On leaving Mapbox after 12 years • Hacker News Board

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#131

Post by sclv » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:27 AM UTC

jenny91 wrote: post #47

tarkin2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah definitely. My comment came from my understanding of what the author wanted the union to do rather than how unions could operate. As an aside, I’m slightly skeptical about unions in the US. The US’s economic model seems to be based around innovation and unions arguably make making decisions slower and more difficult. If you look at Germany’s economic model, one with very strong employee protection, it seems larg…

I agree, too strict labor regulations around e.g. firing/letting employess go certainly would hinder some of the innovation hapening in the US and especially tech. Though maybe there is a flavor of unions that recognizes this and pushes for other things e.g. proper treatment of contractors, or osme slight input in direction, etc? I think the US is screwed for unions mostly because to unionize you basically have to jo…

I don't think any of this is impossible to change. There was just a Labor Notes conference this weekend where thousands of people pushing for more democratic and rank and file run unions showed up. And examples like the ALU show that going through existing unions isn't the only way possible. And beyond that, even organizing with a major union can still give you a local you have power over - workers at the the times tech guild, amazon, kickstarter, etc have all organized with existing larger unions, and are starting to see more control over their conditions, more rights, and more respect already.

And I disagree that job protections would "hinder some of the innovation" happening -- if anything, more comfortable and safe employees are more free to innovate. I think it would just hinder employers giving us impossible deadlines to do underspecified or ill-specified things to tick some useless checkbox, or to deliver a feature they already sold without it having been written yet.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#132

Post by devmunchies » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:27 AM UTC

erlich wrote: post #115

This is such a crazy and enraging read. If you don’t like your job, go join another company. It’s not as if devs don’t have plenty of high paying choices out there. Especially for a startup that had struggled to find market fit, the last thing they need is a union. Companies are not democracies and setting up a union is a hostile action. It basically says: here are the things we want and if we don’t get them we all s…

from the article:

> A company like Mapbox hadn’t ever unionized before, so it seemed like an exciting experiment

Regardless of one's views on unionization, in this scenario as an underdog competing with 2 multi-trillion dollar companies in the space (Apple and Google), this "exiting experiment" reasoning seems especially reckless, irresponsible, and naive.

IMO, at such a small company like mapbox, it's akin to mutiny.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#133

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:28 AM UTC

erlich wrote: post #115

This is such a crazy and enraging read. If you don’t like your job, go join another company. It’s not as if devs don’t have plenty of high paying choices out there. Especially for a startup that had struggled to find market fit, the last thing they need is a union. Companies are not democracies and setting up a union is a hostile action. It basically says: here are the things we want and if we don’t get them we all s…

Even if you believe companies should not be democracies, and should be autocracies, what if there's incompetent autocrats at the top who are objectively hurting the company? Should the average employee rollover and pray that the board raises a fuss? What if management holds the majority shares?

It is completely baffling that people who otherwise decry the government as a pack of dictatorial bureaucrats turn a blind eye when corporations internally act the same way, complete with lavish amounts of wasteful spending.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#134

Post by 6thaccount » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:29 AM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #111

whimsicalism wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe doesn’t have VCs and the culture doesn’t support failure like Silicon Valley, but that’s for different reasons. No, it is the same effect I am describing but inter-national as opposed to inter-firm. Capital allocation is transnational.

Absolutely it is, and anyone in denial about that can look at European GDP growth, GDP per capita, youth unemployment, firm valuations, or about 20 other economic metrics to back it up. You can't start a company there because all this social spending makes it super hard to get going. I think the US is heading this way too now, toward lots of big companies with fat required benefit packages the little guys can never m…

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Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#135

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:31 AM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #132

erlich wrote: post #115

This is such a crazy and enraging read. If you don’t like your job, go join another company. It’s not as if devs don’t have plenty of high paying choices out there. Especially for a startup that had struggled to find market fit, the last thing they need is a union. Companies are not democracies and setting up a union is a hostile action. It basically says: here are the things we want and if we don’t get them we all s…

from the article: > A company like Mapbox hadn’t ever unionized before, so it seemed like an exciting experiment Regardless of one's views on unionization, in this scenario as an underdog competing with 2 multi-trillion dollar companies in the space (Apple and Google), this "exiting experiment" reasoning seems especially reckless, irresponsible, and naive. IMO, at such a small company like mapbox, it's akin to mutiny…

Oh no, mutiny in tech? Not as if that hasn't been a good move before (e.g. the Traitorous Eight, or the ousting of Jobs).

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#136

Post by thematrixturtle » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:32 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #123

aikinai wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan certainly does not have higher car ownership than the US. It depends on the source you use, but the US is somewhere in the 90s and Japan somewhere in the 60s. Plus they just use them a lot less as you mentioned.

The main issue is people want to copy Japan by building high speed rail, but Shinkansen isn’t actually that useful - it doesn’t carry mail/cargo, can’t carry much luggage, and though pleasant to use it’s quite expensive. It’s closer to business class flights than anything else. Economy class flights inside the country are often actually cheaper if you don’t mind going to the airport. Japan’s strength is that you can…

Well, yes? Shinkansen is intercity transport and that's exactly why it's priced to compete with airlines.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#137

Post by billyhoffman » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:32 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #133

erlich wrote: post #115

This is such a crazy and enraging read. If you don’t like your job, go join another company. It’s not as if devs don’t have plenty of high paying choices out there. Especially for a startup that had struggled to find market fit, the last thing they need is a union. Companies are not democracies and setting up a union is a hostile action. It basically says: here are the things we want and if we don’t get them we all s…

Even if you believe companies should not be democracies, and should be autocracies, what if there's incompetent autocrats at the top who are objectively hurting the company? Should the average employee rollover and pray that the board raises a fuss? What if management holds the majority shares? It is completely baffling that people who otherwise decry the government as a pack of dictatorial bureaucrats turn a blind e…

It’s really easy to leave a company If you become disheartened or don’t agree with their direction. It’s virtually impossible to leave your country.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#138

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:33 AM UTC

erlich wrote: post #118

NelsonMinar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions and Mapbox is a very sore topic and now the subject of a NLRB lawsuit for firing the union organizers. https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mapbox-sued-firing-union-... But the union drive came far too late to help the larger problem. The big change happened in 2017 when Softbank invested $164M into MapBox. In retrospect it was far too much money with too many expectations. And with the ugly side effect of salti…

Why do people always think it’s a good idea to unionize when a company is fighting for survival?

Maybe because the leadership is actively undermining the survival? From this case alone, it seems possible that the Mapbox leadership is chasing a hopeless strategy by focusing on the auto industry, which is dominated by other much larger companies.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#139

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:36 AM UTC

billyhoffman wrote: post #137

Apocryphon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you believe companies should not be democracies, and should be autocracies, what if there's incompetent autocrats at the top who are objectively hurting the company? Should the average employee rollover and pray that the board raises a fuss? What if management holds the majority shares? It is completely baffling that people who otherwise decry the government as a pack of dictatorial bureaucrats turn a blind e…

It’s really easy to leave a company If you become disheartened or don’t agree with their direction. It’s virtually impossible to leave your country.

Yeah, yeah, the right of exit and all that. But that's still overlooking that companies, especially the most successful ones, start to resemble the exact same kind of institutions that those who are the most pro-private sector decry.

Re: On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

#140

Post by astrange » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 12:37 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #129

eldavido wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely it is, and anyone in denial about that can look at European GDP growth, GDP per capita, youth unemployment, firm valuations, or about 20 other economic metrics to back it up. You can't start a company there because all this social spending makes it super hard to get going. I think the US is heading this way too now, toward lots of big companies with fat required benefit packages the little guys can never m…

Well, perhaps labor relations in the U.S. are just so acrimonious- its history is literally soaked in blood and violence- that it's just one patch of grass of Europe that seems greener on the other side. Certainly the idea of more cooperation between labor and management, perhaps the German model of labor unions, wouldn't be so bad.

It’s a similar problem to universal healthcare and the US government structure in general.

The US actually got there first, and hasn’t collapsed in any wars recently, and as such we’re on the old version of all government software so it all sucks yet nobody is willing to risk upgrading. Starting from scratch is a lot easier since there’s nothing to lose. (And of course, having the country collapse is bad too.)