It all started when Luigi Mangione was laid off from TrueCar

I have tracked the timeline of when things started to go wrong for him, and I believe the turning point was when he was laid off from TrueCar at the end of 2023. Around this time, TrueCar laid off 24% of its employees as part of staff reductions.

After that, he likely didn’t look for another job right away. Instead, he traveled to Asia to focus on his mental health and take a break from work. He had been working remotely for 3 years, so he probably needed some time off. During this period, he also underwent spine surgery.

I assume being laid off was a traumatic experience for him. He had invested significant effort into his education, studying at one of the best colleges and paying huge fee. Perhaps he felt ashamed of losing his job. Note that he hasn't updated his Linkedin profile that he is no longer working here. Also his parents were unaware that he was no longer working there. So maybe he was hiding that he lost his job becouse he felt ashamed of being laid off? When people asked him, he was not mentioning lay off, he said he resigned becouse work was dull.

The question is how did TrueCar handle their layoffs? Did they treat their employees respectfully? Some companies have been criticized for abrupt layoffs—blocking laptops, cutting off accounts, and terminating employees without notice. While I don’t know if this was the case at TrueCar, tech layoffs in general have been controversial.

I believe working in tech played a significant role in his radicalization. He started feeling deeply resentful of corporate greed. Moreover, losing his job meant he no longer had medical insurance, which may have further strained him.

It’s possible he avoided contacting his family because he felt ashamed of being unemployed.

It’s also worth noting that he pursued computer science, a field unrelated to his family’s business. His family was involved in running various businesses, but he chose completly unrelated path to his family’s business. This decision meant he had to build his career from scratch without relying on his family’s resources and he may not had plans to take over family bussines, but build his success independently.

This is likely why he didn’t want to depend on his parents financially. Despite coming from a wealthy family, he was may be ashamed to ask them for money. He was very genuine person. He was educated and an adult, so he felt ashamed of seeking financial support. Being laid off likely caused him some level of depression he tried to cure by travelling and reading about diet, bodybuilding and motivation.

However, after graduation and being hired at TrueCar, he may have realized that corporate tech jobs were not what he had imagined. As a software engineer working for a company, you’re often not doing anything truly innovative; instead, you’re just fulfilling orders and meeting deadlines.

I think the toxic work environment in tech likely contributed to his radicalization.

After losing his job, he started reading books about discipline, habits, and motivation. Grundwinder, the blogger he had a video call with, mentioned that Luigi had struggled with "doom scrolling" on social media. This suggests that his negative experiences at work and being laid off might have been signs of burnout.

He felt a strong dislike toward technology because he spent most of his days using his laptop extensively due to his job in tech. This led him to start withdrawing from technology. He preferred reading paper books over eBooks and taking notes on paper rather than on his phone. These behaviors indicate that he was burned out and fed up with constantly staring at a computer screen.

His travels to places like Hawaii and Asia indicate that he was seeking peace and trying to slow down his life. He likely needed a break from the pressures of work.

I wonder If he was he actively looking for employment? The tech job market in the USA has been terrible, with companies cutting costs and laying off workers. This likely had a significant impact on Luigi Mangione. The greed of tech companies may have deeply affected him.

He was a very young person, just entering adulthood and taking his first steps in a corporate job.

He may have became resentful of tech jobs, viewing them as monotonous and dull. He likely didn’t realize that corporate tech jobs are very different from the innovation you study at college. In tech jobs, you’re constantly under pressure to perform, which can lead to burnout. We all know how Gen Z are dissatisfied with corporate jobs.

He didn’t see a future for himself in tech. Adding to this, there were numerous news reports about AI potentially replacing tech employees, making the job market even more competitive.

He may have felt insecure about his future and believed that his struggles were meaningless because he feared AI would soon take people's jobs. The increasing competitiveness of the job market and corporate greed likely fueled his feelings of resentment.