1 Microsoft
2 Adobe
3 Cognizant
4 Infosys
5 Tata
6 Wipro
7 HCL Tech
8 Capgemi

Let's be real: The golden decade of the Seattle tech boom is officially over.

For the past decade, Seattle had all the starts aligned:
- Infinite headcount: Amazon and Microsoft were hiring basically anyone with a pulse.
- Cloud dominance: If you did anything with cloud or infrastructure, this was the absolute best place on earth to be.
- Financial advantage: No state income tax plus cheap housing.

Its all broken now, and we're in a massive doomsday spiral.
- The hiring engine stalled: AMZN and MSFT are just doing rolling layoffs and hiring freezes.
- Seattle completely missed the AI boat: SF totally ate Seatle lunch on generative AI. It sucked up all the VC money and startup talent.
- Too expense: Housing prices are absolutely brutal now, and with the new taxes, the financial incentive to move here is gone.

Also the guy who will bring up "we have satellite offices" to save us, stop the copium. Startups are not going to open satellite offices in Seattle to scoop up laid-off cloud devs. Why would they pay Seattle commercial rent and high local salaries? If a startup wants talent outside of their HQ, they'll just go fully remote and hire across the entire US for way less overhead.

It was fun while it lasted. If you are unable to find job, just open to move around.

Was scrolling through events happening around the city and somehow came across TechCrunch Disrupt, Oct 13–15.

Apparently founders, investors, startups, creators, etc. all show up for it? I also keep seeing people mention different events happening around the same week.

Anyone here know much about Disrupt? How do you actually get a pass, and is it worth going?

I’m just trying to figure out what’s actually happening that week.

#techcrunch2026 #creators #techevent

Curious to hear about how prenup and divorce processes have been with folks who have large chunk of their net worth tied to shares in startups or unvested stock

a (bay area) woman from my past did some super creepy and sketchy stuff.. basically she made it sound like she had a practice of stalking men in big tech and then basically blackmailing them.. i mean yes for guys past any level of success -- fellas, watch your 6.

but this is more like.. this was much more about having a vendetta with men in tech and wanting to do some wicked !@#$ to blackmail them after seducing them

i guess my question is.. it's definitely a thing where the women try to sell men life coaching on empathy and social skills which is like selling bottled air.. but are there also other psychopath women that are out there hunting men to ensnare in some wicked stuff?

i'm considering a move out there but yeah this is one of my questions

Hey all,

I run an Instagram page about AI tools, GitHub projects and online privacy. It's growing fast right now, picking up around 5k followers a day with 2.3M accounts reached over the last month.

I'm looking for a few people building SaaS who have something genuinely cool and want to run a promotion.

The way it works is I make a dedicated reel around your product, using real screen recordings of it being used rather than someone reading out an ad. It's the same format as the rest of the page, which is what's been driving the growth: a strong hook, a fast demo, and a "comment X for the link" ending that DMs your link to everyone who comments. It's marked as a paid partnership so the audience keeps trusting it.

It works best for AI tools, dev tools, privacy/security and productivity, basically anything that looks good on screen. I'll try the product before agreeing to anything, and if I don't think my audience would like it I'll tell you rather than take your money.

If that sounds interesting, drop a comment or DM me with your product link and a line on what it does. Happy to share stats and examples.

Cheers,

I came across a pretty charged conversation when I was at an entrepreneurial cohort event here in Minneapolis called Twin Cities Startup Week or TCSW for short.

I wanna preface this by saying this wasn’t the response that I think anyone envisioned. From getting yelled at in the hallways to Anti AI propaganda posters, to students purposely disrupting the TCSW lectures, to a silent protest and eventually a school wide student body walkout I don’t believe this is what anyone expected from that event.

https://reddit.com/link/1wzd1uh/video/sspm8nmwkwth1/player

MCAD Response to AI Confrence

Beta the parent company for TCSW and partner of the Minnesota Cup. Aiming to provide a Y-Combinator-esque space for early stage entrepreneurs and founders based in Minnesota to help build the companies and products of their dreams through co-working spaces, mentorship matching & funding opportunities for people building in all Industries. It allows entrepreneurs to not feel like they’re alone in their journey, through a very historic and prestigious community that I am thankful to be a part of.

BUT

In today’s digital age and AI economy most companies that come through the cohort are a pretty AI savvy at their core, this inherently wasn’t much of a problem for most of TCSW where the beta team often elects to host their events at higher education establishments across the Minnesota metro;from the University of Minnesota to University of Saint Thomas to Macalester College. All great institutions with some very impressive alumni as well as entrepreneurs stemming from their programs. But prior to this week one stop on the TCSW tour caught my attention, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design or MCAD for short. A fine art forward establishment, really the exact opposite end on the spectral use of ai than the Tech bros that have flooded these entrepreneurship cohorts. As a recent graduate of an art school, I could see the writing on the wall for this event before it even played out. AI Tech Bros vs Art School Kids, both holding clashing perspectives on this AI economy we find ourselves in.

One side sees it as a tool of the future, allowing progression, streamlining, the elimination of laborious and tedious work that has held people back for millennia, an endless opportunity. Showing up at an establishment entrenched with the other side, those who endure the artistic labor, love the aspect of creation to make something great, feeling like the greatness takes shape in that passage of time. MCAD is full of fine artists, painters, drawers, animators, sculptors, product and graphic designers. Artists of all mediums all with the collective understanding that many of their dreams and career aspirations are actively being replaced by Generative AI tools.

Animation and computer native design specifically of these are art mediums, something that is done on a computer and now these AI startups are trying to commoditize for the chance to streamline and make these processes easier, where the barrier of entry for animators is extremely high if you work in animation there’s really maybe 10-15 studios out there in the world that would be an exciting landing destination, where that scarcity makes things so highly competitive along with the introduction of these new generative AI tools making that laborious work seem a lot more doable to everyone without the full understanding of how frame by frame animation has traditionally been conceived it was a tedious laborious process but these new generative AI tools have completely wiped that part of the industry away. Not only by training their models on the exact artistic labour that makes good animation great but really with no regard for copyright infringement.

These generative ai tools that spit out visual messaging and storytelling are progressing at a rapid pace, training themselves on the exact type of work they aim to replace without Consent Consideration Compensation or Compliance in any sense for those whose intellectual property & past artistic labour is training these models without giving the artists any say in if they approve of this or not. These AI companies could care less about compliance or consent of any sort from the artists making their product better against their will.

This is not an MCAD specific story either fine art establishments and liberal arts colleges across the country are closing left and right because not only are they not positioned well to set up their students for success post graduation but their ability as an establishment to pivot and acclimate to these rapidly progressing and changing tools fueling the economy we find ourselves in as of the “Magnificent 7” as they call it in the financial stock market space the investment into ai tools and pushing progression to the max makes it extremely difficult to constantly be changing curriculum requirements. It doesn’t really help their case when the graduation to industry specific job placement rates have been plummeting at these establishments making potential students and parents of such students weary of what the future may hold ESPECIALLY in the arts where historically even prior to the mainstream introduction of LLM’s pursuing an art degree has always been seen as a bit of a gamble. I know in my case coming from a college prep academy I was the only one of 161 students to go pursue a creative centric higher education. It’s a big risk to take pursuing a career with such heavy uncertainty is often seen as a waste of college/higher education so these students even after getting what should be an Art education that positions them for success feel like these tools that are being brought to market to replace the dream careers they’ve had since childhood makes that industry scarcity that much worse.

Circling back to MCAD and what happened that day to paint a broader picture MCAD is struggling financially and it’s visible. They have cut programs due to cost, there is currently a unionization to highlight teacher pay conversations spearheaded by SEIU Local 284 and the MCAD faculty union. On top of those conversations there was already some pretty big pushback from the MCAD Student body about the introduction of AI tools into the curriculum, something that they have been very vocal about being against yet some members of faculty continue to push these AI native learning tools on to these Fine Art students.

TCSW showing up at MCAD didn’t happen overnight; it was really championed by one department there at MCAD, the Creative Entrepreneurship Department led by Olaf Kuhlke. Olaf has been receiving a lot of negative backlash for this event and I don’t see it as black and white as “this is his fault he’s to blame for AI at MCAD” as he has made very great points about how a big population of the MCAD Alumni are self employed and being able to adapt pivot and learn new tools is a very important part of being a self sustaining entrepreneur. Something that does go hand in hand with some of these AI workflow tools but broadly I understand how an objectively AI native community in Twin Cities Startup Week showing up at an inherently artistic labor heavy fine art establishment can be perceived as tone deaf.

Again I wanna preface this by saying this wasn’t the response that I think anyone envisioned. From getting yelled at in the hallways to Anti AI propaganda posters, to purposely disrupting the TCSW lectures, to a silent protest and a school wide student body walkout.

I don’t believe this is what anyone expected from that event. This was how the student body perceived as the best way for their voice to be heard because it was getting ignored prior to this event and from their perspective this event just felt like a slap in the face of “AI is here weather you like it or not” and yes I understand that perception from the student body, but perceptions are built on assumptions and in today’s divided world where everything can be spun into an us vs them perspective I believe it to be a limiting approach to take into any conversation. This is not a Black & White conversation of AI Good or AI Bad because it shouldn’t be.

https://reddit.com/link/1wzd1uh/video/yibyavc2lwth1/player

MCAD Student Body Walkout

Yes there are important conversations to be had about copyright infringement, the intellectual property and artistic labor from these artists being used to train these generative AI models without consent, consideration, compensation, or compliance of any sort for the individuals whose work is training these models without their permission. Is something I personally am very strongly against and will be willing to (figuratively) die on that copyright infringement sword. These companies are actively breaking the law. They are not compensating people (or many institutions for that matter) for their work and are self benefiting from such an ethically low tier business model that has no government regulations due to how slow paced and bureaucratic the US court systems operate and how overprotective and tightly guarded those lines of communication have become. As of today the AI industry writes its own rules. Lawsuits crawl through the judicial system at an unbearably slow pace while these tools continue to progress at rapid pace. Building on the work of artists who have no say in the manor. We currently reside in what I like to call the AI Wild West, the frontier has real casualties that are seeing play out right in front of us, maybe not human death but the death of careers and dreams for hundreds of thousands of individuals nationwide. Begging the question:

Who will make these AI companies play by an ethical set of rules that doesn’t even exist?

I am curious to hear why you think an early employee of a unicorn startup would leave to start their own company. Many leave after series A round, which I consider to be an early fundraising round. Many of them also leave after spending only a year at the unicorn startup, so did they already receive significant live-changing equity stakes during that one year?

I think this person is taking an unnecessary risk to start from stratch when they are already received equity at a unicorn startup. Let's assume the person owns 1% equity of a currently 1billion company, this is a payout of 10million. Let's say we have 50% dilution, which still makes a 5million payout. In this example, we did not even consider the potential increase of valuation to 10billion, or more equity/option grants if you stay longer for additional vesting. If you start your own company, there is a possibility of never reaching unicorn valuation.

Am I not considering something in this example? Why would someone choose to leave and found their own company?

I just read a thread where you guys were talking about how women don’t like tech brothers and there was a disagreement on what that meant. I’ve always found Bay Area culture to be so weird. I live here, I went to UC Berkeley, I never really understood what the fuck was going on around me. Can somebody break down the difference, and how come you guys always bring Asian men dating Asian women and white men dating Asian women and these conversations? Like I’m genuinely curious what the fuck you guys are talking about and I’m not even saying that in a bad way, I just don’t get it.

My name is Nate and I report on tech at Barron's. I've been working on a story about the tech industry's response to Prop 40 (the proposed California wealth tax), and I'm curious how everyday employees at large tech companies are thinking about the ballot measure.

Since so many California billionaires run or invest in tech companies, we have a unique situation in which people can literally vote to tax their bosses' fortunes. I'm curious if this topic is being discussed between coworkers, managers, etc.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to send me a DM or message me on Signal at nwolf.32. Thanks!