Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

A new Ask HN post tossed a simple but explosive question into the internet break room: who’s quitting this month, and why? That was enough to unleash a miniature workplace soap opera. The original post says the industry feels "absurd" right now, and the replies instantly split into three camps: the burned out, the bitter, and the darkly hilarious.

On one side, you’ve got pure exhaustion. One commenter confessed, "I’m thinking about it every day," which feels less like a career plan and more like the unofficial slogan of 2026 office life. Another had already walked away, saying they hated working with AI—that means artificial intelligence tools and products—and is now living the dream of doing absolutely nothing in information technology for the moment. Their update? They just went on a bike ride. Honestly, that one line may be the most envied flex in the whole thread.

But then came the backlash. One commenter slammed the whole conversation as peak privilege, basically saying, must be nice to dramatically quit because work feels too weird. Another delivered the iciest joke of the bunch: "You mean Ask HN: Who wants to be fired?" Ouch. And for pure internet comedy, the prize goes to the programmer who briefly fantasized about becoming a butcher, bought half a cow, struggled through cutting it up, and concluded: nope, still a programmer. It’s messy, gloomy, funny, and painfully relatable—which is exactly why people can’t stop reading.