There are a variety of reasons: "It's just a job" is a nice idea, but since it's something I do 8 hours a day 5 days a week I try to make it something I enjoy.

There are a variety of reasons: "It's just a job" is a nice idea, but since it's something I do 8 hours a day 5 days a week I try to make it something I enjoy. I enjoy meeting with my coworkers each day, and like the projects I'm doing. I also probably care the least about my job of most of the people I know. For some of my FAANG friends working at a FAANG has been a life long dream. Sure it's easy to say "work shouldn't be important!" but for some people it is. Most obvious financial insecurity: The tech market is shrinking (I personally think it is collapsing, but that is not a necessary belief to feel grief). Many of the people being laid off right now (and in the future) will have much stiffer competition than before. I have a recently laid off friend who just had a baby. His partner doesn't have a high income job. That's a lot of added stress. To add to this most FAANG employees might not see nearly as high comp as they're used to. Then there is the serious loss we're going to see with any of our friends that are foreign nationals. I have a few friends on H1B visas. They're a big part of my life, own a home and plan on staying in the US indefinitely. They assumed they were on the path to a green card, which is reasonable given the market when the arrived at the US. It's very possible they will be forced to go back to their home country, never to come to the US again. Not only do these people have a justified reason to grieve, but any of their friends do as well. And big picture: we're potentially seeing a change in the entire industry, on par with the dotcom bust (maybe worse, maybe better). I'm guessing you're too young to remember but for many people getting laid off in 1999-2000 was the end of their tech career. To get a sense of how big of an impact this has, consider how many of your coworkers are from the dotcom era? I'm guessing not many. The tech industry was huge and exciting then, just like it has been recently. A lot of people got wiped out and never returned to the high times of the late dotcom period. There's honestly a lot of grief to be felt right now, not just for those being laid off but for those impacted by it indirectly (plus I think we're all waiting for that meeting if we haven't already had it).