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How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

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Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#61

Post by sounds »

trysomething wrote: post #56

This conduct is obviously despicable, though certainly not out-of-character for Steve Jobs (all due respect for his talents). However, I generally believe this will resolve (and has been resolving) itself via market mechanisms. The mistaken assumption is that the only competition here is between Apple, Google etc and that it is focused primarily on income. The market is a lot more subtle than that: 1. Hackers are not…

Your points are well thought out, but I'd like to play devil's advocate to get you to expand on them, if I may...

1. Isn't this why large companies target the inexperienced, the recent college grad who is scrambling to make rent, or exploit people who can only live and work in the US if they get that job?

2. Some would say once you're a successful startup founder, you're "one of them" and the incentives become reversed. Do you think hackers who become founders still retain the hacker ethos? Why?

3. Because acquihires aren't fully disclosed, wouldn't the market function more efficiently if the compensation came through more normal means (salary and stock grants)?

4. Do you really feel like an academic path has competitive compensation to industry?

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#62

Post by kareemm »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #48
msoad wrote: post #26

Engineers should make more money than what they are making now. The largest number I heard lately is $240k for a data scientist from Apple. That's too low! That person can make Siri better and make millions for Apple. Why aren't we getting paid like lawyers? If they win $20M they will get paid at least $2M. But if we make a product that generates $20M profit, at best we get $20K bonus. This has to change!

The lawyers and doctors who get paid a whole lot are partners in a firm. It's not much different than founding a tech company.

Not really. A competent freelance developer in the valley will make $150-200/h. A competent lawyer (not a partner) in the valley will make $350+/h.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#63

Post by [deleted] »

msoad wrote: post #26

Engineers should make more money than what they are making now. The largest number I heard lately is $240k for a data scientist from Apple. That's too low! That person can make Siri better and make millions for Apple. Why aren't we getting paid like lawyers? If they win $20M they will get paid at least $2M. But if we make a product that generates $20M profit, at best we get $20K bonus. This has to change!

[deleted]

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#64

Post by joyeuse6701 »

firstOrder wrote: post #50

The typical response I hear to the idea of more widespread labor unions or AMA-like professional associations for programmers and network/systems/storage/database administrators is that if someone is really talented, they can negotiate a good salary, and that labor organizing together would just protect the lazy and the slackers. You hear this same thing when someone is lowballed a salary number, or has to put up wit…

Everyone held the anti union position because of the now proven illusion of meritocracy. You may well get your wish, all aspects of unions included.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#65

Post by United857 »

beachstartup wrote: post #16
pbreit wrote: post #13

Every time I read an article about this I fell like I'm at The Onion. Drive ++down++ engineer wages? Really? Does anyone on planet earth feel like engineer wages are/were artificially low?

YES. based on anecdotal evidence, top engineer salaries start capping out at 150k, when in reality this should go into the 300, 400, 500k range like lawyers and finance people make. it's already starting to turn, so i'm hopeful.

At many companies, both startups and established, if you're a top performer and/or joined early enough, stock grants can easily propel you into this range (and beyond).

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#66

Post by gress »

steveklabnik wrote: post #44
gress wrote: post #8

It may be that the consequences of the 'conspiracy' was to depress wages, and it should clearly be prosecuted if the legal case can be made. However does anyone think that this was the intention behind these agreements? Isn't it more likely that they wanted to stop an insane war on one another's businesses by buying off key employees to disrupt one another's operations? It would seem as though companies with a giant…

> However does anyone think that this was the intention behind these agreements? From the article: > George Lucas believed that companies should not compete against each other for employees, because ‘[i]t’s not normal industrial competitive situation.’ As George Lucas explained, ‘I always — the rule we had, or the rule that I put down for everybody,’ was that ‘we cannot get into a bidding war with other companies bec…

I'm not sure that is enough to make the case. For one, it's Lucas alone. But secondly - the bidding I think they would be concerned about would be more like the 'ransom value' of an employee who happened to be on a critical path and who could not be replaced quickly enough to avoid a significant setback.

The problem is not the market value for an employees skills and experience that will enable them to contribute to whoever they are employed by, it is that there is also a value to simply disrupting the opponent's team.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#67

Post by chaz »

msoad wrote: post #26

Engineers should make more money than what they are making now. The largest number I heard lately is $240k for a data scientist from Apple. That's too low! That person can make Siri better and make millions for Apple. Why aren't we getting paid like lawyers? If they win $20M they will get paid at least $2M. But if we make a product that generates $20M profit, at best we get $20K bonus. This has to change!

You can raise the highest amount you've heard to $3mm: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-programmer-blew-off-500...

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#69

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

firstOrder wrote: post #50

The typical response I hear to the idea of more widespread labor unions or AMA-like professional associations for programmers and network/systems/storage/database administrators is that if someone is really talented, they can negotiate a good salary, and that labor organizing together would just protect the lazy and the slackers. You hear this same thing when someone is lowballed a salary number, or has to put up wit…

Tech engineers get pushed around by upper management and have failed to professionalize like doctors because too many of them lack social and political savvy. It's a clear personality trait in the profession. Look at the way so many programmers choose to dress and groom. Can you imagine a top lawyer looking like that? The importance of projecting a serious professional image to the broader society doesn't seem to even occur to most software people.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#70

Post by sounds »

firstOrder wrote: post #50

The typical response I hear to the idea of more widespread labor unions or AMA-like professional associations for programmers and network/systems/storage/database administrators is that if someone is really talented, they can negotiate a good salary, and that labor organizing together would just protect the lazy and the slackers. You hear this same thing when someone is lowballed a salary number, or has to put up wit…

1. This is not a zero-sum game. The incremental value gained by a large company defrauding their employees may be the same dollar amount, but to the employees it makes a much larger subjective difference. Also the company that gets caught colluding once will have a much harder time regaining its good name.

A tech employee gets offered $300k/year + options? He jumps.

Google's "double irish" has $3 billion more in revenue? Ho hum, just another day.

2. Since it is not a zero-sum game, it makes sense to avoid the corrupt, lazy actions that Jobs, Schmidt, et al. have embraced. Hackers don't need to "band together" – all that means is appointing some PHB and blindly following him. Society's behavior just serves to convince us that the hacker ethos was right after all.

Each of us will make our own decisions.

Each of us will weigh the costs, benefits, and ethics.

Feel free to start a union or just go straight to a political party.

We are decentralized. No thank you to all forms of government.

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