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

babeljs.io

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

#461

Post by ThalesX »

ianbutler wrote: post #421
capableweb wrote: post #261

> we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source. > For now, Nicolò, Henry, and Jùnliàng will all be paid a temporary rate of $6,000 per month. This doesn't solve the problem, I used to donate to Babel, before they made it apparent they are just interested in funneling the money to one developer. 11K per month?! That is absolutely bananas and same reaction I had the last tim…

On the flip side, Silicon Valley isn't the only expensive place and 132k was well below my full time salary in New York as a senior eng before I jumped into my own work. Actually I don't think I know any full time engineers right now in my personal network making lower than 150k and they're all very talented people who wouldn't be able to hop on something like this for various reasons related to that being too low. M…

I'm on the other side of the boat, and presumably the ocean. In Eastern Europe, part of the EU and have a lot of connections working in outsourcing. Some senior level engineers can end up making 4000 - 5000€ per month, which would translate to ~$65.000 per year. I know of very few that make 6000€ or more.

Giving the benefit of the doubt and saying that any engineer here will be half the value of one from SV (which, I don't agree with at all), I'd argue that you'd still be better off paying two senior engineers at the particular level I am familiar with to build your product.

> My point is without high pay a whole class of very good engineers is unavailable to you.

I think depending on the model, the same argument can be made for FAANG and / or other VC money fueled companies. There are some talented, principled engineers that refuse to work for non-fundamented businesses, and perhaps only aiming for the 150k+ people will render a whole class of very good engineers unavailable to you.

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

#462

Post by madjam002 »

phpnode wrote: post #374
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 situatio…

How is Rome Tools going to make money?

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

#463

Post by moralestapia »

Feels very dishonest from Sebastian to try to wash his hands from this while, in his own words, "funds were misallocated for years" [1].

You can't have that kind of thing happening for years and just "don't notice" nor "do anything about it". IMO, it's quite obvious that not only did he knew, but he was also complicit in the whole thing. The only reason they're venting this now is because they ran out of money, if some wealthy sponsor had come and gave them a few million, their sudden spark of morality wouldn't have realized.

Reminds me of Ruth Madoff stating that she "had no idea" [2] that her husband was running a multibillion dollar scam business for decades.

Like, come on, who is going to believe that.

1: https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522

2: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/madoff-s-w...

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

#464

Post by Touche »

wussboy wrote: post #401
eplanit wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like measuring a carpenter by how many nails they've driven per day.

When that “carpenter” is also answering the phone and doing quotes for work, apparently. If Henry is also the community manager and main fundraiser (which from the sounds of other posts he is), I’d argue that the last thing you’d want him spending time on would be code.

It's like having a startup with 1 full-time salesperson and 3 part-time engineers. It would never work unless you already have a product (which Babel does).

I sort of get the idea of spending your money trying to sale an existing product but it doesn't seem to have worked in this case. That doesn't mean allocating the money differently would have worked either (arguably it would have been better for current patrons though).

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

#465

Post by franciscop »

falcor84 wrote: post #451
franciscop wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit ridiculous on the other direction. It's like your main job is putting nails, and at the end of the year you have only put 29 nails. Sure, nails per day is not the best metric, but if in one year building furniture you only put 29 nails in total it's definitely not a good outlook for your productivity.

But his job wasn't putting nails. In this metaphor, his job would have been increasing the furniture company's output and profits; maybe he found another of doing it. Perhaps for instance, he figured out that instead of nails, he could utilize another joinery approach, like dovetails.

Sure, that's a fair point. I don't know enough about the exact job, internals, etc, just commenting that while commits/day or /week or even /month might not be the best metric, if you are (which I'm unsure here) hired to do that then if you only do 29/year, yeah you are probably not doing your job.

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

#466

Post by pjmlp »

andrew_ wrote: post #366
pjmlp wrote: post #241

Couldn't be more appropriate as today's news, "When software depends on a project thanklessly maintained by a random guy in Nebraska, is open source sustainable?" https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sourc...

I'd argue all day that it's sustainable. The crux of the issue is scale; at what scale does it cease to be sustainable?

When one depends on donations to sustain a family.

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

#467

Post by bspammer »

danielsju6 wrote: post #412
capableweb wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow seem to think that amount someone earns is somehow related to how good they are. > $11k/mo is realistic. It's already a large pay cut. Yes, sure, in Silicon Valley anything is possible but for the 99% rest of the world, 11K USD per month is ridiculously high and even people with decades of experience won't collect that unless there is a specific situation. It's definitely not normal outside of Silicon Val…

You realize that $11k has to pay their taxes, healthcare, and retirement state-side right? It’s peanuts.

The median salary in the US is a quarter of that.

It’s not luxury yacht money, but calling it “peanuts” is ridiculous.

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

#468

Post by waheoo »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #452
ericlewis wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as an FYI: Rome was started under the react-native team at Facebook and has been in development for well over 2 years, Facebook let him take it with him when he left.

that's really rare, right?

Only if it's worth something.

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

#469

Post by ianbutler »

ThalesX wrote: post #461
ianbutler wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, Silicon Valley isn't the only expensive place and 132k was well below my full time salary in New York as a senior eng before I jumped into my own work. Actually I don't think I know any full time engineers right now in my personal network making lower than 150k and they're all very talented people who wouldn't be able to hop on something like this for various reasons related to that being too low. M…

I'm on the other side of the boat, and presumably the ocean. In Eastern Europe, part of the EU and have a lot of connections working in outsourcing. Some senior level engineers can end up making 4000 - 5000€ per month, which would translate to ~$65.000 per year. I know of very few that make 6000€ or more. Giving the benefit of the doubt and saying that any engineer here will be half the value of one from SV (which, I…

That's valid too, but and big but, I'd argue your engineers aren't being paid their value though and that's largely down to what I feel is Europe not valuing engineers relative to what they accomplish enough. Don't drive our wages down, drive yours up.

I'm consistently astounded that my friend who lives in France is only making what she makes given her level of schooling and skill.

That doesn't detract from your point though. Only the hassle of hiring outside of the US may be a blocker there as well.

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

#470

Post by andrew_ »

olingern wrote: post #456
andrew_ wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on his track record (he did the same thing after departing Yarn), I'd say that's a definite risk. Unstable ground, to be sure.

This is not correct

It actually is correct. He's routinely dogged the project and team after leaving the project: https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1176534097881006080, and was a founding member: https://engineering.fb.com/2016/10/11/web/yarn-a-new-package...
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