There's a new grassroots hiking group making the rounds in the Bay Area, and its existence tells you everything you need to know about the current state of the tech economy.

The premise is simple: if you've been laid off or you're "between opportunities" (the polite LinkedIn way of saying it), show up on a Monday morning and go hit a trail with people who get it. No networking pressure, no résumé swaps — just fresh air and the quiet solidarity of people who all got the same calendar invite from HR.

This week's outing heads to Tony Look in Cupertino — a 5.5-mile loop with about 1,000 feet of elevation gain, oak groves, and reservoir views. The kind of hike that's hard enough to make you forget about your severance timeline for a couple hours.

As one Bay Area resident quipped, "I'm going to monitor the size of future group photos as an indicator of the economy." Funny — and honestly not a terrible metric. Forget the Bureau of Labor Statistics; just count heads on the trail.

Here's the thing: we're not going to pretend the layoff wave sweeping through the Bay Area is anything but painful. Thousands of skilled workers are sitting on their hands while companies restructure, over-correct from pandemic hiring sprees, or chase the latest AI-driven efficiency play. The human cost of these decisions rarely makes it into the quarterly earnings call.

But this hiking group represents something we actually love to see — people solving their own problems without waiting for a government program or a nonprofit grant cycle. No bureaucracy, no overhead, no five-year strategic plan. Just someone saying, "Hey, this sucks. Let's go outside."

That's the kind of community-building that doesn't require a budget line item. It requires a pair of trail shoes and the willingness to show up.

If you've recently been shown the door, consider lacing up. The job market will still be there when you get back to the trailhead — and you might just walk out of the woods with a clearer head and a few new contacts who actually understand what you're going through.

Details and future hikes are posted on Partiful. Your LinkedIn feed can wait.