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thr0w | 5 months ago

I do consulting, I'm constantly scouting clients. Right around November 2022 something very stark happened. I went from fighting off prospects with a stick, to crickets, almost over night. I deal mostly with startups and mid-size companies, nobody with insider knowledge or cutting edge interests. I can tell you that GPT was not heavily on anyone I dealt with's radar as an opportunity to reduce costs.

Some sort of cultural zeitgeist occurred, but in terms of symptoms I saw with my own eyes, I think ZIRP ending (projects getting axed) and layoffs starting (projects getting filled within ~24 hours) were huge drivers. I have no proof.

discuss

exitb|5 months ago

> Right around November 2022 something very stark happened.

The Twitter layoffs perhaps?

pydry|5 months ago

The interest rate rise also. It happened earlier but thats when the effects started to filter down.

ants_everywhere|5 months ago

The Twitter layoffs were done in anticipation of AI. Musk knew he wanted to make X and Twitter was one entry point. The loss in twitter productivity would be made up by AI gains and the first realization of that AI was named Grok.

So there's a bit of circular causality here. AI is a cause of the Twitter layoffs, and others are arguing that the Twitter layoffs may be a cause of other labor force shrinkage. If so then the Twitter layoffs are a costly signal that AI will impact the labor force and the shrinkage downstream of them is AI related.

k_roy|5 months ago

I think part of that is a bit of a collapose of traditional consulting. There's been a huge transition into the boutique firms now.

speakspokespok|5 months ago

Where do you think the market is going in regards to boutique firms? I've heard it mentioned but I'm not sure what counts as boutique and what that signifies for the next few years.

rdsubhas|5 months ago

Interest rate was hiked rapidly from 1% (in May 2022) to 4% (in Dec 3 2022).

Oct 2022 recorded the lowest for S&P 500 since COVID (till now).

COVID assistance was over. Vaccination reached a critical majority. On Sep 2022, Biden declared "COVID-19 pandemic was over" [1].

Businesses got a reality check.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Unite...

thr0w|5 months ago

Yep, interesting. Thank you.