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

Exxon’s Exodus

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 102 posts

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#91

Post by crznp »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #27
giantg2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this seems to answer the underlying question of why other companies need to compete on salary with big tech. I work for a financial company. We have tons of tech. We get paid peanuts compared to big tech.

Right. Take their annual report, divide the net income by the number of employees. Call that 'X'. Then do the same for some big tech companies. Call that 'Y'. The employee count is way less than for Exxon. Most likely, Y >> X. Vastly greater. So to a corporate bean counter, the "value" of an Exxon employee, X, is about what they're paying them now. Hiring one more, even a brilliant tech guy, will have a negligible ef…

Amazon had a net income of $33b in 2021 with ~1600000 employees: ~$20k/employee. Exxon had $23b with 63000 employees: ~$360k/employee. I'm just using numbers from a quick search, and it won't be great because they both have a lot of subcontractors, temporary workers, etc.

The point is that this metric is dominated by the most numerous workers, which probably isn't IT outside of big tech (or even in big tech). The real metric is impact that a particular hire has on the bottom line, which is hard to measure. Really, I think it is more about their separate job markets: Exxon posts positions in Dallas and pays what they have to to fill their positions, Amazon does the same in Seattle and gets a very different set of candidates.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#92

Post by gamblor956 »

ianbutler wrote: post #89
gamblor956 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT is a cost center in every business, including software. It contributes to the ultimate profit in the same way that HR, Legal, and Finance do. Indirectly, in support of the actual revenue-generating functions.

Can't generate revenue without a product to sell. I'd say that's pretty direct. And before you come back and go spoken like a developer. Clearly the most successful businesses and business people in history agree with my assessment, it's why an engineers total comp is so high at actual tech companies.

I'm not sure what you're saying, but IT and software developers are not the same thing. IT is the support department that support what the developers do by managing the internal tools and hardware that the developers use.

And if you think developer comp is high, in Hollywood the revenue-generators make more for a few hours of work than GAMMA developers will make in a year in a rising stock market.

Clearly the most successful businesses and business people in history agree with my assessment

Objectively false. The most successful businesses in history, adjusted for inflation, are the railroad and oil barons, followed by the Hollywood studios. And note that at least two of the GAMMA companies are now worth less than a retail chain.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#93

Post by jfengel »

captainoats wrote: post #73
photochemsyn wrote: post #60

This is worth noting: > "One thing Woods didn’t cut was Exxon’s dividend, which is the third-largest in the S&P 500 and costs $15 billion a year. Employees recall the justification as basically this: A large portion of Exxon’s shareholder base comprised retail investors who relied on the dividend for income. “There might be many good business reasons to keep it, but don’t pretend to care about Grandma and her dividen…

Renewable energy investment makes up about 80% of investment in the power sector, and annual increases continue to outpace oil and gas investment (this year may be weird because of the Energy crisis in Europe). Renewables are not everywhere today because it takes time for the industry to mature and for utilization to increase, not because there is a conspiracy by Big Oil to somehow control investment flows.

There is no conspiracy by Big Oil to control investment flows, but there is most certainly one to denigrate renewable energy. Example:

https://www.energyandpolicy.org/renewable-energy-state-polic...

I can't evaluate the counterfactual of what would have happened if they hadn't done that, but it may have deterred even more investment in renewables that should have been occurring over the last couple of decades.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#94

Post by ianbutler »

gamblor956 wrote: post #92
ianbutler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't generate revenue without a product to sell. I'd say that's pretty direct. And before you come back and go spoken like a developer. Clearly the most successful businesses and business people in history agree with my assessment, it's why an engineers total comp is so high at actual tech companies.

I'm not sure what you're saying, but IT and software developers are not the same thing. IT is the support department that support what the developers do by managing the internal tools and hardware that the developers use. And if you think developer comp is high, in Hollywood the revenue-generators make more for a few hours of work than GAMMA developers will make in a year in a rising stock market. Clearly the most su…

So I disagree with a lot of your points for other reasons, but I totally jumped into the chain without seeing that they were talking exclusively about IT, I misread the chain. So that's my bad, I'll see myself out.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#95

Post by UIUC_06 »

barbazoo wrote: post #75
politician wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device you are typing on is made from materials mined from the planet using the fuel sources you despise.

To me this comment falls somewhere between "No true Scotsman" and whataboutism. Just because we're benefiting from history, doesn't mean we can't criticize it. Just today, this [1] came out. It's time we use our oil-derived products and wealth to demand change. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/world-cl...

> To me this comment falls somewhere between "No true Scotsman" and whataboutism. Just because we're benefiting from history, doesn't mean we can't criticize it.

To me, that's somewhat like: your parents went to college, got good jobs, and sacrificed, all so you could have a better life than they did.

But hey, that doesn't mean you can't criticize them for being heteronormative.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#96

Post by Cupertino95014 »

fallingfrog wrote: post #65

>Exxon spokesperson Amy von Walter rejects those characterizations. “The idea that ExxonMobil’s culture is what these employees say it is doesn’t hold water for two reasons: how many people join this company each year and how long people stay,” she wrote in an email. Yeah, I feel like if you're focusing on "how long people stay", and also "how many people join" you're looking at entrenched middle management and rapid…

"Hold on, here! You're talking about my company."

said everybody in Corporate America.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#97

Post by UIUC_06 »

crznp wrote: post #91
UIUC_06 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Take their annual report, divide the net income by the number of employees. Call that 'X'. Then do the same for some big tech companies. Call that 'Y'. The employee count is way less than for Exxon. Most likely, Y >> X. Vastly greater. So to a corporate bean counter, the "value" of an Exxon employee, X, is about what they're paying them now. Hiring one more, even a brilliant tech guy, will have a negligible ef…

Amazon had a net income of $33b in 2021 with ~1600000 employees: ~$20k/employee. Exxon had $23b with 63000 employees: ~$360k/employee. I'm just using numbers from a quick search, and it won't be great because they both have a lot of subcontractors, temporary workers, etc. The point is that this metric is dominated by the most numerous workers, which probably isn't IT outside of big tech (or even in big tech). The rea…

You actually did the research I suggested! I'm so thrilled.

I wouldn't use Amazon since they have so many warehouse workers, unless you can restrict it to IT.

I was imagining some data scientist (call her "Diane") at Exxon, getting so-so wages in Dallas, and yearning to triple her salary at Facebook. Exxon just can't do that for Diane, because they have too many middle-managers who make only 30% more than Diane does now.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#98

Post by MobiusHorizons »

wil421 wrote: post #10
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to enlighten us?

To name a few: deep water drilling with underwater autonomous vehicles, extremely remote sites in the middle of the ocean or Arctic, dangerous high pressure pipelines, and some crazy geographic modeling. All these requires lots of high tech equipment and robust sensors.

Interesting, thanks.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#99

Post by c_o_n_v_e_x »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #27
giantg2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this seems to answer the underlying question of why other companies need to compete on salary with big tech. I work for a financial company. We have tons of tech. We get paid peanuts compared to big tech.

Right. Take their annual report, divide the net income by the number of employees. Call that 'X'. Then do the same for some big tech companies. Call that 'Y'. The employee count is way less than for Exxon. Most likely, Y >> X. Vastly greater. So to a corporate bean counter, the "value" of an Exxon employee, X, is about what they're paying them now. Hiring one more, even a brilliant tech guy, will have a negligible ef…

This comparison is slightly flawed due to some nuances with hiring practices in O&G. At least on the downstream side of the business, Exxon runs a skeleton crew and hires A LOT of contractors and or people employed by EPCs. This is so done you can quickly and dramatically downsize when the price of oil or refined products goes the wrong way.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#100

Post by photochemsyn »

jfengel wrote: post #93
captainoats wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewable energy investment makes up about 80% of investment in the power sector, and annual increases continue to outpace oil and gas investment (this year may be weird because of the Energy crisis in Europe). Renewables are not everywhere today because it takes time for the industry to mature and for utilization to increase, not because there is a conspiracy by Big Oil to somehow control investment flows.

There is no conspiracy by Big Oil to control investment flows, but there is most certainly one to denigrate renewable energy. Example: https://www.energyandpolicy.org/renewable-energy-state-polic... I can't evaluate the counterfactual of what would have happened if they hadn't done that, but it may have deterred even more investment in renewables that should have been occurring over the last couple of decades.

I'd say it's more like a conspiracy by Big Investment to control energy markets to maximize profitability, and renewable energy is just less profitable than fossil fuels, for the fairly obvious reason that you can't easily meter sunlight and wind. OPEC can't decide 'less sunlight this quarter', for example.
Post reply on HN