4 Work-Life Lessons from 3 Tech Booms and Busts

Dawn Mortensen
5 min readApr 24, 2023

--

A winding road with three large switchbacks, representing three big changes

As tech layoffs impact more than 325k the past six months (including me), I reflect on lessons learned from the three major tech cycles of the past 25 years: The dot-com bubble to bust, the web 2.0 boom to Great Recession, and the current layoffs. Here are four of my learnings, along with a few stories and takeaways to apply in a time of change.

  1. What you do is not who you are.

When we spend half our waking hours working, it can become part of our identity. So it’s natural to feel a sense of loss when a job disappears. But, an unexpected change is also an opportunity to consider what part of your job was truly you and aligned to your values.

If you haven’t recently outlined your core life values, consider doing so. Melody Wilding, author of Trust Yourself, offers a core values worksheet as a prompt. When you anchor yourself in the 3-4 values driving your life — and then apply to roles that fit most of those values — you’re more likely to end up where you want to go. The past six months, each role I considered passed through the lens of my personal life values of authenticity, curiosity, creativity and purpose.

Takeaway: Know your values and use those to guide your next role choice.

2. What you build has life beyond the team, project or brand.

When I received a layoff notice from Meta, I grieved at the loss of a team and what we were building. Then, I remembered my early career lessons; in the dot-com boom of the late nineties, I put my heart into launching startup brands… only to see the identity, positioning, and websites disappear when the business met its exit goal of acquisition. I learned to accept that work was often temporary, focusing instead on what lives on: the experience, relationships and skills needed to do the work again and again.

I took what I’d learned from the dot-com bubble into the Web 2.0 boom of the early 2000s, when my partner and I built a social web business. With a business plan, a strong brand and lots of hustle, we courted our first 1,000 users and secured seed funding… until the Great Recession hit, which dried up next-round options. We went back to our day jobs, but moved ahead with first-hand knowledge of the risks and obstacles founders must overcome to move a business from idea to reality.

I learned that with every cycle — Build, Grow, Exit, Let go — I needed to release some attachment to the past to make room for the next.

Takeaway: Maintain a growth mindset. Focus on what you carry forward.

3. Resilience is earned, not learned.

Although you can learn the principles of resilience from a book or training, you really don’t have it until you’ve put those principles into practice by traversing the messiness of life. If losing a job is the first major challenge of your life, welcome to the testing grounds. You’ll come out of this stronger.

As layoffs continue, the competition for some tech jobs is greater than I’ve seen in 25 years — requiring persistence and perhaps flexibility in which role to take.

A year into the Great Recession, I was grateful to have a baby, a preschooler and a marketing consulting job I loved. But when my spouse was laid off from his job, we lost our benefits. Paying $3,000 a month for health coverage wasn’t sustainable, so I took the first full-time role I was offered, as a Senior Trainer for fleet owners. I presented training webinars on Trimble Transportation’s SaaS solution, designed learning courses, and helped launch our first online learning portal. A year later, I moved back to a marketing comms role. But I gained a great story of flexibility to share when asked about what seems an odd career progression on my resume.

In 2023, however you earn — and whatever you learn from it — count it toward building the resilience and resolve that will help you thrive in the next decade of your life.

Takeaway: Stay flexible. Be proud of how you are adapting and building resilience.

4. The next step is not the final step.

In times of prosperity, you may have been able to optimize your career path, grow your family, travel or buy a home — reinforcing the myth that life is a step-by-step, forward-moving progression. In constricted economic times, you may feel like you’re in a holding pattern on some of your life goals. But remember: this time will just be part of your story, not the end of the story.

As my team at Meta grew in impact and reputation, I imagined a long tenure with several more roles at the company. Instead, I faced a hard stop in my path. It was a jolt. But rather than dwell on why the restructuring was done as it was, which I had no control over, I asked myself what the change might enable. I reminded myself that I can use my skills of flexibility, resilience and perseverance to find the next right step.

The past few months, I honed my interview and presentation skills, learned new technologies, and built new relationships. I’ve had twists and turns — like landing a role after 9 interviews, only to have it put on indefinite hold. Then I realized the next right step is to start my own consultancy, Dawn Mortensen Marketing, so I can serve as a fractional marketing director to multiple non-competing startups. I just confirmed my business license and my first client. I’m excited about how this will feed my curiosity and creativity in ways I hadn’t imagined — reminding me that being thrown off course just means I’m charting new territory.

Takeaway: Be open to new paths

In summary, stay focused on who you are by adhering to your values. Maintain a growth mindset. Stay flexible, recognizing you are building resilience. And be open to new paths forged by change. Your future self (and career) will thank you.

Find Dawn Mortensen Marketing at linkedin.com/in/dawnmortensen

--

--

Dawn Mortensen
Dawn Mortensen

Written by Dawn Mortensen

A Silicon Valley marketing veteran, I strategically use business storytelling and content to educate audiences, drive positive sentiment and strengthen brands.

Responses (5)