room' with a UN-style circular white table with microphones. Its orientation stands in contrast to the Silicon Valley investor-catwalk startup conferences, Austin's hipper-than-thou SXSW and and the sprawling and showy Las Vegas consumer technology shows. Ortmans hopped between sessions and off-site events. He addressed both the launch of a national campaign to center entrepreneurs in next year's anniversary of the American Revolution and at a working session of 'national ecosystem resource providers' — of which Technically is one. 'This is one way back,' Ortmans said of a more pro-growth time. 'Customers matter. Failure doesn't.' Mark Cuban Cuban, who knows something about hip hop and basketball, embodies a brighter optimism than most American elites of late. A thousand of us overflowed conference chairs, and clapped and chuckled at his folksy charm, embodied by the carefully chosen polo-shirt he wore from his Indiana University alma mater,. 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Technical.ly
08-06-2025
- Technical.ly
Most companies don't IPO, so here's how to plan for your likely exit
The most important day of an entrepreneur's journey might be the one when it ends. The big question: Will it end on your terms? That's the dilemma behind most startup exits, whether they take place through a merger, acquisition or an initial public offering (IPO). Experts put that distinction front and center during the 2025 Builders Conference session titled 'M&A or IPO: What is Your Company's Destination?' Moderated by Mike Ravenscroft of the University System of Maryland's Maryland Momentum Fund, the conversation featured attorney Kim Klayman of Ballard Spahr and Alexis Grant, founder of the M&A-focused newsletter They Got Acquired. Together, they laid out a candid, often under-explored roadmap of what founders really need to know about exiting — and why waiting until it's too late to plan is a mistake. 'Think about it early,' Grant said. 'Gives you more options.' The numbers are clear, Ravenscroft noted: Only a tiny fraction of companies ever go public, and even among VC-backed firms, IPOs are rare. The vast majority of exits happen via mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The panelists agreed that the perception gap around what makes an exit 'successful' can obscure the reality of its true impact. A $7 million sale might be life-changing for a bootstrapped founder with majority ownership. But if that same company had raised venture capital at a high valuation, the founder might walk away with little or nothing. 'If someone raises $5 million and they sell for $5 million, they probably didn't get any money,' Grant said. That disconnect is even more stark during economic downturns or slower capital markets. Klayman pointed to the increase in smaller companies acquiring other small firms — sometimes simply to pad revenue, not gain technology. But these all-stock or acqui-hire (in which a company gets acquired for their talent) deals can mask another story: Sometimes, the best-case scenario is simply survival. 'The reality is most companies end up in an M&A situation, even if it's a multi-generational business,' Klayman said. 'It does end up a lot of times in an M&A transaction if there is no succession plan.' The hardest parts that too few talk about Asked what founders need to prepare for, both panelists were unequivocal: The due diligence process is brutal. 'For many [founders], due diligence ends up being a second job,' Grant said, adding: 'You also have to keep running the business, and you want to run it in a way that performance does not drop, because that's the worst thing that can happen when you're going through a deal.' That's why both she and Klayman emphasized the need to 'get your house in order' — and do so early. From knowing who owns the IP to having clean cap tables and documented promises of equity shares, small oversights can kill a deal late in the game. 'I have actually seen one deal die because the whole company was built on this one piece of software, and that's what the buyer wanted,' Klayman said. 'And it was like, a software developer did it 25 years earlier, and they didn't paper it because it wasn't that important. And the deal just died.' She advised founders to use tools like Carta or diligence-prep software to identify red flags before a transaction is even on the table. Attorneys can help, but so can platforms that flag missing consents or unsigned option grants. 'Being organized is like 95% of the battle,' Klayman said. The stories behind the headlines Of course, learning these details can be difficult when many companies don't discuss them soon after an M&A takes place. The panel also pulled back the curtain on how mergers and acquisitions are framed in public — and how different the internal reality can be. Grant, whose company profiles founder-led exits, said PR statements often overhype vague synergies and downplay job losses or underwhelming returns. She added that sellers are often far more candid a year or two post-sale. 'Most of the stories we write, they're usually at least six months after the acquisition has taken place,' Grant said. 'The seller is more open to sharing real details at that point.' Klayman agreed: Sometimes the announcements make it seem like someone got a bunch of money, when usually the investors, even if they're paid first, 'are getting like 10 cents on the dollar,' she said. 'I don't think that people want those types of transactions to happen,' she said, 'but when they do happen, it takes effort and, I think, actually responsible founders to make it happen.' All emphasized that outcomes must be evaluated in context. Founders may sell to give their team stability, find a new role or offload a company responsibly instead of shutting down. What matters, they said, is alignment between a founder's goals and their investors' expectations. The closing message to founders was clear: Plan for your endgame from the beginning. Think through potential paths — and not just the flashy ones. Ask investors what their expectations are. Build a network that includes not just mentors and peers, but service providers who understand exits and won't charge you just to ask questions. 'If you don't know what success looks like, you're going to be poor no matter what,' Ravenscroft said, 'because you won't know it if you get it.'
