431–440 of 469 posts
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I’m sorry, but this is just class war crap. Instead of pitting workers against each other like the plutocrats want, always ALWAYS remember that even with all that non-monetary compensation, the executives are still taking more 100x of the value created by the worker. This is like complaining about some athlete getting paid millions to risk their health for entertainment, while not once giving a thought about the bill…
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I’m sorry, but this is just class war crap. Instead of pitting workers against each other like the plutocrats want, always ALWAYS remember that even with all that non-monetary compensation, the executives are still taking more 100x of the value created by the worker. This is like complaining about some athlete getting paid millions to risk their health for entertainment, while not once giving a thought about the bill…
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There has always been a large (or very vocal) part of the HN userbase that’s very anti-union. I can’t say why with certainty, but I suspect it’s the veneration of the idea of the mythical “10x zero to one founder” that single-handedly props up the sky and produces billions of dollars of value for their (equally venerable) VC “partners”. It’s kind of a “temporarily embarrassed b illionaire” phenomenon that I love to w…
Some may be opposed for that reason, but I suspect there are many more reasons than that one. Other possibilities include the belief that a union would be ineffective. Or corrupt. Or at least unproven. Or would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Or would immediately be captured by special interests not directly related to employment at big tech. Which isn’t to say that these concerns are valid, or couldn’t be a…
>Or would kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
is a re-statement of my observation! :)
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"An entity that puts nothing into the host system, but consumes resources from the host to fatten itself is a parasite." You seem to miss how the system works. Those companies are where they are today because of financing. Stock purchases, including demand for existing shares drives that. "In the case of Google Maps, no one has to lose for me to make a journey." No, you trade your data (lose privacy) for that journey…
> You seem to miss how the system works… Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME. Where is the “financing” in that? What about all the companies that “got to where they are now” aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit ? The fact you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and claiming that just buy…
"Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME."
Who's scraping the bottom of the barrel now? Not all hedge funds operate that way.
"aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit?"
Please elaborate. Shorting does not itself lead to a company dissolving.
"claiming that just buying stock = increasing demand = creating value should be a red flag."
I've claimed no such thing. Stop straw manning. Demand for shares increases stock price, which allows the company to issue shares at a higher price, generating more capital for future expansion. The company can increase demand by increasing their value, either realized or speculative.
You seem to have an emotional vendetta against hedge funds and aren't interested in a real discussion from a systems thinking perspective. Hopefully some third party has gained something from this conversation, otherwise it was a complete waste of time.
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For the love of lord please keep saying this. Because it is true. And because I am sick and tired of this self hate of "inflated salaries". Jesus, we are working in one of the most profitable industries, whatever we build tends to be a long term force multiplier, and somehow a large portion of the sector thinks our earnings are inflated. The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is infla…
"The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is inflated. Not a software engineer living a decidedly middle class life." Haha, ok. Can you not clearly see your own subjective bias? Why doesn't that hedgefund manager deserve it? Many of the people working for tech companies are not middle class. At the very least, $500k+ salaries are above middle class. The starting salary at most top-tier…
Besides, 1.5 million A DAY, is near a billion a year, which is an absurdly high number. Especially if said person cries about "inflated tech salaries". You can't ignore these people have exceptional talent, in one of the highest cost of living cities.
Finally, what do these people get for 300k salaries (which was the most common number used for Google, for example)? If you stop looking at the number but the life quality, and what these people have, you will notice quickly that most of it is what we would classify as middle class a couple decades ago.
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For the love of lord please keep saying this. Because it is true. And because I am sick and tired of this self hate of "inflated salaries". Jesus, we are working in one of the most profitable industries, whatever we build tends to be a long term force multiplier, and somehow a large portion of the sector thinks our earnings are inflated. The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is infla…
Not only that. I always bring up that big "no poaching" collusion among the big tech companies. By some estimates they managed to keep around eight billion dollars that would have gone to employees. Pando had good coverage: https://web.archive.org/web/20200304045453/https://pando.com... I used to think that we didn't need unions, until that came up. It's been asked, how would unions have helped with that, and I don't…
Perhaps unions are not the end all be all, however we definitely need to follow suit like architects in my opinion. Somehow having a unified say, a way to decide on what are the standards etc. will help tremendously as far as the health of our sector goes.
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> maybe the viability of your business relies on an imbalance of power vs. your employees This is a weird take, as it absolutely does. Kind of how the viability of a military also relies on an imbalance of power between generals and privates. Power structures are fundamentally necessary in productive endeavours.
Two things: First, power structures are not fundamentally necessary in productive endeavors, but division of responsibility absolutely is. I submit to your authority in situation A, and you in turn submit to my authority in situation B. But insofar as there is a power imbalance, it is a function of how the responsibility is divided, and how often situation A comes up vs situation B. Is there actually a power imbalanc…
This is an interesting conversation, and I think my counterargument would be that governments, marriage, and other such institutions (schools, etc.) are not what I would consider "productive" endeavors, but rather "sociopolitical" ones†. In those cases, I agree that power imbalances are extremely detrimental to their goal.
A military is different in that regard (and so is a corporation). You're right that if the power differential becomes oppressive, you'll have a mutiny, but that's neither here nor there. (The contrapositive is if there's a zero power differential you have anarchy.)
† I'm not sure where courts would stand. They're probably a special case of societal institution that also requires power differentials.
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I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest" Many of these orgs laying off thousands have fallen into the depths of a moral maze -- where rational thinking is just impossible and all that's left is self-preservation.
Vanova's Razor
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Nothing to do with cheap money, tech companies are some of the most profitable and revenue efficient companies in history.
And software engineers, even entry level, are some of the most highly paid workers on the planet.
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I despise Hanlons razor. It flies against everything we know about people in power. Probably made popular by powerful
It was designed by a Reptillian scientist who was sponsored by the crab people from Mars. Though it may seem like a plot against humanity, it's actually just a market ploy to cause a run on aluminum foil head pieces, engineered by Big Haberdashery. And we all know what Big Haberdashery likes to engineer.