How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by mattgreenrocks » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #5

wouldprefernot wrote: post #3

I'm curious. Are the executives who make these illegal agreements to restrain trade ever personally held liable? It seems that would be more effective than fining the companies, or the usual "We don't admit to doing anything wrong, but here's some money anyways." Apologies for the green account, but I would prefer not to have my real name attached to such a discussion.

And therein lies the problem. Although these companies are being prosecuted, nobody wants to run afoul of them or anybody else. I'm not saying that any one individual or company is presently a bullying wrongdoer, but what I am saying is that there is an culture of fear around speaking out or rubbing people the wrong way. This atmosphere--along with the kind of proprietary shenanigans that make it difficult or impossi…

Old Money's corruption of SV saddens me greatly because it pollutes the culture that helped many things grow. For example, instead of open data, we seek to lock up the most inane and useless data out of fear it might be used in a way we never approved of.

Basically, the existential question of Old Money is one of taking as much as possible, whereas the hacker ethos operated on more of a giving spirit.

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

#152

Post by rfnslyr » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #121

rfnslyr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I properly quantify exactly how much value I'm adding to the company I work for and the world to possibly determine how much I'm precisely worth?

You're almost there... Now apply this to the implication that these sv companies did not depress engineer wages.

You're absolutely right. I'm demanding a 500k bonus from my boss tomorrow or I'm GONE!

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

#153

Post by DamnYuppie » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #123

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…

> As if one person has any chance negotiating against a Fortune 500 company's HR department, legal department etc. Of course, you do. Just vote with your feet.

The point that I think your comment is missing is that if the vast majority of employers are colluding to drive down prices your feet will invariably lead you to a less profitable place overall.

Also this response seems to indicate that an individual's actions will hold any meaning against the concerted and united effort of employers. Unless a multitude of others act in concert we, the developers, will be at a disadvantage.

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

#154

Post by morgante » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:39 AM UTC

josho wrote: post #81

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!

There are several reasons why software engineers are underpaid compared to their performance. Keep in mind these are generalizations and therefore you will find exceptions to what I outline below. -Software developers typically aren't comfortable negotiating, nor are we well versed at it. Therefore, we accept job offers for less than we know we are worth and accept raises offered rather than negotiate raises based on…

That's also the beauty of software development—I don't need to have a fancy degree or work ridiculous hours as an associate/intern to get a job in it.

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

#155

Post by emmett » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #148

It seems like we should be able to measure whatever effect there was. There must be sources of data about salaries in the Bay Area. Has anyone tried looking to see if there is a depression in tech workers' salaries, relative to people in other fields, during the time this agreement was in force?

Specifically you'd want to find other SV companies who weren't party to these negotiations (Netflix? Twitter? I didn't see a comprehensive list), since they'd be a pretty close to exact benchmark...

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

#156

Post by dnautics » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

dfraser992 wrote: post #135

All of the excuses and rationalizations I see posted here make me ill. It's like very few "peons" understand the mentality of those who are "in charge" - e.g. the Clueless, Loser, Sociopath hierarchy of how businesses are structured. There has been a recent spate of stories across the web about how wealth affects people's mentality and behavior - I am reminded now of a story about India and how the stark class differ…

Do you want to know what marxism is like in america? Try academic research science. Pay lines for postdocs are effectively set by a centalized agency - NIH guidelines. There's limited market and a captive, oversupplied labor pool, zero ownership of the means of production ("it all goes for the collective effort"). Advancement is not meritocratic, but rather a combination of being in the right place when a position opens up, and who you know ("political connections"). As a result you have absurdities like me: a PhD four years out of grad school (10 years off my bachelor's) that can run circles around bosses both intellectually and technically, experience in multidisciplinary research up the wazoo - making $40k/year. Meanwhile, the head of the institute built a $37 million vanity building, excuse me, lab facility, and does media gigs showing off his tesla roadster to David Frost - largely extracted off of state funds by skimming off of grants ("overhead") and also state-provided "R&D and investment vehicles" - SBIRs, etc.

Well, at least I'm not an H-1B. I remember a postdoc on an H-1B who lived in a one bedroom underneath me and my roommate's from grad school, who was paying twice I was in rent and also trying to support a wife and two kids on an equivalent salary in this relatively expensive city (San Diego).

Enjoy your marxism.

I have left the system - I'm starting up my own biomedical/science research institute run off of actually humane principles - and so I'm, in the interim, unemployed. Luckily, I seem have some skill in the "free market" and so I'm financing this short break in employment off of investments I made (bitcoin, a handful of stocks) and am entering in 'hustle' mode - picking up whatever jobs I can to tide me over (you don't get unemployment benefits if you quit, even though you've paid into it). I'm much happier. When I do work, I know that what I'm doing is making a difference -if minor- in people's lives, not working to advance the agenda of a faceless bureaucracy doling out grants mostly administered by scientists who couldn't hack it in research and so went to work for the bureaucracy (dunning-kruger effect).

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

#157

Post by ams6110 » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

pyrrhotech wrote: post #129

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's also different in that there is a very well-defined path to becoming one of these partners from the associate level. All the people above you are also lawyers. There are usually 8 clear levels of associate and then you become partner if you are competent and make 7 figures. As an engineer, there is no such clear path. Most engineers end up working for 8 years and at the end are only making 150-250k if they are c…

I don't see a big difference really. Just as some engineers found their own companies and some are employees of other people's companies, there are thousands of lawyers employed in corporate legal departments who are simply employees, because they don't want the stress or responsibility of running their own firms.

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

#158

Post by billnguyen » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

warble wrote: post #4

This seems like it takes some basic facts and then jumps to a lot of conclusions without any data (like sbisker mentions) - I'm not suggesting it's BS, but it's not clear their obvious conclusions are so obvious. I'd love to see actual wage data.

The price of anything is a function of its supply versus its demand.

A non open (or not truly open in this case) kills demand. Without demand for a finite supply (high quality engineers) the supply's worth can never fully be realized.

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

#159

Post by PythonicAlpha » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

Somebody already complained, that the wage possibilities of software engineers are limited.

I would take it further: In all industry, the trend goes one way: The wages of working people (including white-collar, I hope, that is the right word) have to go down, and the earnings from investments (pure money makes money business) have to climb.

There are only very few exceptions: One are lawyers, as mentioned in an other thread, and the other are people that work in the investment business (investment bankers, traders, ...). The reason for the second exception is obvious: their work is needed to make even more money from the money and every trick is played, to have the smartest, best guys getting the job done ... and get it done better and better.

Problem is: The whole thing breaks our society. Middle classes are already melting massively in many countries. The possessions of the worlds are concentrating in the hands of very few people more and more. Those people make our laws! The other people become poorer, even in the situation that the overall worlds possessions expand massively. The countries are already so much in dept, that many of them can not pay even the interest. Even the US is so much in dept, that there seems to be no possibility to get ever rid of it.

Nobody seems to realize, that while we are talking, investment companies are roaming the world for land, for houses, for companies to buy them, exploit them and throw it away when not needed (and not useful) any more. The wealth of the world gets accumulated in the hand of investment companies and the super-rich.

By rising the value of pure money investments, the value of human labor (to a more and more extend even high-paid and high-value labor) is degrading.

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

#160

Post by morgante » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 2:48 AM UTC

wonderzombie wrote: post #106

ryandrake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree that the average tech worker is on the "beneficiary side" of the inequality gap. This is a case of people looking around themselves and seeing they seem to be above average, and concluding that they are on the rich side. Reminds me of a ten-year-old article [1] that presented the remarkable finding that 39% of Americans believe they are or will one day be among the top 1%. It's certainly in the in…

There's that possibly-apocryphal quote about socialism in the US never having taken hold because Americans all believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

I definitely buy that software developers have a huge veil of ignorance[1].

We accept lower salaries today because we assume that one day we might be in the ownership class. But this is somewhat reasonable, at least vs other forms of labor. (A line cook will never end up as a millionaire, but a developer might by either founding a startup or getting options on the right one.)

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance