Lenny Annual Survey: An Important Leverage for Cultivating Managers to Become Entrepreneurs
Quick overview of key points
Lenny, the host of Top Stream Podcast, and Noam Segal, a researcher, have conducted a survey for the second consecutive year on the feelings of tech professionals towards AI. The results show that in 2026, half of the tech industry professionals will be empowered by AI in their workplace experience, while the other half will feel lost.
The overall burnout rate skyrocketed from 44.7% to 55.7% within a year, while career optimism dropped from 54.8% to 48.7%. The industry sentiment has shifted from last year’s fatigue but optimism to significant fatigue, and is no longer as optimistic.
82% of people say that AI makes them more efficient, but for many, being more efficient means producing more and faster, but not better. The management quality of a manager is still the strongest single variable that affects the status of employees, so it is recommended that entrepreneurs invest in the cultivation of managers, which is the highest leverage that can be done now.
A year ago, Lenny’s Newsletter conducted the first large-scale survey of technology industry practitioners, and the conclusion can be summarized in four words: exhausted but optimistic.
In 2026, the same survey will be conducted again, with nearly 6000 technology practitioners answering. The conclusion has changed.
Two feelings, four groups of people
In order to understand the deeper impact of AI on people, research has raised a question that directly touches on identity: Has working with AI changed your perception of yourself as a professional? The results are as follows:
Enlarged: 49% – “I can do more and do better
Redefined: 27.4% – “My role is changing, but I can’t tell if it’s good or bad
Swinged: 13.9% – “I’m not quite sure where I stand or what truly belongs to me
Weakened: 5% – “I feel increasingly unimportant
• No change: 3.2%
Further research will cluster respondents based on their complete emotional patterns towards AI, and depict four real workplace populations:
The Energized (41%): Their dominant emotions are “excitement” (91%), “curiosity” (83%), and “hopeful” (59%). The group with the highest level of optimism and the lowest level of fatigue is the only one who holds a positive judgment in their field. A product manager described, “Making products has become fun again! You’re like an explorer, playing in an amusement park and staying up late excitedly
The Conflicting (35%): The largest non positive group. Their signature emotions are “holding both positive and negative feelings” (68%) and “curiosity” (64%), but closely followed by “overwhelming” (56%) and “exhaustion” (55%). They are not disappointed with AI, they are just exhausted by ‘keeping up with change’ itself.
The Disoriented (12%): The core feeling is that “my character is constantly transforming and I can’t find a foothold”, compounded by “overwhelmed” (74%) and “exhausted” (73%). They are not people who reject AI, they are simply losing their perception of their roles at a slower pace than change. A product vice president wrote, “We are like farmers standing on the eve of the Industrial Revolution – knowing that transformation is the only way out, but unable to see the path to that
The Resentful (12%): Each person checked “Resentful – I feel forced to use AI”, with emotional clusters around “exhaustion”, “conflict”, and “overwhelming”. The lowest level of career optimism, the lowest willingness to recommend, and the lowest level of perceived AI assistance.
Optimism recedes, contradictions emerge
In 2026, 55.7% of employed technology professionals surveyed reported experiencing significant burnout, an increase of 11 percentage points from 44.7% last year. The proportion of ‘severe’ or ‘completely exhausted’ has reached 26.2% – more than a quarter. At the same time, career optimism has dropped by half: 48.7% are optimistic about their career prospects, down from 54.8% last year.
A noteworthy contradiction is that job satisfaction has not collapsed simultaneously -42.6% of people say they enjoy their work very much or extremely, while only about 20% say they hardly enjoy it.
82% of people reported that AI has at least moderately improved their work efficiency, with nearly half (49.4%) stating that the improvement is “very significant” or “extremely significant”. In the open-ended responses of the respondents, ‘better’ mostly means’ more output, faster ‘rather than’ higher quality ‘. For example, the following typical feedback:
I can do more, do faster, but I can’t do better
It has been magnified and passively shaken. We just set a new benchmark for this job. And it is moving up every month
I have been magnified, but my brain is deteriorating, and my job feels even worse
I feel like I’m not trying to think anymore – I’m just following AI. I don’t fully understand what I merged. ”
The improvement of productivity is real, but the quality of work output and the mental agility of the people who complete the work are paying a price. The upper limit is constantly being raised by AI, and more and more people feel that they and their output are falling behind in catching up.
The founder is optimistic, and the manager is important
Two core discoveries from last year have reappeared in this year’s data. Founders and executives in the technology industry lead in almost all indicators: highest career optimism, highest job satisfaction, lowest burnout, and highest level of excitement towards AI.
Researchers believe that the most likely explanation is the “sense of control”: founders have the greatest control over their own destiny, and the sense of control itself is the most reliable buffer against anxiety. 71% of founders hold an optimistic attitude towards their career prospects.
However, this happiness also has its limits: nearly half of the founders (47%) are still experiencing at least moderate fatigue, with 18% experiencing severe or complete fatigue.
In addition, there is a relationship between company size and employee status: from small to large enterprises, there is a decreasing trend in happiness indicators – lower optimism, greater fatigue, and even a more negative perception of whether AI is helpful. Large companies with over 10000 employees continue to climb to the highest point in the indicator of layoffs concerns.
Similarly, the survey data points to another similar conclusion for the second consecutive year: the managerial effectiveness of managers is the strongest single driving variable affecting employee burnout – stronger than job position, company size, and even emotional attitudes towards AI.
Employees with “extremely efficient” managers have about 65% higher job satisfaction and significantly lower levels of burnout.
However, the reality is that only 25.5% of tech professionals believe their managers are efficient. The strongest retention lever in the technology industry, but also the most overlooked one. In addition, the managers with the lowest ratings are concentrated in data analysis and design positions, which are already the most anxious group for AI. The low quality of management is a double blow to them.
Inspiration brought by data
According to the survey results, Lenny and Noam Segal put forward some suggestions at the end of the report.
If you are a practitioner:
Find two or three things that AI can truly amplify your output and delve deeper into them. Empowered people often do not use AI for everything, but instead find specific scenarios where AI can improve their efficiency and establish a real advantage.
Be wary of ‘efficiency trading for workload’. If your output has significantly increased this year, but there has been no change in salary and job description, it is a signal worth serious dialogue, rather than a reality that should be silently endured.
Your manager has a greater impact on your work experience than almost all other factors. If you have a good manager, please take this relationship seriously. If not, find a way to get closer to teams that are still seriously cultivating people.
If you are a manager or founder:
Investing in the development of managers is the highest leverage you can do now. The research data shows the same thing day after day for two years: management effectiveness is the single variable that has the strongest impact on employee retention, burnout, and satisfaction, but it is also the most overlooked. Only a quarter of practitioners believe they have an efficient manager, and you have the ability to change that.
Don’t turn the efficiency brought by AI into higher expectations instead of easier work. If you directly convert productivity gains into more workload, what you get is not an efficient team, but a team that is accumulating resentment.
Do not close the training channel for junior positions. If AI is taking over the learning tasks of junior positions, your short-term output may be improving, but at the same time, you are also stifling the growth soil of the next generation of senior talents.
Pay special attention to your designers and researchers. For two consecutive years, they have ranked highest in AI anxiety, fatigue, and job dissatisfaction. This is not an isolated phenomenon, but a systematic signal worth further understanding.
Consider the adoption of AI as a means of differentiating risks, rather than just a productivity dividend. The same technology is making some teams soar while others feel shaken. The organizations that can truly benefit from this transformation are those that choose to help those who have been shaken regain their footing, rather than those that choose to abandon them.
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