As job cuts roil Silicon Valley, workers confront post-boom reality

While tech workers lost their jobs during the early days of the pandemic, the subsequent boom benefited the industry. This time workers are bracing for a more enduring downturn. — Image by Drazen Zigic on Freepik

When Ryan Stevens joined Meta Platforms Inc. as a product operations manager for WhatsApp in August of 2021, he was enticed by the opportunity to help shape a messaging app used daily by 2 billion people.

He also figured tending to a service that touches so many people would translate to a degree of job security. That belief shattered when Stevens awoke around 3 a.m. earlier this month to an email from Meta management, informing employees that layoffs were coming. After tossing and turning, Stevens, 39, received another missive at around 6 a.m.: He was one of more than 11,000 workers who had lost their jobs.