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Tech's Elite Hates Labor

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Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#171

Post by gentoo »

Lionga wrote: post #136
habosa wrote: post #65

I think because individual tech workers are so highly paid relative to other industries, we fail to see how low our pay is relative to what the people at the top are making. A high performing Google engineer may make 500k+ in total comp, Sundar Pichai makes $100M+ in many years. That's 200x as much ... and the baseline is already super high. You see startup founders who exit with generational wealth (tens or hundreds…

It is that 95 to 99% of the ones that go the Musk, Bezos or Kalanicks way fail and be left with no payout. In return the ones succeeding will have 20 to 100 times the payout. Its almost the same as if you just take your salary and bet everything on 13 at the roulette. Small chance of huge payout, high chance of failure.

all the engineers at an early stage company are "gambling" with exactly the same stakes as the founder. If they fail, they're all out of a job. The founder risks nothing more than that: he's gambling with other people's money. Why should one of those people reap generational wealth while everyone else ends up in the upper-middle class?

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#172

Post by geodel »

habosa wrote: post #65

I think because individual tech workers are so highly paid relative to other industries, we fail to see how low our pay is relative to what the people at the top are making. A high performing Google engineer may make 500k+ in total comp, Sundar Pichai makes $100M+ in many years. That's 200x as much ... and the baseline is already super high. You see startup founders who exit with generational wealth (tens or hundreds…

This again comes to same place. The person who wrote code can launch their company and keep all proceed of billions to themselves if code is that good. For now its like asking for upside of owner and risk of hired hand. Doesn't really work that way in past or now.

For law, finance and medicine there is lot more personal liability to reach for big rewards unlike coders sitting in office and implementing business requirements they received from management which in their view is clueless.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#173

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

throwaway23597 wrote: post #109
habosa wrote: post #65

I think because individual tech workers are so highly paid relative to other industries, we fail to see how low our pay is relative to what the people at the top are making. A high performing Google engineer may make 500k+ in total comp, Sundar Pichai makes $100M+ in many years. That's 200x as much ... and the baseline is already super high. You see startup founders who exit with generational wealth (tens or hundreds…

> The Bezos and Musks and Kalanicks of the world believe that this is correct. They truly think they do something in their 24 hours of daily human life that makes them hundreds or thousands of times more valuable than even the absolute best "labor" in their industry. I mean to play devil's advocate, these people have created organizations that employ hundreds of thousands of people in highly paid tech positions. Thes…

> > These 500K Google jobs wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Larry Page / Sergey Brin

Stop believing in fairy tales, they were just the lucky winners in a winner-take-all market. Those 500k people would sill be employed by say a company called Poogle, founded by Parry Lage and Bergey Srin.

It's like all common sense and statistics goes out of the window when people discuss the Forbes 400, it takes people meeting them to realize they are just dudes winging it like anybody else.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#174

Post by throwaway23597 »

goodpoint wrote: post #143
throwaway23597 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Bezos and Musks and Kalanicks of the world believe that this is correct. They truly think they do something in their 24 hours of daily human life that makes them hundreds or thousands of times more valuable than even the absolute best "labor" in their industry. I mean to play devil's advocate, these people have created organizations that employ hundreds of thousands of people in highly paid tech positions. Thes…

> These 500K Google jobs wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Larry Page / Sergey Brin Citation extremely needed. Do you think without some billionaires around everybody else would be sitting on their hands all day?

Uh yes, because they founded the company? If Google was never founded nobody would be working there, don't think I need a citation for that.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#175

Post by hef19898 »

treis wrote: post #15

Sometimes I can't even begin to comprehend the POVs I read on the internet. The FAANGs and adjacent companies treat their workers better than pretty much any other company in the world. The idea that workers there are somehow this abused underclass is ridiculous.

It is telling when priviledged white collar tech employees consider themselves to be the same group as classical blue collar workers. At FAANG, only Amazon has what is traditionally regarded as blue collar worlers, and those aren't treated any better or worse than the same roles elsewhere. With the exception, that Amazon is in a position to actually treat those folks better.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#176

Post by monero-xmr »

gentoo wrote: post #171
Lionga wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is that 95 to 99% of the ones that go the Musk, Bezos or Kalanicks way fail and be left with no payout. In return the ones succeeding will have 20 to 100 times the payout. Its almost the same as if you just take your salary and bet everything on 13 at the roulette. Small chance of huge payout, high chance of failure.

all the engineers at an early stage company are "gambling" with exactly the same stakes as the founder. If they fail, they're all out of a job. The founder risks nothing more than that: he's gambling with other people's money. Why should one of those people reap generational wealth while everyone else ends up in the upper-middle class?

Hmmm it seems like the engineers bounce around jobs whenever they feel like it while the founder is locked in for 5 to 25 years. Way different stakes.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#177

Post by topaz0 »

welshwelsh wrote: post #153
habosa wrote: post #65

I think because individual tech workers are so highly paid relative to other industries, we fail to see how low our pay is relative to what the people at the top are making. A high performing Google engineer may make 500k+ in total comp, Sundar Pichai makes $100M+ in many years. That's 200x as much ... and the baseline is already super high. You see startup founders who exit with generational wealth (tens or hundreds…

I don't see the problem here. A burger flipper makes $10 in an hour. An engineer designing a burger flipping robot makes $100. Their department's engineering manager makes $1,000. The CTO makes $10,000. The hardest worker here is the burger flipper. They work 16 hour days just to afford rent, and it's hard manual labor. The engineer makes 10 times as much because each line of code they write produces more value than…

This is not 100% wrong, but you are missing an important part of the calculus, which is that as you go up the hierarchy you have more overall and more concentrated power to demand higher pay, out of proportion to the value of your labor.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#178

Post by UncleEntity »

treis wrote: post #15

Sometimes I can't even begin to comprehend the POVs I read on the internet. The FAANGs and adjacent companies treat their workers better than pretty much any other company in the world. The idea that workers there are somehow this abused underclass is ridiculous.

Think about how it looks to all the people who have never lived through a recession before. The only valid reason to layoff workers is if you, as a caring founder, have no other choice. Then they see these tech giant laying off people, and not because it’s that or bankruptcy, and start calling bullshit. Oh, and start making up conspiracy theories about how it isn’t really an over hiring correction like TFA.

Look here, kids, go ask those graybeards you laugh at behind their backs what it was like during the dotcom bust.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#179

Post by throwaway23597 »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #173
throwaway23597 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Bezos and Musks and Kalanicks of the world believe that this is correct. They truly think they do something in their 24 hours of daily human life that makes them hundreds or thousands of times more valuable than even the absolute best "labor" in their industry. I mean to play devil's advocate, these people have created organizations that employ hundreds of thousands of people in highly paid tech positions. Thes…

> > These 500K Google jobs wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Larry Page / Sergey Brin Stop believing in fairy tales, they were just the lucky winners in a winner-take-all market. Those 500k people would sill be employed by say a company called Poogle, founded by Parry Lage and Bergey Srin. It's like all common sense and statistics goes out of the window when people discuss the Forbes 400, it takes people meeting t…

So? Just because some competitor could have possibly formed in an alternate universe doesn't make the company or Page / Brin's contribution any less valuable.

Re: Tech's Elite Hates Labor

#180

Post by meetingthrower »

whimsicalism wrote: post #161
habosa wrote: post #65

I think because individual tech workers are so highly paid relative to other industries, we fail to see how low our pay is relative to what the people at the top are making. A high performing Google engineer may make 500k+ in total comp, Sundar Pichai makes $100M+ in many years. That's 200x as much ... and the baseline is already super high. You see startup founders who exit with generational wealth (tens or hundreds…

> The other industries known for highly paid labor (finance, law, and medicine in the US) do not distribute rewards this way. Yes the people at the stop are still pulling in massive pay but there's a much stronger distribution of profits throughout the labor pyramid. Not true at all. Partners & MD take a much larger share of the pie compared to execs at tech companies.

That's because of leverage. MD : consultant is 1:7 or so. Plus another 1:2 or 3 for admin staff. So there is a limit to the scale of wealth generated. That said, MDs make 10x what entry level consultants get.

This is different than tech where exec : professional staff can be 1:x,000 or more.

(Source: was a consulting MD.)

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