It’s Sunday again, my fam, and while you were trying to get a little peace, the pink slips were flying.

Wayfair, Microsoft, Meta, even Starbucks—all handed out another round of layoffs this week. And the not-so-secret sauce behind the curtain? AI. Some of these companies even had the nerve to use the phrase “tech-forward restructuring” like it’s supposed to make it sting less. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

So here’s the vibe I’m feeling today—what’s left in your stack when the budget gets tight and the automation bots move in?

This Sunday, I want to shout out the tools that still serve us. The ones that don’t require a $30k license or a team of “prompt engineers” just to keep the lights on:

• Syncthing – Still syncing like a champ, peer to peer, no cloud lock-in.
• FreeBSD (with ZFS) – For when uptime isn’t negotiable.
• Restic + cron – Quietly saving your bacon every night since… well, since forever.
• KeePassXC – Password manager that doesn’t phone home. Still fast. Still free.
• Tailscale – Dead simple mesh VPN, and it works on the first try, which is more than I can say for half of the VC-backed garbage out there.

And honestly? Add your brain to the list. If you’ve made it this far in tech, through busts, pivots, reorgs, and the rise of AI “efficiencies,” then trust me—you’ve still got value the robots can’t touch.

This week, when the noise gets loud and the headlines scream layoffs and restructuring, remember: your stack’s not just about tools. It’s about what you know how to use. That’s your edge.

Take care of it. Take care of you.