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Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

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Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#191

Post by tuesdaynight »

choudharism wrote: post #124
agentifysh wrote: post #115

I do wonder if this is good for Korea in the long run. There's not many employers like Samsung and SK that can provide this level of compensation for cost centers. I think many more workers are going to start demanding red carpet treatment when companies are choosing to outright shut down or move operations out of Korea due to increasing pressure from unions. ex) Hanjin, SsangYong Motor, GM, Renault Samsung/Renault K…

It is an abhorrent reflection of the society that this is a valid kneejerk response.

Workers are supposed to always be worried about the overall economy, but companies firing thousands of people can ignore everything that is not related with their revenue/profit. It's hilarious.

I remember when I had these kind of takes. I blindly believed in "equal treatment, including billionaires". Now I get frustrated reading them, but I have empathy from understanding where they come from (for now, at least).

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#192

Post by skybrian »

vrganj wrote: post #152
skybrian wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned pretty quickly that money in Silicon Valley has nothing to do with getting what you "deserve" after a co-worker sold a domain name at the height of the dot-com bubble and retired on the proceeds. Sometimes people get lucky and there's no point in getting angry about it.

Do you think it's reasonable Zuckerberg or Bezos get rewarded the way they do while Amazon drivers piss in bottles and barely paid contractors get PTSD from moderating Facebook? The system is rotten to the core. We as tech workers are somewhere in the middle, simultaneously being exploited while also benefiting from the exploitation of others.

I’ve read news reports about those jobs and they do sound very bad. But as for being exploited, I’m certain that I wasn’t.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#193

Post by saghm »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #97
saghm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. That's certainly an opinion that some people have, but as the parent comment stated, companies don't run without employees, so the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders or other executives is not an empircal fact like you're claiming it is. There's no scientific for…

> companies don't run without employees, the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders That's why the owners get to keep what is left AFTER paying employees. It's called profit. One way to become a billionaire is when you offer that stream of future profits securitized as "stock" to other people who buy those future profits from you and collectively value those securitizations at over a billion…

> The owner takes the risk that there is no (or negative) money left over after paying employees and all other costs. As a result, if there is money left over, they get to keep it. I suppose I should remind you that the vast majority of businesses fail. The entire dataset visible to you is imbued with survivorship bias.

Right, and CEOs famously are the first ones laid off when the company is flailing and losing money, because after all, they're the ones at the helm of the ship! And of course when a CEO does leave, they never get a golden parachute.

> Welcome to money 101. This is how all business works everywhere. Nobody thinks that value is created "solely" by the owners. That's a fake strawman.

Sure, but plenty of people think that the way value is distributed today is completely out of proportion to their contributions, and you're presenting it like the current way is the only possible rational way rather than an emergent property of the entirety of human history being an uneven playing field.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#194

Post by saghm »

vintermann wrote: post #138
saghm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. That's certainly an opinion that some people have, but as the parent comment stated, companies don't run without employees, so the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders or other executives is not an empircal fact like you're claiming it is. There's no scientific for…

> There's no scientific formula for "how much of this result of a bunch of actions that multiple people took over the course of a few years is attributed to each of the people" I can think of a few. You've got things like Shapley values. But it's not a "neutral" way to attribute outcomes to actors. It's funny actually, I read about Shapley scores ages ago, and then the go-to example was basically political corruption…

Fair enough, I wasn't precise. There isn't one single objective way to do this math because, as you point out, different assumptions will lead to different results, and it makes it impossible to do neutrally. My reaction to the parent comment was mostly due to the rigid view that the way things work now is inherently right and proper rather than there being any number of plausibly defensible allocations of credit (and therefore the value generated), and I think many of them are probably a lot more defensible than what we have now.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#195

Post by nielsbot »

tasuki wrote: post #176
nielsbot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you saying workers should show gratitude to their employers?

I think I have shown gratitude to all my employers. They have invariably treated me well, and I believe the relationships were mutually beneficial. If you do not feel gratitude to your employer I suggest you find a different one. If you cannot find such an employer over an extended time frame, perhaps the problem is you.

I disagree.

You can feel a job has been worthwhile, lucrative, satisfying… (mutually beneficial)

But feeling gratitude to an _entity_ that puts profits before your well-being is misplaced. Maybe there are exceptions, but not in big tech.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#196

Post by cloverich »

bayarearefugee wrote: post #6

Meanwhile tech workers in the US spend all day online defending billionaires who wouldn't piss on them to put out a fire and arguing about why we can't have unions because blah blah blah rugged individualism.

Doesnt need to be tech. My blue collar UPS worker friend is all in on down with regulations, and claimed if anything we meed MORE billionaires. Many in America see regulation and taxes in all forms as bad, and the primary thing holding back prosperity for all.

I remember thinking like this when i was younger (hes older than me). Then here i am working nearly half as many hours as this guy, for 5-10x the pay.

This is a widespread, pervasive train of thought in America. Yet i wonder as the houses and healthcare stay expensive, food and fuel too... at some point this mental model breaks right?

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#197

Post by cayleyh »

OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #25

That's literally insane for Korean living standards. Those people can basically retire

I guarantee the "median" payout is nowhere near that. The article said the average pay is 158 million won. I bet the median pay is less than half that.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#198

Post by anon291 »

carabiner wrote: post #111
anon291 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean as someone who works in American AI chip firms , our compensation is larger. You can bitch about America as much as you want but it's pretty much the best in terms of monetary compensation Of course I'm late to the game. My colleagues who have been here ten years are either extremely wealthy and bored or sailing the Caribbean at this point. Every other week someone is taking a sabbatical

I don't think it's much larger when you adjust for Bay Area COL. Housing and healthcare especially.

I don't live in the Bay area. Left many years ago with my stock options and rsus.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#199

Post by robocat »

autoexec wrote: post #182
robocat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister in New Zealand uses StarLink because ADSL stopped working in the rural wops. She gets more utility than she pays for (that's the one trick of capitalism). Is that trickle down?

I feel bad for your sister. Only one reasonable option for an essential utility and all it costs your sister is hundreds a month plus sending all of her private data to a Nazi billionaire who is using it to train his AI while externalizing the costs of light pollution and space congestion/garbage onto the entire rest of the planet? It's looking like there's more than one trick to capitalism.

Why blame capitalism?

Maybe look for a better word that encompasses other political systems too - power?

There are many examples of surveillance states (and the best known examples were not labeled capitalist).

The surveillance you blame on Musk is the same from other ISPs - therefore your analysis is simply incorrect. She needs a VPN to avoid ISP snooping on the metadata (IP addresses used, DNS, etc).

And the US is a bigger snoop (Echelon, 5 eyes, Room 641A).

Our individual choices are limited in New Zealand (written on an iPhone - far more snoopy than my ISP).

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#200

Post by autoexec »

lores wrote: post #187
aetherspawn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are basically mafia.

The American propaganda machine has done a good job on Americans...

It's no surprise that the companies with all the money and influence over government have managed to manipulate the general public to turn against the things that could get in the way of those same companies exploiting their workers and screwing over everyone else in the process. I'm just surprised that such weak arguments were what ended up being actually effective!

On one side they tell you "You'll get Weekends off! You'll get more money! You'll work fewer hours!" and other side says "You can't talk directly to your boss! Corruption could happen in your union if you do nothing to stop it! Lazy people might keep their job unless HR documents the problems!" and somehow people are like "Man, I'd much rather spend less time on my family and hobbies than not be able to go directly to my boss!"

Same with regulations. One side says "Have clean air and water! Don't get screwed over by companies who poison you!" and the other side says "Billion dollar companies would have to pay more to not poison you! Look at all these terrible regulations we already bribed lawmakers into passing! Regulations BAD!" and people just eat it up.

It makes me wonder how much more extreme they could take things before people stopped falling for it.

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