The Quiet Grief Behind Modern Management

For people who know me, it might be surprising to hear how much I love people 🙂. Especially the folks on the teams I’ve managed over the years. They’re relentlessly talented, curious, funny, stubborn in all the right ways, and full of these rich inner worlds that have nothing to do with their job titles. They’re engineers, yeah - but they’re also cooks, musicians, parents, painters, marathon runners, woodworkers, travelers, and everything in between.

I genuinely love hearing their stories. Where they’ve been. What they’re building on the weekends. How they’re navigating life in all its messiness. And more than anything, I love showing up for them when they’re struggling, whether it’s work-related or personal. They teach me constantly, and I hope I return the favor with whatever I’ve managed to figure out through trial, error, and a few decades of wandering around this planet.

These thoughts sit in the back of my mind when I think about automation’s endless march - electricity, the industrial revolution, computers, the internet, AI - each one a huge leap forward and a huge disruption. I love technology. I love what it enables. But the more I embrace new tools and new ways of working, the more I also feel this small, quiet grief for the things we leave behind. Not regret… just the bittersweetness of change.

And that always brings me back to people. For all my natural tendencies toward solitude, this is the center of it all for me. A solution on its own is pretty hollow. A tool, a system, a clever design - they don’t matter until they make someone’s life better. Reward doesn’t come from solving the problem. It comes from seeing someone light up because the thing you built actually helped them. It’s empty to build something no one uses. It’s empty to answer a question no one asked.

That’s why, no matter how fast AI moves or how much the world automates, the human part stays the point. The spark, the connection, the person on the other end. That’s what keeps the work meaningful - and honestly, it’s what keeps me grounded. Technology evolves. Tools change. But connection with people transcends all of this.