Over the past year, I’ve been seeing growing critiques of various business accelerator programs, especially those focused on technology sectors. (You can find some examples here and here.)  The critics present a number of claims.  Some simply don’t like government support for startups. For others, the traditional tech accelerator, focused on apps and IT, is becoming less relevant in the age of AI and deep tech innovation.

These growing critiques suggest that it might be time to rethink current business acceleration approaches and test some new models and ideas.  I’m not yet sure which approaches will work best, but I’m excited to see some new ideas out in the marketplace.  The latest comes from Workday and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), who have launched the Workday Foundation Solopreneurship Accelerator Program.  This small experiment will provide small grants ($10,000) to solopreneurs developing new AI tools and resources. The effort is targeted to non-traditional entrepreneurs who typically can’t access the classic tech accelerator programs focused on large exits and venture capital investing.  Instead, the effort helps local people learn how to use AI to support business and community needs. 

We’ll see how this effort pans out, but it’s inspiring to see test programs of this sort.  I hope to see more experimentation going forward.

With technology markets in the midst of major transformation due to AI and other factors, it can be helpful to check in on what data tells us about the state of America’s technology economy.  CompTIA’s annual State of the Tech Workforce report is an excellent place to get our current bearings and to also understand historical trends.  The 2026 Workforce report came out this week and it offers a deep dive into what’s happening with tech workers at the national, state, and metro levels. Here are a few highlights: 

Overall technology sector employment dropped slightly (0.3%) in 2025, but is projected to rebound (up 1.9%) in 2026.

Tech sector jobs are still projected to grow rapidly—2X the national average—over the next decade.  High growth sub-sectors include data scientists, cybersecurity experts, and software engineers.

Not surprisingly, AI is dominating new hiring, with 275,000 active job postings for AI-related positions open in January 2026.

The top 5 states for tech employment are California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Virginia.  These states, plus Washington, are also among the states projected to see the fastest employment jumps over the next decade as well.