The cover letter lives

Screenshot of the top of a page in a word processor, saying "To whom it may concern", in imitation of an impersonal cover letter.

The reports of the its death are greatly exaggerated. While many jobs don’t require a cover letter anymore, or even give me an optional place to submit one, that doesn’t mean that I can’t or shouldn’t write cover letters. Especially if I take a broader, more modern view of what a cover letter is.

It is best not to think of a cover letter just as a discrete document, as it was in the old days. I remember the cover letter becoming a formality: required and written, but rarely read. The modern cover letter is the full body of writing I produce to pitch myself for a job. I give this a lot of careful thought. My communication skills may be what helps me stand out in the crowd.

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Meet HyphenTech

GenAI logo of my made-up term

I’m proposing a new term—HyphenTech—to describe much of the tech landscape, in order encourage a better understanding of our current era of tech. Thinking of every new company as a “tech company” is too generic to be useful, but going just one level deeper is helpful.

Everybody wants to be a tech company. It’s a proven path to trillion dollar market caps. However, that path has also proven extremely narrow, only admitting a few companies into the cuatro comas club. Have we had 15 years of bad startups, or is something else going on?

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