Was 2025 the hardest year to work in tech - or just the loneliest?
It looked fine on paper. It didn’t feel fine inside.
I’ve lost count of how many very senior people told me this has been the hardest year of their career.
Not “a tough patch,” or a sprint.
The hardest year.
And it wasn’t close.
If you felt a constant low-grade panic for most of 2025… you definitely weren’t alone.
Tech always moves fast. That’s the part a lot of us like. But this year was overwhelming. Even for experienced operators who usually love chaos, 2025 felt like trying to sprint on a treadmill that kept quietly speeding up.
AI was obviously a big part of that.
Suddenly, everyone was expected to learn a brand-new thing… while also acting like an expert at it.
Most teams I talked to had OKRs that literally said “use more AI.” Meanwhile, headcount didn’t go up. Their workload didn’t go down. And every time you opened social media, you were already behind.
Another “10x your productivity” thread.
Another “now’s the time millionaires are made” post.
For the people who did find leverage?
We just backfilled the free time with… more work. The number of “work units” went way up in 2025. Not down.
And that was all before you add in the rest of the year: layoffs, restructuring, political chaos, market whiplash… and the scary reality that product-market fit could shift at any second.
I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t pretending they were fine.
So I sat down with my friend, Natalie Marcotullio (Head of Growth at Navattic) to talk about what 2025 actually felt like from the inside.
Natalie said the quiet part out loud:
Things might have LOOKED okay.
But they didn’t FEEL okay.
Natalie had already been riding a lot of change at Navattic.
Her role had shifted from growth into more product marketing.
Mid-year, the team got smaller.
They launched a new product with a new persona.
And meanwhile, AI was warping the conversation around what “good” even looks like.
She went to conferences and heard the same message: if you’re not using it, you’re behind. Then she went out to dinners where people chatted about their favorite prompts.
Some nights, she needed to lay on the floor after dinner just to decompress.
I know it’s the end of the year - but you won’t learn any 7-step annual planning frameworks in our full conversation.
You’ll hear an honest conversation about what a challenging year can feel like from the inside.
Catch our full conversation on YouTube:
Or, listen on Spotify:
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