TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash • Hacker News Board

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#281

Post by fivea » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #250

wheels wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about engineers, not factory workers. Are you really telling me there's no culture of overworking for engineers in Silicon Valley? It's contrasting Arizona with Taiwan; I don't think this same article would be written about Silicon Valley vs. Taiwan. There's also a difference between what you're saying and what the great-grandparent said: being cheaper can be because they have better processes or are m…

Salary info I'm finding on google suggest that electrical engineers still get paid less in Taiwan than in the US. I'd also be very curious what those numbers looked like over the decades when offshoring really ramped up. Not "10x less" or anything incredibly dramatic, but for a business, money saved is money saved. It's silly to have a whole thread of back and forth responses on "is it racist to say cost of labor is…

> Personally I'm waiting for engineering salaries in the non-US to catch up to the US because it'll make it easier for me to leave the US if I choose to do so but it doesn't look like it's happened yet.

Let me chime in to say that salary isn't everything in life, or the key to live a good, fulfilling life. I'd even argue that socialized healthcare and worker's rights, ensured in numerous European countries, do far more to achieve good life than, say, an absurdly high salary.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#282

Post by 908B64B197 » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

breezeTrowel wrote: post #185

phkahler wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It’s like: That's cute, but not what actually happened. It started with: Company: We want more profit Production: Moved to Asia Other Companies: We can't compete any more Other Production: Moved to Asia Companies: Oh crap, we need production back in the US (for various reasons) Production: Oh shit that's right, we moved because it cost less with no labor or environmental protections and we could work the shit out…

Going by the article, it seems a large part of the "culture clash" is TSMC's insistence on three hours of meetings each day and using outdated software that was designed back in 1987(!). While workers in Taiwan used to work 12 hour days, time worked is not a good indicator of productivity and I'm willing to bet that TSMC's massive profitability meant there wasn't much incentive to make the work process more efficient…

> While workers in Taiwan used to work 12 hour days, time worked is not a good indicator of productivity and I'm willing to bet that TSMC's massive profitability meant there wasn't much incentive to make the work process more efficient.

That's one of the pitfall of low labor costs: since time is virtually free it tends to create a culture that doesn't use it efficiently.

I've seen it with offshored devs way too often; why take the time to learn version control when you can pass around code in emails and on thumb drives?

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#283

Post by majormajor » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 8:58 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #280

majormajor wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we're looking at an industry where the US used to be dominant. So it's not a question of "how did another country beat the US to this sort of industry despite having less money floating around than the US?" It's specifically "how did this industry leave the US and why is it non-trivial to rebuild some of it?" I'm talking about the how of them becoming the best in the world, not arguing that they aren't the best…

Except that your history is wrong in this case. It's more about politics and Intel's failure, and Taiwan and TSMC's capitalization on that than it is about salaries. A lot of manufacturing did move to Taiwan in the 70s and 80s because labor costs were lower there then, and because the US was investing a lot in Taiwan because of its strategic role vis-a-vis mainland China. But that wasn't especially high tech, and was…

Ah, I see we're talking across each other some actually because of talking about different timeframes. I was confused by comments about Taiwan being rich when I was thinking about a story starting in the late 80s, not just the last decade.

I'm not particularly focused on Intel at the very top-end here. TSMC capitalizing on Intel dropping the ball in the 2010s doesn't happen if there wasn't a trend that continued through the 90s and 2000s that helps them get in the position to capitalize. Labor costs then were part of the equation - after all, they still haven't fully caught up.

The US being down to essentially one player that made their living focusing on just the top of the market is because of that process that hollowed out the US-based industry.

The alternative scenario I'm pitching isn't "Intel doesn't screw up cause they throw even more money at it" it's "the US semiconductor industry has multiple big players so that the are more domestic players to try to pounce on Intel's mistakes." But, because of cost pressure, including cost of labor, I believe that would take specific action and policy choices.

(This also isn't just a "US vs Asia" thing - Japanese companies have lost business to other more recent Asian entrants in the electronics and related manufacturing space as well.)

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#284

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #247

ianai wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I’m hearing US citizens have become “practically ungovernable.” I’ve definitely experienced people acting with more hostility and clear inner turmoil just out running errands than ever before now. And this is enough to shock me after living a decade in one of the most hostile, large metropolitans in the US.

> ungovernable Interesting word choice. Supposedly, the word "ungovernable" was used by anticolonialist/anti-imperialist factions in the '70s to describe a deliberate strategy of breaking down the "peace, order, and good government" that their imperialist counterparts offered as justification for their existence. Closely related is "no justice, no peace". However, this attribution of "ungovernable" to left-actors cam…

There's also, uh, this insanity [7]; it's so far off the deep end it could be a right wing false flag, but, well, it's from 2021, so anything's possible:

[7] https://itsgoingdown.org/16-things-you-can-do-to-be-ungovern...

EDIT: Yeah, I think it's real.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#285

Post by rjzzleep » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #37

rjzzleep wrote: post #6

Very interesting. Yeah labour is cheap in Taiwan. Even highly qualified, specialized labour. That's why talent leaves to China, USA and Israel. But about the factory itself, American Factory was quite interesting[1]. Chinese company, but similar culture clash. It is interesting however that from what I have seen Europeans that wouldn't lift a finger on a weekend would expect Taiwanese to have results on Monday mornin…

> It is distributed by Netflix and is the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions So... I'm betting there's a political angle there. > from what I have seen Europeans that wouldn't lift a finger on a weekend would expect Taiwanese to have results on Monday morning Many fabs and factories work around the clock or 4-3 shifts. It's less common in the white collar…

> So... I'm betting there's a political angle there.

If there is, it's that Americans are lazy. Maybe even so lazy that instead of reading the synopsis they just read Wikipedia intro paragraphs to confirm their own biases.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#286

Post by j_walter » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

analognoise wrote: post #208

j_walter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this...there are always those willing to work their ass off to succeed. Those who are willing to do so get rewarded...but finding out who those people are takes time and generally that's not something you can see on a resume. The engineer in this story may not fit the bill...

Does anyone believe the "work hard you'll be rewarded" schtick anymore? Usually the only reward is...more work. You can destroy yourself and your relationships for a job and they won't "reward you" if they can.

Certainly not everyone and there are plenty of companies not willing to reward you the proper way. In my experience TSMC is not one of those companies.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#287

Post by colinmhayes » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #274

colinmhayes wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workers have to compete with everyone else in the world. If a company employs American workers who demand high wages to do the same work that international workers do for less pay that company will fail. The economy is a competition, companies can't just give away money.

> The economy is a competition, companies can't just give away money. And this article makes that point very salient, as does antiunion drives at many companies. Say it costs me X to run a PR campaign about lazy workers or hire an antiunion consulting firm. It might cost me Y to raise pay, hire more workers, and/or improve working conditions. If X is less than Y and achieves the same effect - I do X, if Y is less, I…

The engineers at this TSMC plant will get what they want. TSMC knows that which is why they wrote this article. The people who are really fucked are the blue collar workers whose job is moving to a sweatshop in south east asia.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#288

Post by DavidPeiffer » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #239

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once you see a modern fab with your own eyes, it will change you in a deep way. I felt a sense of compassion for this incredibly complex and valuable thing that humanity is just barely able to scrape together. Nothing you see in media can prepare you for the real thing. I interned at Micron as an industrial engineer looking at capacity and equipment purchases. I can very much relate to that. The whole summer was my…

> As far as I'm concerned, it's black magic and truly an incredible achievement for humanity. Fabs seem to be the far edge of tools-to-make-the-tools dependency stack, with some of the necessary sorcerous gadgets (like EUV lithography) themselves only having a single supplier with the necessary secret incantations on the other side of the planet. Does the knowledge even exist to bootstrap things back up again should…

>Does the knowledge even exist to bootstrap things back up again should the present infrastructure and supply chains be sufficiently disrupted?

Man, I'd love to know. Hypothetical scenarios are:

1) Everything is available at your fingertips supply chain wise, but you have no equipment. How long until we're at our current technical capability?

2) No equipment and the supply chain need to be rebuilt, but the designs are still present.

3) We have sticks and stones and whatever is in our brains. Start fresh like a game of Factorio and see how well you can do on a speed run.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#289

Post by bsder » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #44

PKop wrote: post #5

12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian. Guess there's a reason Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world. Working themselves into oblivion.

Nor even terribly unusual--even in US manufacturing. Longer than 8 hour shifts is simply a matter of scheduling--you then wind up doing things like 4 days on/3 days off. However, when you pass 40 hours, you owe people overtime in the US. I imagine that TSMC isn't particular stringent about documenting that in Taiwan.

The vast majority of factory workers are not salaried, last I checked.

However, even salaried workers in the US are nominally required to be compensated for extra hours. It's not quite as straightforward, but you can't simply expect 60 hours per week from every salaried worker--that will likely land you in trouble with the Feds.

The main difference is that "exempt" workers generally don't care to avail themselves of various enforcement options. They just leave and get a different job.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#290

Post by gigatexal » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #278

gigatexal wrote: post #142

From the article: “TSMC will have to change to an eight-hour work day five days a week.” They could have paid me a few thousand bucks as a consultant to tell them that's standard operating procedure around the US ... they could use hourly employees and offer overtime but they can't expect it. Do multiple shifts -- day and night shifts. How did nobody do due dilligence before setting up fabs in the US?

you talk like TSMC and Taiwan wanted to set up US fabs in the first place It's almost amusing, force them to come open a plant and then castigate them for not accommodating US culture

I mean fabs are billions of dollars. Even if forced to open one they’re too expensive to do so poorly. Best to find a way to make it profitable than to throw a hissy fit about it and pout.