Immigration to increase the supply of programmers • Hacker News Board

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#101

Post by wglb » Fri, Jan 02, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #66

tokenadult wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pity your thoughtful comment is losing visibility as the submitted story has been flagged off the front page.

Sadly, it hasn't truly been "flagged off", it was done by the volition (or rather, the acquiescence of HN mods). This has happened for almost every immigration-related submission critical of pg's point-of-view. When you call them out for this, they go back to the excuse "the users voted it off!" But that's not really a good response, since they do routinely take the initiative of bringing to life stories that were vo…

Often, stories get flagged of by users due to toxic comments that the story attracted. This is one of them.

And consider the possibility that your comment is in the "not intellectually stimulating" category.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#102

Post by alayne » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 12:25 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #96

HN has recently had multiple extensive threads about PG's immigration essay and the questions raised by it. In such cases, we demote follow-up posts as duplicates unless they contain significant new information. Please note that this criterion depends neither on what the particular topic is, nor the opinions people express, nor who they agree or disagree with. It has to do with avoiding repetition. The reason for thi…

Your moderation is getting too heavy handed.

People are interested in this topic and you are unilaterally killing discussion. It's not like the site is being taken over as it was with some of the NSA topics.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#103

Post by krapp » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 12:30 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #96

HN has recently had multiple extensive threads about PG's immigration essay and the questions raised by it. In such cases, we demote follow-up posts as duplicates unless they contain significant new information. Please note that this criterion depends neither on what the particular topic is, nor the opinions people express, nor who they agree or disagree with. It has to do with avoiding repetition. The reason for thi…

With all due respect, you appear to be confusing "intellectual gravity" with "novelty."

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#104

Post by dang » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 12:38 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #103

dang wrote: post #96

HN has recently had multiple extensive threads about PG's immigration essay and the questions raised by it. In such cases, we demote follow-up posts as duplicates unless they contain significant new information. Please note that this criterion depends neither on what the particular topic is, nor the opinions people express, nor who they agree or disagree with. It has to do with avoiding repetition. The reason for thi…

With all due respect, you appear to be confusing "intellectual gravity" with "novelty."

I don't think I said gravity? But by all means, find more substantive stories. Historical material is especially welcome here, and so are out-of-the-way pieces with no obvious relevance except that they're interesting.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#105

Post by krapp » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 1:08 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #104

krapp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, you appear to be confusing "intellectual gravity" with "novelty."

I don't think I said gravity? But by all means, find more substantive stories. Historical material is especially welcome here, and so are out-of-the-way pieces with no obvious relevance except that they're interesting.

Fair enough.

Pushing down discussions because they don't make the frontpage varied enough still just doesn't seem right to me. I understand that space is limited and nobody ever checks beyond page 1 but still - making threads harder to find doesn't seem to serve the interests of anyone who might actually be interested in those discussions.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#106

Post by encoderer » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 1:14 AM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #95

encoderer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing 1/2. You have to also add San Jose-Sunnyvale-Cupertino, etc. Edit: Also, counting the total headcount of ppl writing code in the area is not a measure of how many choices you have in the job market.

For completeness: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41940.htm#15-0000 Still doesn't get you into more choice than NYC. If you don't want to use head count (and I agree there is nuance), what do you want to use? Thus my citation needed request.

It's certainly a hard thing to measure. I'm approaching this both anecdotally and, I believe, logically.

The vast majority of software developers work in IT departments writing line-of-business applications in Java, .Net, etc. Certainly NYC has a vast number of these jobs. But these roles are all very similar. You're working as a cost-center, in a supporting role, for people who ultimately don't care about software. This is true whether you're a developer for Pfizer or Jet Blue or NBC Universal or any of the other companies based in

I really find the hollywood analogy apt. Yes, you can certainly find work as an actor in NYC. But the epicenter of the industry is in Hollywood.

Anyway, happy new year!

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#107

Post by abalone » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 2:52 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #57

abalone wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem. Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant t…

"That totally blows out my business model!" may be true [+], but is not an objection which should escape the lips of someone who has the word "capitalist" literally in their job title. [+] I'm agnostic on this. Pinterest just raised, what, $450 million dollars? That's presumably not intended to buy the world's biggest vat of chocolate pudding.

Pinterest is waaay beyond the early stages of startups that Paul Graham focuses on.

It used to be that it did in fact take millions of VC just to get startups off the ground (70s, 80s, 90s). We could go back there. Would it be better for the ecosystem? Would employees have a net gain, or would there be fewer early stage companies & jobs? I don't know, but these are the macroeconomic questions to consider.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#108

Post by waterlesscloud » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 3:12 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #96

HN has recently had multiple extensive threads about PG's immigration essay and the questions raised by it. In such cases, we demote follow-up posts as duplicates unless they contain significant new information. Please note that this criterion depends neither on what the particular topic is, nor the opinions people express, nor who they agree or disagree with. It has to do with avoiding repetition. The reason for thi…

PG says this issue is crucial to the very future of America.

So it's only worth one day of discussion?

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#109

Post by waterlesscloud » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 3:16 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #46

hkarthik wrote: post #36

Hypothetically, let's say every YC startup was to double the starting salaries for programmers they hired. So if they are paying $120K-$150K/year, they start paying $240K-$300K/year. At that salary, programmers are getting paid on par with lawyers, doctors, and bankers. To pay this much, assume every startup needs to raise double or triple the amount of capital. The $1 million angel round becomes a $3 million VC roun…

I'm really sad that John Doerr won't make another billion dollars. Oh wait, no I'm not. You see, it won't change a thing. In the current low-interest-rate environment there is nowhere else for the money to go . VCs and startups could pay engineers fairly (i.e. at the price at which the market clears) without breaking a sweat. They just don't, out of naked greed. Except now they're running out of people naive enough t…

That's the frustrating part about it all.

Capital is sitting around instead of being applied properly to this critical issue, and then the people responsible for allocating the capital want to place the blame elsewhere.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#110

Post by hawkice » Sat, Jan 03, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #107

patio11 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That totally blows out my business model!" may be true [+], but is not an objection which should escape the lips of someone who has the word "capitalist" literally in their job title. [+] I'm agnostic on this. Pinterest just raised, what, $450 million dollars? That's presumably not intended to buy the world's biggest vat of chocolate pudding.

Pinterest is waaay beyond the early stages of startups that Paul Graham focuses on. It used to be that it did in fact take millions of VC just to get startups off the ground (70s, 80s, 90s). We could go back there. Would it be better for the ecosystem? Would employees have a net gain, or would there be fewer early stage companies & jobs? I don't know, but these are the macroeconomic questions to consider.

The impact would be reasonably small, depending on which sub-slice of the startup ecosystem you are looking at. Paul Graham doesn't advocate jacking up headcount before you have decently functional business fundamentals. The YC model seems to be that (before the product is proven out) development is done by founders, which costs the same no matter what the prevailing wages are. After that, it's either (1) paid by revenues or (2) paid by VC money -- in the latter case the VCs will adjust expectations and/or the amounts they invest, and in the former, they'll just need to get 2x more productive employees, which is well within the band of talent hired by the marketplace today.