FOMO

/ˈfoʊ.moʊ/ · Abbreviation · Noun · Slang & Abbreviations · Origin: 2004

Definitions

  1. Fear Of Missing Out — anxiety that others are having experiences you're not. In tech: fear of not adopting the latest framework. In crypto: fear of not buying before the pump. The engine of hype cycles.

    In plain English: The anxious feeling that everyone else is doing something cool without you — drives a lot of impulsive tech adoption and investment decisions.

  2. In tech recruiting, FOMO drives the 'exploding offer' tactic — giving candidates a deadline to accept, preventing them from exploring alternatives. In framework adoption, FOMO leads teams to rewrite working codebases in the latest trendy technology for no business reason.

    Example: 'We rewrote the entire frontend in the hot new framework because of FOMO. A year later, that framework is dead and we're rewriting again. In React.'

    Source: tech adoption / recruiting

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