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Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

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Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#191

Post by scarface_74 »

tombert wrote: post #183
scarface74 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would those 12 thousand people at Google have been better off if they hadn’t work there? Would you have not taken a job at Google if you knew that you would be laid off four years later or would you have saved aggressively and been preparing for your next role?

Four years I would have taken it. Four months? Not so sure. My understanding is that a lot of people who were fired were only hired in 2021 and 2022, just to be let go in the tail end of 2022.

If i had to relocate, probably not.

But in a normal tech hiring market, I’ve given up full time roles for a six month contract to perm role that paid slightly more. But built my resume.

I would have definitely jumped at my current $BigTech remote role where I made over $150K more over two years than I was making at a 60 person startup I left even if I had known the job would have lasted two years. No I wasn’t laid off. This is purely hypothetical.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#192

Post by tombert »

scarface74 wrote: post #178
pdimitar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, what you say is not wrong, the financial incentives are all wrong and reward being an inhuman. That being said, none of what you said justifies his empty "I take full responsibility" statement. It's hollow and it achieves nothing. Well, nothing good related to those fired that is.

What were the financial incentives of people taking a job at Google? They wanted to get paid top of market compensation for their labor and they did while they were working there. What did the employees do with their additional compensation? Did they save it? Are they trying to use the fact they worked for Google to increase their network? At what point is it the employee’s responsibility to assume that no job is per…

What you're saying isn't contradictory to criticizing the CEO.

Yes, a job is a business transaction and employees should be aware of that. I don't think anyone here disputes it. I certainly do not. That has literally no bearing on the fact at all on whether or not the CEO claiming that he's taking "full responsibility" is an empty platitude.

No one is accusing Google of slave labor here, but that's the claim you're defending.

ETA:

Whether or not the employees should be viewing working for Google as transactional, it's still a frustrating pain in the ass to be fired from a job. They have to spend some amount of time with no income. They have to go through an annoying interview process of people masturbating to whiteboard problems. Their next job might not pay as well. If they weren't at Google very long (It's a frustrating experience. No one is claiming that the CEO of Google should go to jail or anything, but if he's firing 12,000 people because of his bad decisions, him claiming that taking "full responsibility" is just an empty statement and it's frustrating.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#193

Post by auggierose »

wokwokwok wrote: post #187
auggierose wrote: post #133

> Just the law of large numbers says that eventually you reach all of the people who are likely to be your customers and you stop growing (see Netflix). That has nothing to do with the law of large numbers. That's just discrete and strictly monotonic growth hitting any upper bound eventually. What a bullshitter.

eh. Who cares? Come on, thats a fallacy right there. One of the classic ones right? Instead of countering the argument by the opponent, you just pick one little part that you can nit-pick some element of and attack that instead. Suuurrreee... the law of large numbers isn't a thing. So what? > What a bullshitter. Hm. Call it whatever you want, secundum quid, inductive fallacy, faulting forecasting... who cares. There'…

The point made by the article is valid. It is also entirely trivial, but indeed, who cares? Certainly not the CEOs or companies who ignored this point this time. I doubt that the CEO of Google is not smart enough to take this trivial point into account when contemplating his actions, so he must have ignored it for reasons other than ignorance.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#194

Post by scarface_74 »

tombert wrote: post #192
scarface74 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the financial incentives of people taking a job at Google? They wanted to get paid top of market compensation for their labor and they did while they were working there. What did the employees do with their additional compensation? Did they save it? Are they trying to use the fact they worked for Google to increase their network? At what point is it the employee’s responsibility to assume that no job is per…

What you're saying isn't contradictory to criticizing the CEO. Yes, a job is a business transaction and employees should be aware of that. I don't think anyone here disputes it. I certainly do not. That has literally no bearing on the fact at all on whether or not the CEO claiming that he's taking "full responsibility" is an empty platitude. No one is accusing Google of slave labor here, but that's the claim you're d…

And every CEO makes empty statements. Do you also believe the “we are family” bullshit? The DI&E initiatives? Did you believe the “Do no evil” motto they use to have?

Why would I believe anything my CEO says in that regard who I am 7 levels removed from and I’m one of only 1 million+ employees at the 2nd largest employer in the US? I know I’m just a number.

> Their next job might not pay as well

As hinted above, I also work for BigTech, so I’m in no way bitter about their income. But how large of a fiddle should I be playing for someone who might not make $300K - $400K and might have to sully themselves and be a corporate dev making “only” $150-$170K like most of the 2.7 million devs in the US (as I did most of my long career)

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#195

Post by Eisenstein »

bilvar wrote: post #168
Eisenstein wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason no one shows loyalty is exactly because it is not reciprocated. Why should the employee have to be loyal when they are just a number to an HR department and the CEO will strike off their job without a second thought? You have things backwards. People used to be loyal, back when you could work at a place, grow your career, and retire with a pension. It wasn't the laborers who broke the loyalty deal.

The first part of your response is just equivocation. The latter is just an assertion lacking substantial evidence.

I don't know how I can provide evidence without access to JSTOR. I don't feel like spending $30/paper to come up with statistics and studies for you.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#196

Post by auggierose »

staunch wrote: post #172
auggierose wrote: post #133

> Just the law of large numbers says that eventually you reach all of the people who are likely to be your customers and you stop growing (see Netflix). That has nothing to do with the law of large numbers. That's just discrete and strictly monotonic growth hitting any upper bound eventually. What a bullshitter.

In the great tradition of correcting someone only to be corrected ;-) > ... strictly monotonic growth ... Their growth is hardly "strictly monotonic" since their growth can fluctuate up and down, as can their subscriber count.

What I cited is just the mathematical reason why Netflix (or any company, really) cannot grow strictly monotonic in perpetuity. In reality, this is the reason why Netflix's curve will NOT be strictly monotonic, as you rightly pointed out.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#197

Post by tombert »

bilvar wrote: post #127
LunaSea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Will the company have to uproot its family to find a new worker?

I don't understand how the convenience of the worker makes it fairer to demand loyalty but not reciprocate. Sounds entitled and self-serving.

I don't understand how you don't understand that. It's a power differential that frustrates people. You can be fired from an employer without it affecting their bottom line, but having it drastically affect your bottom line.

Also, what the hell are you talking about about them "not demanding loyalty"? Big companies demand loyalty all the time. When I worked at an Apple, I had to sign a whole bunch of non-compete forms. Talk about "demanding loyalty"; I technically wasn't even allowed to open a Github issue on an open source project without permission. The only leverage you have as an employee is quitting.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#198

Post by ragnot »

scarface74 wrote: post #156
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #13

The real problem that author doesn’t call out is that at the end of the day, the people in charge don’t get hurt from these irresponsible boom and bust hiring practices. These companies knew the growth wouldn’t last, nothing lasts forever. They all maintain control while the little people suffer. The dream is to become insulated from the economic storms like they are.

It is naive for anyone to view a job as anything but transactional. Do you expect your employer to isolate you from economic storms? Would the people who worked at BigTech during the boom times have been better off not getting hired and making at least 3x-5x the median wage? I was hired at BigTech in 2020 going straight there from a 60 person company. I have used every single penny of my signing bonus + RSUs since th…

A part of me thinks that many have failed to educate themselves about the realities of life. People are dicks (generally) and if they can step on you to better themselves they will. It's why capitalism works.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#199

Post by tombert »

scarface_74 wrote: post #194
tombert wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying isn't contradictory to criticizing the CEO. Yes, a job is a business transaction and employees should be aware of that. I don't think anyone here disputes it. I certainly do not. That has literally no bearing on the fact at all on whether or not the CEO claiming that he's taking "full responsibility" is an empty platitude. No one is accusing Google of slave labor here, but that's the claim you're d…

And every CEO makes empty statements. Do you also believe the “we are family” bullshit? The DI&E initiatives? Did you believe the “Do no evil” motto they use to have? Why would I believe anything my CEO says in that regard who I am 7 levels removed from and I’m one of only 1 million+ employees at the 2nd largest employer in the US? I know I’m just a number. > Their next job might not pay as well As hinted above, I al…

I'm sorry, but how does me pointing out that a CEO's statement is a hollow meaningless platitude imply that I believed any corporate bullshit? Doesn't that suggest the opposite, that I don't believe it and I am pointing out that it's a frustrating meaningless gesture?

And because I don't believe it, and because I think it's an outright lie, it's more frustrating.

Are you suggesting that just because a lie is common, it's no ok to point out that it's a lie? I guess I respectfully disagree.

Also, it's not like I asked you to cry over the people fired from Google, I was just explaining that it's an annoying pain in the ass to be fired from a job, even if they do find something relatively quickly. A negative pay delta, from experience, objectively sucks, even if the pay you ended up with is livable.

I find this mentality of "I used to have it worse so therefore I lack all empathy and that makes me a badass" to be an extremely frustrating perspective that people on HN and Reddit have. I don't really see why you felt the need to personalize this.

Re: Tech companies keep falling for the forever fallacy

#200

Post by tombert »

Eisenstein wrote: post #195
bilvar wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first part of your response is just equivocation. The latter is just an assertion lacking substantial evidence.

I don't know how I can provide evidence without access to JSTOR. I don't feel like spending $30/paper to come up with statistics and studies for you.

I have access to JSTOR; which paper you want?
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