Your line of thinking seems to be common in the IT industry and I wonder if it’s a good industry for me to be in long term. I only was at one company so far where we had a really close-knit team.

I don't think of it as depressing to act as if a fictional entity like a corporation isn't part of your family. By all means, be friends with your coworkers, show up and work hard, but don't get emotionally invested in a relationship with an LLC or a C Corp that can't love you back.

Also, you are incorrect about corporations not being fictional entities. Try googling the phrase.

Ditto!

A business is made of employees, but the employees are not the business. Sometimes that means decisions have to be made in favor (sometimes arguably) of the business over you.

Understanding the ephemerality of the situation can help you appreciate when it's going well and the people you work with, while helping you be prepared if and when something happens. Hopefully you will have gained a lot more experience, a bigger network of good friends, and have a decent nest egg to take you to the next job.

It's important to differentiate between colleagues and the business. The people you work with can become friends, but ultimately the business will do whatever sociopathic thing makes the number go up the faster/helps to deal with the crippling emotional turmoil of the execs.

You can be friends with the people you work with/for, but if there comes a time when the business and the people's interests diverge, the business will normally win. As long as you are aware of this, you can be OK throughout it (sortof, getting laid off really, really sucks).

It is extremely important (to me) to form some kind of relationship with the people I work with to stay motivated. It doesn’t have to be everyone and super close friendship - but that certainly helps if it comes naturally.

And yea businesses are like a form of “slow AI”. They will do what is necessary to survive even at the expense of the people who built them. And it is important to be mindful of that. But I can’t work with a Damocles sword hanging over me constantly. At some point I have to lie to myself and assume the business will also act in my interest if I do good work - even if it’s a naive and arguably stupid belief which has bitten me a couple times already. It wasn’t anyone’s “fault” or anyone acting with evil intent.

In the end I live after Juicy J’s eternal philosophy: “Everything is business Ain’t shit personal.”

I've got bad news for you about pretty much every other industry. They'll throw you away at the first opportunity to make the CEO a few more bucks too. It's the Jack Welchification of the American economy

At first place of work I had really nice team of young engineers, we've been students without kids, with lots of energy. Job was quite boring, but days were full of jokes and friendship.

And yes, I would like to exit this industry but am not ready to switch to x0.2 salary. Golden handcuffs!

There are people who recognize the game being played, and people who get their souls crushed because they failed to properly recognize how the pieces in the game move.