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Remote work means anyone can take your job

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Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#351

Post by dragandj »

joelbluminator wrote: post #82
beager wrote: post #19

The implication from this litter of thinkpieces on HN is that proximity to a tech hub (SV/NY) is your only competitive advantage as a knowledge worker—your butt is close to their chair. This runs counter to the other prevailing wisdom about SV/NY, which is that those areas are hubs—and essential to the tech industry—because the world's top talent is drawn to it. So which is it?

So you think every node.js / rails developer that happens to live in SV and work in a startup is the next Linus? Of course they're lots of ordinary developers working and living there. And yes, being born American / European is a huge advantage over 80% of the rest of humanity.

Additinally, Linus created Linux while still living in Finland. He only emigrated to the US after Linux was alteady successful.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#352

Post by Avicebron »

subhobroto wrote: post #337
Avicebron wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in short what you're saying is yay globalism? Bring everyone down to a lowest mean existance possible, we shouldn't protect our interests?

> So in short what you're saying is yay globalism globalization is happening whether we want it to or not. > we shouldn't protect our interests I made no comments either way. ... but, sure, let's think about this. If you were to pass rules and regulations to stop globalization from happening, what would the top 3 be?

Well I won't claim to be the thought leader on this, however I'm happy to look at some hypothetical ideas. To be clear I'm not looking to reverse globalization completely or stop it.

Rule 1: International trade deals forbid offshoring of manufacturing. Example, cars from Ford can't be made in Mexico for 1/10th the price. This is universal and enforceable by dissolution of companies that don't comply.

Rule 2: Stringent regulations to prevent Tax and location based gaming of Rule 1. Ford doesn't get to pay taxes in Tahiti, incorporate a mailbox in Mexico so they can make their cars there, but take advantage of US infrastructure for the rest of their business.

Rule 3: Companies reaching a monopoly size will be broken up into relatively equal sized companies, importantly those companies will be competing in similar regions. It's not like AWS and Amazon. It's like two Amazons. I'm sure figuring out the codebase and IP will make many jobs for lawyers and engineers. Maybe less for the MBA's.

EDIT: For rule 3 I forgot to add that the break up forces innovation as similar companies are competing now in the same market. It's an engine of growth built into the system.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#353

Post by ghaff »

betaby wrote: post #302
jedberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same in the US to hire someone in a different state. Every state has their own tax scheme. Every new employee in a new state is a big set up cost and ongoing maintenance.

Why so? I though all payroll/tax details are outsourced to the accounting firms and very straightforward in fact.

My understanding from people who have done it is that:

-- Yes, you can outsource most of the payroll-related headaches to someone like ADP but

-- There are still a lot of other state by state details that can't just be handed off to a third party and told "Make it so." It's not a particularly big deal for a larger company, but it can be a fair bit of overhead for a small employer adding a new remote employee in a state with lots of paperwork.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#354

Post by esoterica »

Avicebron wrote: post #326
subhobroto wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom Nope. What is going on here is the person from India gets to now enjoy a much higher quality of life (because 50% of a U.S. salary gets you a lot in India) while the person from California sees their effective take home pay decrease (because their costs continue to grow but not their salary) Definitely not a race to the bottom but it sucks to be the person from C…

So in short what you're saying is yay globalism? Bring everyone down to a lowest mean existance possible, we shouldn't protect our interests?

Who is the "our" here? My identified in-group is rootless cosmopolitans, so I am happy to see globalists of any nationality take jobs away from protectionist xenophobes.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#355

Post by dzonga »

mc32 wrote: post #185
crispyambulance wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] what they outsourced were their bottom tier workers, the unproductive people. That might be true to some extent, but I think there's a problem with that line of thought. People are a "moving target". What may be a bottom-tier worker now, could very well be a valuable employee in 5-10 years. Many folks have built their career by starting at a low level and then getting promoted and upskilled over time through…

An additional problem MBAs sometimes miss is that when you export jobs to contract orgs is that this accumulated institutional knowledge is lost—it’s no longer held in-house. Conversely it contributes to the expertise of the contract org. But not all orgs think long term. Or they get enthralled by “core competency”.

accumulated knowledge, isn't just applicable to orgs. but to the individual workers too. old school org's such as HP n IBM recognized this early. & had policies in place that they would never lay off anyone ever. some countries from what I heard in Japan that policy is still going on. i.e company man

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#357

Post by BryanBigs »

johnward wrote: post #190

"Everyone would have to sit two meters apart, which means two times the square feet, which means two times the rent." Ugh. If the office isn't already sitting me 6 feet apart from someone then I don't want to work there.

Before we left,a former employer was about to force my team (with allin probably average individual compensation of $600000) from 81sq foot cubes to rows of connected desks of 36" width. This in a city with $20sq ft office rental rates. The official name of the model of the desk layout: the harvest table. That was the catalyst to begin looking for a new home...

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#358

Post by esoterica »

Avicebron wrote: post #352
subhobroto wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in short what you're saying is yay globalism globalization is happening whether we want it to or not. > we shouldn't protect our interests I made no comments either way. ... but, sure, let's think about this. If you were to pass rules and regulations to stop globalization from happening, what would the top 3 be?

Well I won't claim to be the thought leader on this, however I'm happy to look at some hypothetical ideas. To be clear I'm not looking to reverse globalization completely or stop it. Rule 1: International trade deals forbid offshoring of manufacturing. Example, cars from Ford can't be made in Mexico for 1/10th the price. This is universal and enforceable by dissolution of companies that don't comply. Rule 2: Stringen…

> I'm sure figuring out the codebase and IP will make many jobs for lawyers and engineers.

This is the broken window fallacy.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#359

Post by crispyambulance »

narrator wrote: post #301
Avicebron wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it's already happened to some extent in the life science industry. It's part of the reason our biotech industry is in shambles. Many of the companies I work with dream of "going virtual", doing research at an unaffiliated lab, taking credit, moving that research to a massive CMO, then dissolving any physical assets, layoffs, and then there is a just a board, execs and profit. It's totally destructive to actual h…

I don't think outsourcing manufacturing is destructive of human progress. You got huge companies like AMD and NVIDIA , who certainly contribute to human progress, who outsource all their manufacturing to TSMC because only a few companies worldwide can make those kinds of semiconductors.

Admittedly there's something to be said for outsourcing MFG to someplace like TSMC. But they still employ engineers to design the chips and maintain deep technical talent.

I was thinking more along the lines of companies that are little more than a layer of product managers and operations folks just managing vendors and service providers that do ALL the work.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#360

Post by Avicebron »

esoterica wrote: post #354
Avicebron wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in short what you're saying is yay globalism? Bring everyone down to a lowest mean existance possible, we shouldn't protect our interests?

Who is the "our" here? My identified in-group is rootless cosmopolitans, so I am happy to see globalists of any nationality take jobs away from protectionist xenophobes.

Do you recognize that your in-group is not widely represented? It's not xenophobia, you're trying to dog whistle something about my character that is untrue. Can you acknowledge that you're being protectionist of your privileged class?
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