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Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

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Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#371

Post by 0x142857 »

david_allison wrote: post #351
dsr12 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creator of Vue.js Evan You's perspective: "Working on a project" doesn't only mean pushing commits. It also means deciding what to do, syncing with committees, running a team structure, thinking about how and where to get funding, and handling the mental pressure of "I'm responsible for this". https://twitter.com/youyuxi/status/1392088730438090756

Evan You[0] has over 4x more contributions than Henry Zhu[1] this year. Evan's absolutely correct, there's a lot of 'invisible' community activity, but in my experience of OSS, it's typical to have a 'contribution' on GitHub every day, which is missing in the case of a Babel maintainer who's being paid $130k/y Let's compare to the other maintainers: [2][3][4][5][6]. Contribution counts aren't and shouldn't be everyth…

contribution in general doesn't have to be "code" related.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#372

Post by Touche »

andrew_ wrote: post #361
eplanit wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Management blaming individuals by name (in public no less) shows severe incompetence at the top. I don't doubt he hired a slacker, but that's on management for hiring and retaining that... to the point of demise? Stupid.

Seb is a well-known narcissist, suffering from ego created by his own Twitter myth. I cannot name a single peer among the many circles I converse in which respects the person (another matter for the technical ability). Seb has only to look in a mirror to identify the issues with the current state of the Babel project management.

Can you imagine taking a job at his startup. You have a bad week, run into a hard problem and start to sweat that your commit log isn't full enough.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#373

Post by jwr »

sokoloff wrote: post #289
jwr wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, this isn't a zero-sum game. And second, seriously? I should worry that my competitors will be meaningfully boosted ahead (to the point of having a better shot a beating me) by me supporting a bunch of libraries that I use? The world would be so much better if we all just did the right thing. It really isn't difficult to know what the right thing is at any given moment.

I agree in general with your comment, but even in your example, is donating to exactly the top 8 clearly the right thing? Why not 5, or 13, or numbers 6-15 (figuring that 1-5 are adequately funded by others)?

How many do you donate to?

I give what I can, because contributing any amount to any libs is better than just talking and contributing zero.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#374

Post by phpnode »

akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

I think this is a really bad look for Sebastian. He started babel and made the most contributions overall, but he hasn't been involved in the project for 5 years at this point. He left to join Facebook and babel would have died if it weren't for the efforts of Logan, Henry, Nicolo and the other contributors.

The original post on the babel website was written in response to him investigating the babel funding situation earlier this year, and so the babel team have made changes to make the situation fairer in their eyes. This apparently doesn't go far enough for Sebastian's tastes, so he has publicly called out by name one of the contributors who he feels doesn't do enough to justify their salary. The metric he uses for determining this is the number of github commits and comments that are shown on that person's profile. This is not a fair measure of someone's contribution to a project, and it's exactly the kind of behaviour that Sebastian would criticise if any other company was evaluating people in this way.

In the meantime, Sebastian has started another competing project, Rome Tools, which was recently VC funded.

The whole thing stinks. Will Rome Tools employees get called out and shamed in public if they don't have enough visibility on their github profile?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#375

Post by pembrook »

dyeje wrote: post #340
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global competition will drive wages down. Right now SV is still were Detroit was in the 1960s.

Are you implying that the downfall of Detroit was global competition?

OP wouldn't be wrong to do so. Detroit (the city) suffered through the changes of suburbanization and racial tensions during the 50s/60s...but Detroit (the industry) also suffered a steady decline in automotive market share starting around then as well. This had equally devastating effects to the region. Just look at Flint.

I believe Detroit automakers used to account for 90% (I may be off by +/- 10%) of global car sales coming out of WW2.

By the 2000s Japan, Germany, and others had eaten away half of that share in the US market, and an even higher percentage in global markets.

Silicon Valley has had a many decades head start in Tech just as Detroit did in Automotive (let's say 1900s-1960s for autos and 1970s-2020s for Tech). To think global competition won't eventually start eating away at this dominance is foolish, especially given the profits at stake.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#376

Post by esrauch »

emptyfile wrote: post #280
indemnity wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why salaries are so low in Europe. I work in New Zealand, not exactly a tech hub, and I’m on $220k p.a. (mid career). $160k US, 130k EUR. 39% top tax. I wouldn’t say I am significantly above average and I’m not in management (architect/principal engineer). Similar story in Australia. Not quite US levels but decent compensation, I don’t feel taken advantage of.

Because supply and demand? What sort of answer do you think you'll get? We get it, anglos are a lot more rich then averaege europeans. Congrats.

I don't think that's fair: Software Engineer salaries in London are also relatively low compared to non-SV-major-city-US. And it's not across the board since Finance jobs in the same area pay better, so it seems that there's something specifically about how that one role is valued.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#377

Post by ashtonkem »

dsr12 wrote: post #316
akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Creator of Vue.js Evan You's perspective: "Working on a project" doesn't only mean pushing commits. It also means deciding what to do, syncing with committees, running a team structure, thinking about how and where to get funding, and handling the mental pressure of "I'm responsible for this". https://twitter.com/youyuxi/status/1392088730438090756

I agree that there are a ton of non-code related things that a project leader should be doing, but the vast majority should be visible in some way. Mailing list discussions, roadmaps, code reviews, creating/triaging issues, etc. It should be pretty easy to get a representative picture of what a project leader did over a whole year.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#378

Post by ashtonkem »

pembrook wrote: post #375
dyeje wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that the downfall of Detroit was global competition?

OP wouldn't be wrong to do so. Detroit (the city) suffered through the changes of suburbanization and racial tensions during the 50s/60s...but Detroit (the industry) also suffered a steady decline in automotive market share starting around then as well. This had equally devastating effects to the region. Just look at Flint. I believe Detroit automakers used to account for 90% (I may be off by +/- 10%) of global car s…

What’s less clear to me is whether or not the tech industry is like the car. Will the rate of innovation drop as we slowly approach an asymptotically perfect product, or will it accelerate as access to concentrated labor and knowledge drives up the rate of change?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#379

Post by nend »

eplanit wrote: post #352
akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Management blaming individuals by name (in public no less) shows severe incompetence at the top. I don't doubt he hired a slacker, but that's on management for hiring and retaining that... to the point of demise? Stupid.

I would have a problem with a manager if they did this "publicly" within the team/company. Airing it out on twitter is even more egregious. "Severe incompetence" is somehow understating it IMO, although i can't think of a better description.

If what they said is true:

1) Management hired a developer

2) Paid him for years

3) Gained millions of users

4) Became bankrupt

5) Publicly named the developer as a slacker and the reason the business is failing.

More comments from the founder. Nowhere does he take any responsibility for this mess, just blame blame blame.

"The salary amount isn't unreasonable or excessive. It's the lack of material output that makes it unjustified."

- So, don't pay him for years while bankrupting your project?

"I'm being explicit now since vague tweeting allegations isn't productive."

- Explicitly tweeting allegations isn't productive either. It just makes you and your project look bad. There's no way I'm donating to you now.

"The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project."

- And was allowed to do so for a long time. Also, that's only one part of the equation, was this developer also responsible for fundraising? Or other spending?

"I raised this in March when I looked into it and noticed that for the first two months of the year he had left only two brief comments and created no comments."

- You didn't notice your employees had shipped nothing for two months? Or you were OK with this at the time and are now retroactively blaming them?

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