Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 For all this talk about how engineers "might" get laid off, this completely ignores the massive contraction of the legal market that has already happened. Outside of a few specific areas of law, and a few high powered law firms, lawyers don't make that much money. My ex, a nationally renowned family lawyer in literally the richest area of the country doesn't make more money than i do (and she runs her own firm, so…
Yeah the comment about lawyers and bankers making more than engineers is straight out of 1995. Outside of highly specialized degrees in medicine there really isn't any other jobs out there paying a white collar wage ($100K +).
LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
571–580 of 663 posts
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If salaries drop then rent drops. I don't see this being a bad thing. Maybe I'm being irrational, but I suspect that the drops won't be proportional and the housing isse in SF will just get worse.
We moved into a new apartment in NYC in the summer of 2009. The previous tenant had a two-year lease at $4500 (struck in July '07). Our rent was $2800. In the rental market a big driver of the landlord decision cycle is needing, at a minimum, to have a reputable tenant and to cover the cost of carry of the asset (mortgage, etc). In many cases if their cost of carry is met (and that's often a low bar....many landlords…
It is a supply-demand equilibrium, it's just that tenants aren't fungible. Even Homo Economicus would pay a premium for a more reliable tenant.
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what if you're one of those new hires (or hope to be one)? I'd say keep polishing your resume. If you dropped out of school, look for a school with low tuition that isn't University of Phoenix but finish your degree. Stay on your toes: work your way through to graduation, get internships each September (as much as you can). And though the retire-as-a-millionaire thing might have vanished, you'll land on your feet.
Build your own product now that generates revenue and profit. Make your own job.
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Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've noticed a lot of user hostile behavior like this from all of the large public social companies (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc...) It appears so. This is amusing to me -- because when I was involved in a startup setting 2 years ago, I remember distinctly having conversations with my coworkers about the frequency of emails we were sending. We argued against sending too many emails because it would waste the u…
I don't get any emails from Facebook. Have you not set up the account the way you like it? Do you still have stock wallpaper, ringtones etc on your devices? I find out about events in Facebook at the right time; when I'm using Facebook.
Did you miss the point where the poster said "had a FB account for a couple of hours"? I assume this means they deleted their account.
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tech employees making $200k+ are the only ones who can afford a $4k per month apartment in SF. If salaries drop then rent drops. I don't see this being a bad thing.
Two engineers with average compensation could split at apartment at that price, and many do. So do married couples with dual incomes.
Renters will increase the price knowing full well that people will double up. Also if the renters are ruthless they would directly tell you to have more people packed in an apartment to pay their price and if people are helpless they would have to cough up or find some other job in another state where you can live decently with lesser pay. Also a lot of shitty apartments will increase their rents which puts more pressure. This I feel is simple price discovery at work. This is why it is better for the company to spread itself in different places rather than hole up in a single place and pay very salaries which are not sustainable. I really don't understand start ups which are supposed to be tight on cash sitting on one of the costliest real estate and expect to be profitable.
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. I guess it depends on what your other expenses you have. For example, $2k out of that extra $3.5k would got to student loans for me. So spending $3.5k on rent just doesn't work. If you don't have student loans or any major debts sucking up your income then I envy you.
I'm pretty fortunate in that not only do I not have any debt, but my fuck you fund has enough for several months of full living/lifestyle costs. If I move back to my home country, then I have enough for two years.
Just curious, did you fund your FU fund living in the current place?
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the bay area, I think compensation drop will be far worse. The base salary of bay area companies has never been that impressive. Even the big tech companies like Google and Facebook, base salary is not much more than other regions. The impressive compensation numbers are always because of bonus+RSU. These will probably be massively reduced or even eliminated completely if the tech downturn gets bad enough.
Tech employees making $200k+ are the only ones who can afford a $4k per month apartment in SF. If salaries drop then rent drops. I don't see this being a bad thing.
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Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll get hammered for this, but I just wonder if we will be talking about Google, and Facebook ten years from right now? I know both have diversified, and Google has become best friends with the Obama administration. I just wonder if they will be relevant? These tech companies main reason for living is advertising, and their algorithms. I look back, and Apple had a physical product. Other than Apple, exactly what com…
Google and Facebook are completely different animals. They both make money through advertising[1], but the use cases are different. Even their algorithms have different implications. In Google's case for example, their search is like an ever improving AI, increasingly hard to overtake. And assuming search is going to continue to be a need, it may become increasingly hard for a competitor to overcome them. I do unders…
The Google Microsoft analogy is especially relevant with Google becoming the owner of the operating system of the world's most dominant computing platform. The resemblance of Microsoft of the nineties is uncanny; commoditized hardware made by a plethora of companies at razor-thin margins and Google sitting on top of all of them collecting the profits. Funny enough, both of those operating systems were arguably ripped off from Apple. History does rhyme.
Only Google is a lot more diversified than MS was back then, since Android isn't even their main business.
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#579A lot of people hating on LNKD here, but this isn't really company-specific. This is a macro shift. LNKD being down by 40% by only guiding down 8% below estimates is a big warning of how the market is about to treat all bloated growth stocks. In 2013, if they reported the same results, the stock would have been flat or slightly down. It's a major shift in investor sentiment. Bubble bursts always start in the public m…
As an engineer working at a "well-funded" startup, how can I prepare for the worst?
Diversify. Put money in things that are uncorrelated with tech money. Keep your CV up to date and work on transferrable skills - e.g. see if you can get your job title changed to one that implies some level of management responsibility.
Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, worse, you have a Really Damn Good Year, but I ding you at your performance review. Even though you were the best you've ever been, and better than your peers, you weren't quite as good as I was hoping you to be, so ... sorry, no raise this year.
On the other hand, you got the raise at the point where I started hoping you'd do great, even if you hadn't yet.
Maybe. It's really hard to set a fair baseline for a performance bonus; being given stock options struck at the current price is a very similar exercise.