Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

blog.cerebralab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 350 posts

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#201

Post by babesh »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #193
babesh wrote: post #176

This article is badly informed and badly reasoned. Adam Smith - An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ” It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest.” In those places, you are willing to pay the most since it will make you the most. Brooke’s Law Wikipedia “ Communication overhea…

The desire to cluster makes sense, but why cluster where the salaries are most expensive? If you want to start a software company, why start it in the Valley and not some town that has lots of programming talent but way lower pay? We see so many startups that are paying top dollar for San Francisco office space and a dozen six digit programmers, but the same company in suburban Georgia would cost only a tiny fraction…

You already see that happening but not Georgia as much as far as I can tell. Also there is labor movement. If the labor can get better salaries elsewhere why should they move to your smaller, less wealthy location? Salaries there would need to rise.

The bigger the cluster the bigger the network effect in the cluster.

My opinion is that there are probably less than 10 viable clusters in North America. If it is too small or the culture is against it, then it fails. There have been such attempts, a few succeeded, most failed.

It shall be interesting which (new) clusters grow. My bet is on Toronto. AI talent. Large cosmopolitan city. Good universities.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#202

Post by gwern »

To toss in a second-hand anecdote: I once asked someone who worked at/with companies screening Africans for diamonds in the rough, smart guys who could do programming but were being paid peanuts, like $10k/year, and paying them a multiple of that for outsourcing, why it wasn't such a great idea, when Africa seems to have so many under-utilized people. He said that despite expectations, they were not much cheaper to hire than alternatives like American programmers on net. While you would think that it would be impossible to not make a profit paying these smart guys $20k or $30k a year when alternatives are like $200k/year, the economics barely worked because they just wouldn't do the work reliably. They would just not show up some days, leave early, do no work, blow off jobs, half-ass the actual work, and so on. By the time you hired enough non-African managers to oversee them and handhold them, you'd blown through your cost advantage, because good managers aren't cheap either. Most customers found it a lot easier to deal with a reliable non-African contractor who would get the job done when they said they would get it done mostly right the first time and would answer emails.

It reminded me of Gregory Clark's 1987 paper "Why Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills" https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6152/0798b9dd2c691872d58db3... where he points out that despite Indian labor being incredibly cheap, Indian cotton mills were still uncompetitive with British (and later, Japanese) cotton mills for basically the same reasons. As the saying goes, "you get what you pay for"... The more something is an o-ring process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-ring_theory_of_economic_deve... , the more skimping on labor is penny-wise pound-foolish.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#203

Post by cuddlybacon »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #194
benjohnson wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>pointing out problems That's the first step. Proposing a complete solution that takes in the needs of the various stakeholders and doesn't just move the problem and does so in a way that makes the whole situation easier is the hard part. If you've done that and nobody is listening, it's time to change the culture or leave.

> Proposing a complete solution that takes in the needs of the various stakeholders and doesn't just move the problem and does so in a way that makes the whole situation easier There's a fine line between being thorough, and doing the job of several other people for them. The latter isn't what you're being paid for, and in some companies isn't appreciated if it risks some of them losing face.

True, but on the other hand it is unpleasant to have a problem, be fully aware of the problem, and have every passerby point it out to you as if you are a team of idiots who can't see the obvious.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#204

Post by karmakaze »

gwern wrote: post #202

To toss in a second-hand anecdote: I once asked someone who worked at/with companies screening Africans for diamonds in the rough, smart guys who could do programming but were being paid peanuts, like $10k/year, and paying them a multiple of that for outsourcing, why it wasn't such a great idea, when Africa seems to have so many under-utilized people. He said that despite expectations, they were not much cheaper to h…

At the end it says:

> Garett Jones (2013) builds upon Kremer's O-ring theory [...] He then goes on to show that small international variations in average worker skill per country result in both large international and small intra-national income inequality.

This sums up the situation to me. The value of the skilled worker depends on the value (and desired quality) of what is being produced with co-workers. So in theory if you could build up a distributed team of these skilled lower-salaried workers, have them work well remotely with each other, have a high sense of quality and share other relevant cultural norms, then high-quality/value products could be produced for such a market demand.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#205

Post by mping »

Offshoring anything requires more efficiency from the start because a company's management problems will be amplified by offshoring.

Of course if a company is remote first it will already be at advantage, but most companies I know are not known by it's management efficiency.

So a trillion dollars are lying on the ground, but its buried deep and you require the tools to dig.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#206

Post by cuddlybacon »

wahern wrote: post #190
viklove wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience Americans are pretty blunt, and will not hesitate to point out flaws and make cynical jokes about them openly in the presence of their team.

Cynical or sarcastic jokes are arguably the opposite of blunt. They're a way to acknowledge or broach a subject which the person, and most often the group, is uncomfortable or incapable of articulating more clearly. For example, because they're being forced to do the impossible, or because the character, cause, or resolution of an issue is poorly understood. People from cultures where sarcasm isn't common don't under…

I think cynical and sarcastic jokes are blunt, and are something that arises when the culture is open about discussing problems but people don't have the agency to solve them.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#207

Post by Kinrany »

neutronicus wrote: post #50
bluejekyll wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack (or similar) seems to be filling this void. The tap on the shoulder, “hey, did you notice this?” The problem is, you can have 10-20 people tapping you on the shoulder all at once.

Yes, and unlike Slack, in-person communication implements a Mutex where someone will see that someone else is talking to you and come back later without requiring any explanation or indeed awareness on your part.

Hmm, is there a messenger that has this feature?

Just show a "talking to user @X"/"talking in channel @Y" status the same way Discord shows everyone the game you're playing.

Butts in Seats 2.0!

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#208

Post by snovv_crash »

commandlinefan wrote: post #32

> 3. Most "good" programmers move to the high-income countries > Again, fairly hard to find data on this I'm surprised it's hard to find data, but yes, this consistently matches my observation over the past 30 years and four different geographic locations: very few American programmers are American at all. When I did my master's in CS 15 years ago, I was almost always the only person in the room born in the United St…

This fits. It is called "brain drain", where the smart people leave low-income areas to go somewhere they will be paid more. And why shouldn't they, if a company will pay them so they have more in savings in the rich area than they would have even earned in the poorer area?

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#209

Post by pdimitar »

gwern wrote: post #202

To toss in a second-hand anecdote: I once asked someone who worked at/with companies screening Africans for diamonds in the rough, smart guys who could do programming but were being paid peanuts, like $10k/year, and paying them a multiple of that for outsourcing, why it wasn't such a great idea, when Africa seems to have so many under-utilized people. He said that despite expectations, they were not much cheaper to h…

Absolutely. This has been true throughout my entire career literally everywhere I worked, on-site and remote alike.

What makes my experience a little more representative (or so my ego says) is the fact that I am from Eastern Europe. Ever since several years now (3-4) we are no longer that attractive IT outsourcing location because a lot of people around here learned their price and value and charge normal (if still below USA's) rates. And thus many businesses started trying to outsource cheaper to Africa and parts of Asia.

The results have been catastrophic and hilarious at the same time. I've been called to "fix the mess" 6-12 months later by five businesses now, and I outright told one of the business owners that he'll have to pay me $20k a month to fix something as non-salvageable as the dumpster fire I was given. He refused which was a win for me because I still value my time and sanity.

So many businesses look at this outsourcing to cheaper staff thing very superficially, as you said. Sure you save money the first 2-3 months. Absolutely, you do. But then all the unfinished and badly done work starts peeking from the edge of the window.

And finally, you are also very correct when saying that hiring the managers that govern these people efficiently effectively destroys the cost savings.

In conclusion: I have definitely observed the same as you.

(Several edits: apparently I had a stroke and wrote some really broken English here and there.)

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#210

Post by skissane »

joelbluminator wrote: post #199
rubber_duck wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the more extreme cases like India and US, but if you want to take it there I'd say compared to the US the opportunities for you and your children will be better when you're in the top income bracket.

Yeah, looks like a great place lately you're totally right

I used to talk to my wife about moving to the US. It would be good for my career I'm sure.

Then there was a school shooting. And my wife said "We are not moving to the US". And I didn't really have anything to say in response. And then there was another shooting, and another one. And each time she said the same thing, and each time I couldn't really manage a response.

Eventually, I stopped talking about moving to the US. And now, when there is a mass shooting in the US, my wife doesn't say "We are not moving to the US" any more.

Post reply on HN