Many of my students have a lifelong dream to work in Big Tech after graduation. Regardless of whether a student is a computer science or a marketing major, the allure of working for Google, Meta or Amazon — or any of the major tech companies — is deep-seated and fierce.
When massive tech layoffs started dominating the news — about half of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce, followed by 11,000 at Meta and 10,000 at Amazon — I initially was concerned for my current students at Northwestern University, where I lead the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. I also questioned my decision to take a cohort of 20 Farley undergraduates to San Francisco this winter quarter. A key component to the program’s purpose, after all, is to expose students to the tech scene that, just last year, was thriving.
But students who once vied for jobs at household-name tech companies will be fine. Industry experts do not expect Big Tech layoffs to cause a tsunami of layoffs in other sectors, which means opportunities simply will be elsewhere: at financial institutions and theaters, in climate and health care tech, and myriad other areas in desperate need of innovation.
