About 80 people packed into a Montara Mountain parking lot yesterday, turning a quiet trailhead into the biggest gathering yet for (un)PTO, a Bay Area hiking group built by workers swept up in recent tech layoffs. What started as a modest meet-up has morphed into an informal support network, where miles on the trail double as time to swap job leads, compare interview war stories, and keep spirits from sinking too low.
The club, called (un)PTO and short for "unpaid time off," was launched by Basem Istanbouli after he was laid off from Google. The first December hike drew just three people. Since then, the headcount has ballooned, culminating in yesterday's roughly 80-person turnout at Montara Mountain. According to ABC7 San Francisco, California Employment Development Department data show nearly 20,000 Bay Area layoffs since July 2025, the backdrop that helped this trail project take off.
How the Group Formed
As reported by SFGATE, Istanbouli first floated the idea on Facebook and a regional Reddit page. At the beginning, only a handful of people showed up. He has kept the format intentionally simple: short routes pulled from AllTrails, planning handled in a WhatsApp thread, and a five-mile cap so almost anyone can keep up. Members say that a low-friction setup makes it easier to trade referrals and encouragement without the awkwardness of a name-tagged networking mixer.
Layoffs Shaping the Hikes
The club's rise unfolds amid a steady drumbeat of cuts across the tech sector. Tracker data from Layoffs.fyi show roughly 92,000 tech employees documented as laid off so far this year. Filings with the California Employment Development Department also show major Bay Area employers trimming staff, with Oracle and Meta among the companies listing recent reductions, according to the Los Angeles Times.
For the hikers, the payoff is part practical, part social. "It's really cool to and kind of heartening to be all together," one participant told ABC7 San Francisco. Others say the outings have already led to job interviews, useful introductions and a badly needed mood boost. Organizers keep a light touch on moderation so that conversations unfold naturally on the trail instead of in a conference room.
Istanbouli has said he hopes unPTO will outlast his own unemployment, with someone who lands a job eventually stepping in to lead future hikes, an idea SFGATE notes is part of the group's DNA. As Bay Area employers continue to shuffle their teams, these hikes have become a homegrown response, a community-built buffer against professional uncertainty and the social isolation that often tags along with a layoff.
