That layoffs have increased should not surprise anyone at this point. Unlike the dot com explosion it seems painfully difficult as a regular employee to have divested some of your equity gains mid-bubble. That makes it more painful.<p>However, every time there is a great deflating, it is because the market is tired and preparing to embrace something different. So far I&#x27;ve been through several of these, chips in the 80&#x27;s dot coms in the late 90s, storage in the early 2000&#x27;s, and now either web 2.0 or social (depending on how you score it). Three threads are competing for the next round, IoT, Machine Learning, and Bioinformatics. CRISPR derived technologies could be in there too but I see a lot of regulatory hurdles headed that way which will be hard to dodge.<p>The thing to keep in mind though if you are one of the folks getting laid off, it isn&#x27;t you its them. Seriously. Layoffs happen when the world shifts and your company didn&#x27;t shift with it. That said, it still sucks to suddenly be out of a job and the temptation will be to grab at the first thing that offers you something. My advice to you is to be thoughtful. Think through what you want to do, what the world is going through, and how you want to look back at your role on that. Then head for the area that best meets those needs.