Genuinely don't think it was the end of the ZLB or Covid. The good times began declining well before that, when MBAs reached critical mass. Interest rates may h

Genuinely don't think it was the end of the ZLB or Covid. The good times began declining well before that, when MBAs reached critical mass. Interest rates may have accelerated this, but it was always inevitable. When serious money starts getting made, a bunch of spreadsheet jockeys who've never shipped a product in their lives show up, blame engineers for declining quality, and "solve" the problem by 1. imposing more process, 2. diverting hiring budget to managers and PMs, and 3. making everyone take some snake oil training courses (run by some consulting firm staffed by people who last shipped something in the early naughts) Then the middle management culture gets entrenched and metastasizes. ICs get swept aside (they're just infinitely replaceable "resources" of course), and the engineering culture starts to atrophy and die. Then new companies come up and make a splash because they don't have any of that crap, and talent goes to them, and the cycle begins anew.