Not sure I agree. I listened to a handful of the books that MS encoded. I would not be able to listen to a full book like that. It's just not quite right - the timing is fixed and while the words are correctly pronounced and each have the right accent, there's a lack of natural emphasis on certain words within each sentence that makes if feel cold and alien. I admit this is miles ahead of any previous text-to-speech I've heard, and would be good for reading, say, a blog post or article, but not a full book. At least not fiction. I read fiction for enjoyment and agree that the narrator makes the difference. I've stopped listening to several audiobooks because the narrator didn't cut it for me.
I'll watch this space and reevaluate, but I wouldn't listen to any of this batch.
I concur with a lot of what other people are saying here. Late 50s, programming professionally for around 25 years. But recently switched to management. Really hard for me to focus on details of the companies code anymore.
But... when I get on some personal project, I'm on fire. I can learn new languages and concepts and systems and build pretty complex things that people are amazed at.
I think it's more job burn out after years of writing code for other people. You write the code and you work towards the deadline like the world is going to end if you don't make it. Then that code is in production for a year or two. Maybe more if you're lucky, and then it's gone, replaced by some new thing. You stop caring quite as much. But you see these new young kids on fire and working all night and you get imposter syndrome and you try to care and you beat yourself up and think you're losing your touch. tmi?