Over the years I’ve collected many stories from founders. Friends, colleagues, and clients who got in the game because they saw the possibility to create from vision, only to be confined by the rules of venture capitalism, competitive fallacies, and, simply, greed. A lucky and industrious few keep their head and make choices that align with their values, but many end up having to compromise because “that’s just how it goes.” 

This is rarely more true than when having to do a layoff, especially when it’s your first time. 

You might be surprised to hear this, but I actually think layoffs (or some kind of departure) are an important ritual crossing for any organization. After all, nothing in life grows unilaterally without a period of contraction. Why should corporations be any different? The nuance, I think, lies in how these changes are carried out. 

Here’s the thing about layoffs, at least how they’re done in tech at large: they strip agency away from both the leader and the employee being fired, and pretty much everyone in between, too. What’s worse, they’re cited as a necessary cost of doing business; these highly industrious, creative people end up putting aside their “let’s break the rules” mentality in personnel decisions, where (if you ask me) it matters most. 

I’ve been laid off twice in my career. One of them was highly dignifying, and the other, humiliating, both for me and for the leadership team, forced to make a quick decision by external stakeholders. The difference between the two experiences: in the former, I was given a choice. 

There’s much to say about how we in the United States can do workforce reductions with more dignity. The bottom line is: in these moments of urgency, we must let ourselves experience just how much choice is available.

Okay, Rishi, how do we do that? 

I vividly remember a moment, six months after my second layoff, sitting with a good friend at the excellent Taiwanese cafe in Greenpoint. They were right on the cusp of tackling their very first layoff as a founder. 

In them, I saw the tension between their own intuition, their goodwill towards their employees, their fear of harming people who signed up for the ride with them contrasted with their obligation to their company and investors, the advice they were receiving from “more experienced” peers, the external voices saying here you don’t have a choice. At moments, I remember them shaking. 

In me, a growing sense of dread. What was just done to me would be done to more devoted team members (many, many, more devoted team members, in fact). And this time it was my friends who were swinging the hammer. 

Without our active discernment, the system humiliates everyone it touches. 

Frustrated, I went for the kill: “if you go through with this, something very alive and tender between us will die.” 

And they did, of course, go through with it. What choice did they have?

I wish, instead, that I had said: “I long for you to know you have more choices than this one.” 

I wish I had slowed down with myself and what I wanted to create with this friend. Sincerely, I think it could have kept us in deeper dialogue. 

I care about this person a lot, and yes, we’re in touch. But we don’t talk about this kind of stuff anymore, and that’s a loss for me. Something between us did die. 

I’ve learned that the world won’t be re-shaped by us taking hard stances. I, myself, held an all-or-nothing attitude towards a complex, uncertain situation.

There I was, blocking my own vision. Instead, I might have taken a breath, or three. I might have admitted the vulnerability and pain of being on the other side. I might have asked my friend to slow down with me. 

I will repeat that I don’t believe this is an easy road for us. As we remember that we belong to the earth, as we reclaim our vision, we will fail countless times. 

I have failed again and again in my search for a path that feels economically viable, true to me, and helps me connect with the larger ecology all at once. 

Some days I am fully present in it, knowing that all I have been asking for and more is available. 

Other days I am lost, grasping for the next handhold on the face of this uncertainty cliff I've chosen to scale. There's no going back down, though, and occasionally on the climb I look out and take in the most beautiful view I've ever seen.

This, I have learned, is the reward for an enlivened creative life. 

When I look out on the vista, I see people genuinely helping each other, hand in hand, tending to the earth and harvesting her gifts. I see technological development and community practices that do not serve venture capital or the military. 

I see individuals empowered by choice. Teams living in the moment and trusting each other. 

I see children’s hands in the soil, accompanying adults who listen to and learn from the young ones. 

I see love.

And when I search for myself in the vision?

My friends and I are laughing together as we carry easeful and difficult moments alike. We hold dissonance with grace, staying in the challenge, not rushing, not resisting grief. I’m enlivened, not frustrated by these challenges. 

Most days, I play music. 

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Come talk with us about choice, dignity, vision, even if you’re not a founder, because we need more dialogue about these things. 

Going off Script - visioning beyond OKRs is next week. 

And, if you’re in the public (govt, non-profit, philanthropy) sector, dear comrade Angela is hosting a similar space: from the belly of the beast. 

May there be spaces of re-claiming vision for all of us.