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Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

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Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#61

Post by fiblye »

VRay wrote: post #51
dmix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man it's so depressing looking at what a giant Japan could be in the tech industry if they got their shit together politically, economically, and culturally to bring entrepreneurship and creative risk-taking back. Their potential talent-to-output ratio has to be one of the worst in the world. Probably the worst if you look at their flashes on brilliance in the 1980s and early 1990s and what they could be today. This…

Haha, it's true, man. I recently moved to Japan to live with family for a while. I interviewed at the top Japanese software companies in Japan, and even though I'm a senior engineer with 10 years' experience in FAANG in the USA, they felt like they were doing me a favor offering me 15 million JPY/year (150k USD at 100 yen per dollar, ~$130k USD at the time with the beefy US dollar). Tokyo is actually a little cheaper…

Sometimes I think the HN community is vastly out of touch with normal everyday humans, and comments like this validate it.

If you're making 7 million yen a year, you're making really fucking good money. If you're making 10 million, that company is really kissing your ass and you're essentially royalty. But 15 million is low?

Keep in mind that GDP per capita in Japan is only about 2/3 of America's, and also that the wealth divide is pretty much non-existent while America is basically two parallel societies: people who struggle to get by (or close to it) and the rich and carefree, and thinking 15 mil is low is just insanity. People would work 5 years at that job and retire to Okinawa with that cash.

>Tokyo is actually a little cheaper to live in than Seattle

That's an understatement. It's tremendously cheaper. You can get an apartment near your workplace, eat out 15 times a week, and still only spend half the money you'd spend on a decent in-city apartment in Seattle or SF.

>I tried to politely explain how and why people like me command the kind of salaries we do in the USA, but they just didn't get it.

Oh, no, they got it. They just wondered why someone thinks anyone gets paid that much. Not even most doctors are making that much. You basically requested CEO wages and thought they were crazy.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#62

Post by speedplane »

fiblye wrote: post #61
VRay wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, it's true, man. I recently moved to Japan to live with family for a while. I interviewed at the top Japanese software companies in Japan, and even though I'm a senior engineer with 10 years' experience in FAANG in the USA, they felt like they were doing me a favor offering me 15 million JPY/year (150k USD at 100 yen per dollar, ~$130k USD at the time with the beefy US dollar). Tokyo is actually a little cheaper…

Sometimes I think the HN community is vastly out of touch with normal everyday humans, and comments like this validate it. If you're making 7 million yen a year, you're making really fucking good money . If you're making 10 million, that company is really kissing your ass and you're essentially royalty. But 15 million is low? Keep in mind that GDP per capita in Japan is only about 2/3 of America's, and also that the…

He isn't out of touch with reality. The economy works on supply and demand. He can make more money in country than another doing the same job, so he chose the country that paid him more. It's perfectly reasonable. It's not about it being a good or bad salary, it's just what the market will bear.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#63

Post by Ultramanoid »

ekianjo wrote: post #32
ascar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Japan to do research for my CS master thesis at one of the top5 universities. While I knew English is not spoken by most Japanese, I was honestly surprised that nearly all the CS students in my lab lack the English skill for daily conversations, let alone have a technical discussion. Considering how international and English dominated CS is and only Japans best students get a place at this university, that…

There's been a trend for Japan to close upon itself in the past 15 years or more already, so going overseas and learning english has become more uncommon than ever. That, and the utter lack of interest to whats happening beyond their borders, is really damaging the future outlooks for Japan.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#64

Post by fiblye »

speedplane wrote: post #62
fiblye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think the HN community is vastly out of touch with normal everyday humans, and comments like this validate it. If you're making 7 million yen a year, you're making really fucking good money . If you're making 10 million, that company is really kissing your ass and you're essentially royalty. But 15 million is low? Keep in mind that GDP per capita in Japan is only about 2/3 of America's, and also that the…

He isn't out of touch with reality. The economy works on supply and demand. He can make more money in country than another doing the same job, so he chose the country that paid him more. It's perfectly reasonable. It's not about it being a good or bad salary, it's just what the market will bear.

He can definitely get paid more in Seattle if he wants to. That's true. He will also have a cost of living that's pretty much double what it would be in Japan.

And true, it's an issue of supply and demand. He demanded too much and supply isn't there.

His problem is that he thinks they're strange for not just offering more money, not considering that, maybe, just maybe, a country with lower wages and smaller GDP simply can't pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year+bonus for jobs. When you think of it purely in the context of big number=good, then it's bad. When you consider Japan is a much cheaper country and there are other benefits (like not having to deal with ridiculously expensive American health care, good public transportation, etc), it's clearly by no means a bad deal. It's a deal probably nobody else in that company's history ever was or ever will be offered ever again.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#65

Post by ascar »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #63
ekianjo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been a trend for Japan to close upon itself in the past 15 years or more already, so going overseas and learning english has become more uncommon than ever. That, and the utter lack of interest to whats happening beyond their borders, is really damaging the future outlooks for Japan.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on…

> but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago.

What do you mean by that? That the living standards in Japan became comparably higher? I can only speak about the comparison to Germany, but the only thing that comes to mind are japanese toilets. Other than that they are pretty similar in my experience, with a few small advantages for one country or the other in different areas.

E.g. Germany has way better building heating and isolation standards than most of what I have seen in Japan. On the other hand nearly every building in Japan has AC. This comes from the situation that Germany needs heating for about 6 months a year, no cooling for about 5 months and cooling only for about 1 month. Kansai region on the other hand only needs heating for about 4 months, but cooling for about 6.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#66

Post by speedplane »

fiblye wrote: post #64
speedplane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isn't out of touch with reality. The economy works on supply and demand. He can make more money in country than another doing the same job, so he chose the country that paid him more. It's perfectly reasonable. It's not about it being a good or bad salary, it's just what the market will bear.

He can definitely get paid more in Seattle if he wants to. That's true. He will also have a cost of living that's pretty much double what it would be in Japan. And true, it's an issue of supply and demand. He demanded too much and supply isn't there. His problem is that he thinks they're strange for not just offering more money, not considering that, maybe, just maybe, a country with lower wages and smaller GDP simpl…

> His problem is that he thinks they're strange for not just offering more money

I don't think he thinks they're strange, he's just surprised. When you visit France and can buy high quality wine for half the cost that you get in the U.S., it's surprising. When you go to Singapore and see that housing can often be more expensive than luxury apartments in NYC, it's surprising. Similarly, when you go to Japan and see people doing the same thing you do, but making 30%+ less, it's surprising.

Maybe the cost of living and government provided social services make up for some of this difference, maybe they don't. But having some initial sticker shock in the price differential can be pretty natural.

If he has a problem, it's that he thinks a unit of work should be valued equally , i.e., if I do X, it should be universally valued at $Y. It's a nice thought, and I'd like to wish it was true, but it's not how our economy works. The value of X is not intrinsic, it's based on what someone is willing to pay for it.

Coal mining in the U.S. in the 1950s provided a solid middle class foundation, but the same job today does not. Beethoven is clearly a better musician than most pop music, but few today would shell out money to listen to his music, while they would for many popular artists.

Hopefully from this, he can realize how lucky he is to have access to a country which, for a variety of reasons, values this type of production more than other places in the world.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#67

Post by Ultramanoid »

ascar wrote: post #65
Ultramanoid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on…

> but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago. What do you mean by that? That the living standards in Japan became comparably higher? I can only speak about the comparison to Germany, but the only thing that comes to mind are japanese toilets. Other than that they are pretty similar…

I don't dispute any comparison with Germany in particular as I have been there only for brief periods, and not for at least a decade. But I just can't see any country I've visited or lived in, whether in Western Europe or North America, getting anywhere close to the combined levels of public safety, quality affordable healthcare, excellent ubiquitous transportation, education, technology, extremely reasonable cost of living ( much as economists fear and malign deflation, much as foreigners keep falsely claiming Tokyo is expensive.. ), lack of social unrest, lack of inequality, lack of terrorism, lack of unemployment, etc.

Japan is not perfect, and has massive social problems, for sure. Pervasive and severe alcoholism, karoshi, women are second-class citizens, et al. A quake, a typhoon, or a volcano might wreck lives every so often. Not everything is cheerful and rosy.

But leave the economy and aging society out of it. For thirty years I've been listening to the aging problem and the stagnating economy. And every single year I see our lives and the lives of those around us not getting worse at the very least, and mostly improving, if ever so slightly.

I can't say the same for anyone I know in the States or Europe, especially from 2008 until now.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#68

Post by fiblye »

speedplane wrote: post #66
fiblye wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can definitely get paid more in Seattle if he wants to. That's true. He will also have a cost of living that's pretty much double what it would be in Japan. And true, it's an issue of supply and demand. He demanded too much and supply isn't there. His problem is that he thinks they're strange for not just offering more money, not considering that, maybe, just maybe, a country with lower wages and smaller GDP simpl…

> His problem is that he thinks they're strange for not just offering more money I don't think he thinks they're strange, he's just surprised. When you visit France and can buy high quality wine for half the cost that you get in the U.S., it's surprising. When you go to Singapore and see that housing can often be more expensive than luxury apartments in NYC, it's surprising. Similarly, when you go to Japan and see pe…

It’s really not that programmers are more “valued” and everyone who isn’t paying them enough money to buy a new house yearly isn’t properly appreciating them. It’s that one country can afford to pay more, and it’s partly enabled by a massive wealth disparity.

Being surprised is strange. It’s like being surprised that people get paid less in Poland and that companies won’t pay as much for a programmer there. Nobody has the money to pay for $300000/year programmers in Poland. It’s the same virtually everywhere except incredibly expensive corners of the world, like parts of America and Switzerland.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#69

Post by ekianjo »

Simon_says wrote: post #42
ekianjo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the way Github defines contributions is very fuzzy (signing up and opening a ticket is good enough to be considered a contributor). If we were to measure the number of commits or the number of lines of codes contributed I'd wage the picture would be quite different (and probably worse for Japan, but I could be wrong).

Bug-finding is contributing.

Sure, but it's not the same as being an actual developer.

Re: Recruit Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination

#70

Post by ekianjo »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #63
ekianjo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been a trend for Japan to close upon itself in the past 15 years or more already, so going overseas and learning english has become more uncommon than ever. That, and the utter lack of interest to whats happening beyond their borders, is really damaging the future outlooks for Japan.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on…

Living standards in Japan? You mean the minuscule apartments? The notoriously bad heating system (lack of isolation)? Overpriced food in general in supermarkets (with products made using 10x the levels of pesticides/fertilizers compared to other countries)? The fact that Japan rejected nuclear and now used coal and petrol to power its electrical grid (hence aerial pollution)?

Don't get me wrong, there are positive aspects to living in Japan, but there's a lot of trade-offs as well and level of life wise it's far from being all rosy in Japan.

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