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Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

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Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#231

Post by missedthecue »

mullingitover wrote: post #37
M3L0NM4N wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is, in my opinion, by far the strongest argument for lower taxes. The money we (the US) do spend in education/healthcare/infrastructure is already poorly utilized, why would we want to spend more and end up like that? To simplify it dramatically with an example, I'd rather pay $3 on the toll road and $50k for a surgery myself than pay $10 in taxes towards the road and $100k in taxes towards the healthcare system…

Private companies can certainly hold their own when it comes to waste and incompetence. Government doesn’t have a monopoly on these things.

If a private company wastes too much, it eventually goes out of business.

If a government entity wastes too much money, their budget is increased for the next fiscal year. There is no feedback loop to govern the waste.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#232

Post by NeverFade »

prottog wrote: post #224
dghlsakjg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Active shooter events are but one way to get shot in the US. If we go look at other categories of shootings for 2022 we see that more than 20k people died from non-suicide gunshots. And there were 647 mass shootings. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

The vast majority of those gun homicides are inner-city gang-on-gang shootings, which is easy to avoid as a white-collar software engineer.

Exactly, the reason "active shooter" situations frighten ordinary folks is because they're the rare type of shooting that can victimize you even if you're law-abiding and don't live in a very high crime area.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#233

Post by Eumenes »

oh_sigh wrote: post #203
boc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re paying for healthcare at a tech company? Usually your company provides this as a benefit. Same for commuter subsidies.

I've never heard of any big tech co fully subsidizing healthcare. I pay ~$160/week between health/vision/dental

Many companies pay 100% of premium costs for you and your dependents

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#234

Post by Eumenes »

Integrape wrote: post #207
asguy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’n more worried about America’s obesity levels and opioid epidemic.

Are you worried an obese person or addict will attack you?

They're bankrupting our healthcare system with their gluttony

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#235

Post by Eumenes »

dantheman wrote: post #44
Demoloto wrote: post #30

Then move if you don't like a social government... You do understand that USA rich people living of the life's of the poor? No proper health care etc for people cleaning their flats or flipping their burgers...

What are you talking about? The US has one of the most progressive tax systems, and like 50% of people don't even pay income tax. The government wastes money and the medical establishment is corrupt -- but that has nothing to do with rich people living off of the poor. The poor in America are far richer than the poor in most other countries.

Correct, the top 50% of tax payers pay 97% of income revenue

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#236

Post by ghaff »

thephyber wrote: post #211
nicenewtemp84 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ReflectedImage thinks large companies layoff engineers based on a random number picker. The truth: everyone knows who the underperformers are.

You are making similar logical errors. You speak as if the most recent layoffs were simply firing the lazy employees. AFAICT, companies are both jettisoning entire departments related to bad bets (or bad business models) and preparing for anticipated recession-level revenues. Skills are not perfectly fungible. Managers making layoff decisions based on the roles/skills they need to keep and what budget they can afford…

A lot of people seem to imagine layoffs happening (or that they should happen) according to some well-calibrated stack ranking at the company level. But that's not typical at all.

Sure some employees on PIPs or otherwise considered low performance may be cut regardless of role. But more typically projects get cut/defunded (whether in engineering or elsewhere) and those roles are eliminated or cut back. A good performer may have an opportunity to find a job elsewhere in the company but, in my experience, that's pretty hard given that any open slots were probably also closed as part of the layoff and everyone is pretty distracted anyway.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#237

Post by prottog »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #190
mullingitover wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is not really an equivalent to going out of business in government, or at least the bar is much higher for it to happen (I.e. violent revolution) There's absolutely an equivalent, publicly elected officials lose re-election campaigns all the time.

Is a failed government policy generally stopped and corrected by an electoral change in practice? In my experience this almost never happens. Whereas if a company goes under, whatever failed action it was taking just stops happening. Not equivalent IMO.

Agreed. There is very rarely a sober look back on any government policy to see if it actually met the objectives it set out to achieve, and at what cost.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#238

Post by Blackthorn »

nicenewtemp84 wrote: post #143
zer0tonin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim is completely un-substantiated. Many people around me who have been laid-off are extremely talented engineers.

Then the company made a huge mistake letting them go, unless the company was just FULl of extremely talented engineers.. which statistically just isn't true.

Damn, can't imagine a company making a mistake. That clearly just never happens.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#239

Post by marklubi »

iancmceachern wrote: post #121
_vbnz wrote: post #29

American engineers are lucky to earn enough to be able to save up and do stuff like this, like on $200k you can save enough to really try a start-up for a year or two. Whereas in Europe we're lucky to get $80k in the same jobs, and then the state steals half of that :/

We also have to pay a lot more out of pocket for basic services like healthcare,, transportation, childcare, etc.

The wonderful part of this is that you get the choice.

Choose where you live, who you have for healthcare, who you use for childcare/schooling.

We have the opportunity to make that choice instead of having a bureaucracy making those choices for us.

Re: Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers

#240

Post by zzzeek »

NeverFade wrote: post #129
zzzeek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In 2022, a 5-year peak year, 313 people in the entire US died from active shooters: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/active-shooters-fbi-report-2022... That's out of 330 million total population.

wow, I guess mass shootings are no problem at all and when they happen we should be like, "so what? 3000 people died of cancer today, who cares if some kids got their faces blown to pieces". thanks for clearing that up! problem solved
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