It’s finally happening: Our self-proclaimed betters are leaving for that big Libertopia in the sky, or under the sea, or in space, or whatever.
Per a report in Bloomberg on Thursday, data from staffing firm Challenger, Grey, & Christmas shows that a “record” 181 tech CEOs have left their posts from January 2019 through October—up 46 per cent from the same 10-month time period in 2018 and already 19 per cent higher than the total number of 152 CEO departures that year, Bloomberg wrote.
“The tech sector is undergoing major changes due to an evolving landscape,” Challenger Vice President Andrew Challenger told Bloomberg in a statement, referring to what we can only conclude is the construction of a Galt’s Gulch-style ultra-capitalist “utopia” in the darkest depths of the ocean, surrounding an oasis in the deepest reaches of the desert, or perhaps even at the LaGrange point between the Earth and the Moon. “New technologies are changing the way people work and often make workplaces more efficient.”
Challenger added, “In addition to potential staffing changes, there may be differences within the leadership and board ranks regarding exactly which path a company will take” (such as whether they will relocate to a hidden canyon or secret jungle island).
Challenger’s report states that such a high rate of tech CEO turnover hasn’t happened since 2006, when 163 tech CEOs left their companies to found a sea-steading society that has since imploded from class unrest.
Less fun: The report states that tech companies have cut around 63,447 jobs this year. That’s up almost 380 per cent over the same period last year, with only a small number of those jobs likely to be replaced by invite-only roles in the indentured servitude, human experimentation, totalitarian surveillance, and private mercenary sectors in the new state. Notable CEOs that have departed this year who pose a chance of ruling over the ashes of the separatist enclave following its inevitable collapse include former Juul CEO Kevin Burns, former Alphabet CEO Larry Page and former president Sergey Brin, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann, former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, and former WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum, among others.
As of press time, the sound of explosions could be heard somewhere in the waters off of French Polynesia.