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No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

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Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#71

Post by ghaff »

retrac wrote: post #48
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've known plenty of people who left the big West Coast tech employers for elsewhere--possibly/probably for less money. Lots of reasons not to want to work for Google or Amazon.

Yes, and plenty of people quit the mines in company towns, and went to work in the big city. Considerable practical buyer or worker choice may exist, in an emerging monopolistic situation. Monopoly concerns aren't always the evil villain literally destroying all competitors, a single really large company can just be so big it distorts the market everywhere it turns. For an example on the consumer side, think Microsof…

Microsoft clearly had monopoly issues. I'm not sure they were from an employee perspective though. I don't remember Microsoft being viewed as a uniquely attractive employer in that period.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#72

Post by johnnyanmac »

lupusreal wrote: post #16
bdw5204 wrote: post #5

This really isn't that surprising. The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising. They really should have to pay damages in the 6 to 7 figure range to each developer who's been looking for work in…

What does it mean to "hoard talent"? Pay high wages? I'm sure they've done plenty worth penalizing, but not that.

>“I mean, we were just sitting there,” she said. “You had to fight to find work.”

>“It kind of seemed that Meta was hiring people so that other companies couldn’t have us.”

>“They were just kind of like hoarding us like Pokémon cards,” she said. “It was a very strange time to work there.”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/07/workers-at-meta-salesforce-say...

People who are dismissing this as "well they got paid well" aren't seeing the bigger picture. Artists in the 40's-70's or so were paid decent wages. Then when the company breaks critical mass, they can squeeze out the talent and replace them with starry eyed newbies who'd work for free if they could. 40 years later, we have VFX sudios work on award winning billion dollar moneymakers and still end up shutting down because the studio can't get a good bid going (oh yeah, they are bidding their talent for work now. Another issue).

People need to heed the lessons from other industries. These strategies aren't new.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#74

Post by ghaff »

ceejayoz wrote: post #54
ghaff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. Yes, they're also somewhat prestigious to some people and imagine there's at least some interesting work. But it's lot like they're chaining people to their desks or generally forcing people into unbreakable long-term employment contracts. In CA, there aren't even non-competes generally. Most people at Google, to name one, are free to walk out the door tomorrow.

> Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. They were actively attempting to avoid that. https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests... "In another e-mail exchange between two vice presidents at Google, the pair talk about ways to 'never get into bidding wars' on potential talent with Schmidt and longtime Apple board member Bill Campbell being copied in on it." > But it's lot like they're…

Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. It seems to specifically focus on disincenting them from doing startups

>The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

ghaff wrote: post #74
ceejayoz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. They were actively attempting to avoid that. https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests... "In another e-mail exchange between two vice presidents at Google, the pair talk about ways to 'never get into bidding wars' on potential talent with Schmidt and longtime Apple board member Bill Campbell being copied in on it." > But it's lot like they're…

Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. It seems to specifically focus on disincenting them from doing startups >The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising.

> Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment.

The upthread comment stated "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years", which is 2008-2016.

I'd be pretty disincentivized to leave if I started getting the message that Jobs could personally get offers rescinded and recruiters fired at competitors as powerful as Google.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#76

Post by tivert »

nyokodo wrote: post #70
tivert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anarchocapitalism ...is an inherently unserious and self-contradictory idea. It's the Ununoctium of political ideologies: it is so unstable that if ever realized it will decay in a microsecond to something entirely different. Anyone who treats it as something that could be stable and realizable should be mocked or ignored. So, that said, I think the usage should in the GP should just be auto-corrected to "extreme c…

> corrected to "extreme capitalism" and left there Incorrect uses of specific terms shouldn’t be changed to questionable uses of incredibly vague terms unless this is mere activist slogan homework instead of an actual discussion meant to persuade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

> "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept"

It works for internet comments, too.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#77

Post by vmfunction »

zug_zug wrote: post #18

The interesting or perhaps scary question is how many times are news hosts told to drop a topic/story and they go along with it and the public never even knows a topic was dropped? It's worth asking how we can make our systems safer against large corporations shady influence.

There are only 6 corps that controls most of the media outlet. Got hunch that Apple is NOT the only one dropping topics they don't like.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#78

Post by ghaff »

cma wrote: post #63
ghaff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically a complaint that they hired too many developers and overpaid them--and now some of those developers who left or were laid off can't find as ridiculously well-paid jobs somewhere else. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of jobs out there; they probably just don't pay as well or are as prestigious.

There are rules about making the price of something too low to wipe out competitors too, I think in both antitrust and trade law: https://www.trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duti... You could probably say that's basically a complaint about giving consumers too good of a deal, but it is deeper than that.

Capping salaries that are too high would be a pretty novel application of anti-dumping law. But, heh, I'm fine with capping developer salaries at large tech firms.

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#79

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #55
Workaccount2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm failing to see how that makes this any better.

You don't see the difference between "knowing who pays for the content can help you understand the content's biases" and "large corporations exert editorial control over content that has no overt relationship to them"?

[deleted]

Re: No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

#80

Post by ghaff »

ceejayoz wrote: post #75
ghaff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. It seems to specifically focus on disincenting them from doing startups >The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising.

> Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. The upthread comment stated "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years", which is 2008-2016. I'd be pretty disincentivized to leave if I started getting the message that Jobs could personally get offers rescinded and recruiters fired at competitors as powerful as Google.

It also stated "They really should have to pay damages in the 6 to 7 figure range to each developer who's been looking for work in the mid 2022 to present tech recession that they caused via their monopoly power."

So I'm pretty sure it intended to refer to overhiring during the pandemic.

(People are often pretty loose when they use the ZIRP term.)

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