Does anyone else find it amusing that the author is trying to put an "income inequality" spin on an article about tech employees being forced to take low to mid six figure salaries?
How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
381–390 of 488 posts
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
why? what makes you think you aren't worth 10 times that?
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 need to ask yourself what your replacement cost is, not how much value you are adding.
Sure, you're a drop out, but if you have an in-demand skill set replacing you is not going to be cheap.
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Look at the way so many programmers choose to dress and groom. Doctors/lawyers interact with clients/patients a lot, so they dress to impress; whereas programmers only interact with other programmers or managers, who don't really care. If you're a programmer, the code you write matters much more than the human interaction around it (arguably the same can be said about doctors and lawyers, but a lot of people wouldn…
> programmers only interact with other programmers or managers This is the problem half the time. Nerds in childish t-shirts want to sit around pecking out code in isolation instead of taking full responsibility for their work by putting on a jacket and working the organization. This is why IT projects are consistently such disasters and why executives have the idea to get cheap grunts to do this stuff under a layer…
"Working the organization" is generally a low value activity as far as the organization is concerned.
What good does it do anyone aside from the schmoozer and the schmoozee that some middle manager at Apple is good as schmoozing?
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm from Santa Clara, and "affordable" is an extremely relative notion. Silicon Valley itself isn't much cheaper than San Francisco. Berkeley, Oakland and East Palo Alto are not in Silicon Valley. And frankly, they're not as cheap now as they were even 18 months ago. It's still possible to get a one-bedroom apartment for $1000 a month if you look around hard enough, but it's almost certainly going to be small and old…
I'm a student in the Deep South, and getting out to the Bay Area is a dream of mine. Here's to hoping the price comes down in the next couple of years.
Don't listen all the whining. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008 to work on a startup, I rented a small bedroom in a house with an immigrant couple for $450 per month. If you want to make it work, you'll make it work.
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you from SV? There are plenty of affordable places to live in SV. Just because everyone is talking about how SF is sooo expensive, does not mean you can't live in Berkeley/Oakland/East Palo Alto/other areas.
I'm from Santa Clara, and "affordable" is an extremely relative notion. Silicon Valley itself isn't much cheaper than San Francisco. Berkeley, Oakland and East Palo Alto are not in Silicon Valley. And frankly, they're not as cheap now as they were even 18 months ago. It's still possible to get a one-bedroom apartment for $1000 a month if you look around hard enough, but it's almost certainly going to be small and old…
Have you looked at SF rents lately? A studio is $2,000+, and a friend just moved into a two bedroom apartment for $4,750/month.
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#386It 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?
We should measure the effects. But, in terms of determining whether this was illegal and/or unethical, all that matters is the intent and the acts.
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wage-theft stuff lowers the curve for everyone, not just the top tier. It lowers the entire wage curve.
The article does not support this claim. My reading is that GOOG's HR department kept/keeps the salary curve artificially flat (over-rewarding low performers) to manage pay within a narrow band and thereby prevent having to negotiate with top performers.
Shifting the curve of distribution (changing its Skewness) alters the entire distribution this is basic statistics 101.
A positive skew will effectively reduce all employees wages
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
the figures he referenced are straight salary. A typical 30 year old investment banker at top firms will make 400k salary, but could easily be over 7 figures with bonus. Startup equity is rarely, if ever, worth that much on a risk-adjusted basis.
the average banking bonus is far less risky ie it will pay out most if not all of the time
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#389Every 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?
Have you seen what a lawyer or a doctor with the same experience makes?
Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't. Germany is having its own little housing price explosion in every major city where there is employment. Prices are being driven up by wealthy non-tech investors throughout the EU thinking German (and London) real estate is the only safe place to hold onto their fortunes. Consumer goods prices are also significantly higher than in the US. Healthcare is approximately the same cost now from what I've seen wi…
> Healthcare is approximately the same cost now from what I've seen with ACA prices in the US. Germany has $6,000+ deductibles? Thin provider networks that leave out the good doctors and hospitals, and large or even unlimited out-of-pocket limits for out-of-network care? Monthly premiums are just the beginning of the story.
Not to go too deep into the weeds, but there are comparable trade-offs, such as premiums being a percentage of pay instead of a flat fee. The German system is without a doubt better, but I think (and hope) that the US is closing this gap with the ACA and a general awareness of the problem.
But we don't need to compare ledgers to show that 80k USD in Berlin, Munich or Frankfurt won't go nearly as far as 200k in SV or SF. That's what exchange rates and the big mac index are for, and that's why I converted the currency to USD in my original comment. You can argue the rate is maybe 10 or 15% off, and I can argue for 10-15% the other way, but no way is a dollar (0.82 EUR) 2-3 times as powerful in Germany.