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Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

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Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#201

Post by [deleted] »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #144
imtringued wrote: post #38

I don't care why they are doing this, but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. If companies start investing their money domestically then excess savings will fall, deflationary pressures will be gone and the economy will start growing quickly again and that means wages will grow too.

My money SHOULD be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Tomorrow the economy is just a tad bit more productive, so my dollar should go further... Why is deflation a curse word nowadays? I feel one of governments only role is to ensure that the dollar is not being debased and slowly losing value of time or atleast at a rate that is known. When the FED prints an unlimited supply of money, it breaks down the social con…

[deleted]

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#202

Post by dmode »

dcolkitt wrote: post #179
dmode wrote: post #151

Wait, no investment in Miami ? Reading tech twitter, folks already claimed Miami to be the next tech hub

As a Floridian, it's difficult for me to understand why we've done so bad at attracting any sort of tech industry. Five, ten years ago, you could simply say that it's Silicon Valley (or Seattle) or bust. But since then, Austin, Denver, NC, Nova, Portland, Nashville and others have all done a really good job of actually competing with California for tech industry growth. On paper, Florida seems like it should be reall…

Honestly, the only places that have grown were already somewhat of a tech hub. I don't think Denver, Portland, Nashville have grown in meaningful terms. Yeah, you see some growth just because the tech companies are worth trillions now, and there will be more crumbs everywhere. But tech hubs that have employees and campuses at scale are places like Seattle, Austin, and NYC. And these already had established tech players prior to the recent boom.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#203

Post by jokethrowaway »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #148
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why it should come back to the US They are a US company, reaping the tax benefits of that nexus. If they'd been an EU company, they would have paid a lot more in various taxes (including higher wage taxes) over the last 40 years. IOW, they would not be as wealthy a company today.

The US is one of the only countries that taxs worldwide income.

It's way more complicated than that.

Tons of countries tax worldwide income.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#204

Post by bananabreakfast »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #144
imtringued wrote: post #38

I don't care why they are doing this, but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. If companies start investing their money domestically then excess savings will fall, deflationary pressures will be gone and the economy will start growing quickly again and that means wages will grow too.

My money SHOULD be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Tomorrow the economy is just a tad bit more productive, so my dollar should go further... Why is deflation a curse word nowadays? I feel one of governments only role is to ensure that the dollar is not being debased and slowly losing value of time or atleast at a rate that is known. When the FED prints an unlimited supply of money, it breaks down the social con…

If you need a concrete example of why deflation is crushingly terrible for an economy look no further than Japan after the asset bubble burst in the 90s.

Deflationary thinking meant everyone expects prices to be lower tomorrow, so no one spent money on needed items and simply waited to make purchases to save money. This slowed down the economy into a death spiral that they still are climbing out of. Mortgages became crushing. You can't get a raise. Interest and deflation work together to make debt nearly inescapable.

The point of money is to be spent, i.e. facilitate the simple transfer of value. An excellent example of the direct damaging effects of deflation is bitcoin. No one spends it. It has utterly failed at its goal to become a primary mechanism to transfer value. Everyone expects its value to keep increasing so it is almost never transferred (to the point that hodling and never spending became a meme). Slowing down the exchange of money is what kills an economy.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#205

Post by nightowl_games »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #200

Nice! I wonder when we will all start living inside campuses. They definitely look nicer than most public cities.

I've been postulating privately that we will move towards opt-in private governments, with private cities, that people get citizen scores and have no privacy, and that we will _choose_ to do that, because it will be a utopia inside those walls.

Your suggestion here solidifies that in my mind. We will live on private campuses owned by the corporation for which we work. It will be a utopia in there. And we will have no privacy. And we will be rated. And we will love being quantified. And outside those walls the world will decay.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#206

Post by mft_ »

Angostura wrote: post #163
delfinom wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, all tech companies have seen the writing on the wall for overconcentrating their operations in California. People in general have become more and more hesitant to move there for a wide platitude of reasons from absurd cost of living to issues such as mass wildfires. They've realized that perhaps, just perhaps, they could afford to have more than one large corporate campus at their scale of fuck you money. Which…

Just an FYI - I'm not sure what word you were reaching for, but it wasn't 'platitude' in this context. Perhaps 'plethora' or 'multitude'.

Neither would work well with the preceding ‘wide’.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#208

Post by the_only_law »

fonix wrote: post #207

anyone here have any deets on what it's like to work for apple (any, but hopefully specifically some engineering job)? perks, hours, any flex time - did the interview suck?

I’m curious as well, having seen a number of positions that look interesting. How strict are they on degree requirements? I’ve seen some job postings within the same divisions (team?) for software development positions requiring degrees and others explicitly noting a “or equivalent experience”.

One concern I have is regarding IP and open source works. I recall an article posted to HN a while back where someone who had got a job apple was required to give up a project they had worked in outside work.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#209

Post by hungryhobo »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #144
imtringued wrote: post #38

I don't care why they are doing this, but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. If companies start investing their money domestically then excess savings will fall, deflationary pressures will be gone and the economy will start growing quickly again and that means wages will grow too.

My money SHOULD be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Tomorrow the economy is just a tad bit more productive, so my dollar should go further... Why is deflation a curse word nowadays? I feel one of governments only role is to ensure that the dollar is not being debased and slowly losing value of time or atleast at a rate that is known. When the FED prints an unlimited supply of money, it breaks down the social con…

deflation is bad for the economy because it discourages spending.

Just for illustration, imagine if you know that you can buy 2 rolls of toilet papers 2 months later for the price of 1 toilet paper today, and you don't have an immediate need for toilet paper, then most likely you'd wait.

Spendings is what drives the economy and it's the circulation and liquidity that help the economy becomes more productive.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#210

Post by dangus »

delfinom wrote: post #52
jacobr1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Apple was planning to do these things anyway as part of normal operations, and is just spinning them as "investment in the country"

Yep, all tech companies have seen the writing on the wall for overconcentrating their operations in California. People in general have become more and more hesitant to move there for a wide platitude of reasons from absurd cost of living to issues such as mass wildfires. They've realized that perhaps, just perhaps, they could afford to have more than one large corporate campus at their scale of fuck you money. Which…

Comments like these greatly downplay the role of industry clusters. The hot take of the day is that California is a hellhole to be escaped as soon as possible.

Industry Clusters are often historical, so it always strikes me as strange when I see comments like this one that make a case for how misguided it was for tech companies to cluster in Silicon Valley and tolerate the high cost of living.

That line of thinking misplaces causes and effects so that they’re hilariously backwards.

Silicon Valley is a innovative place because of an extensive history of educational institutions, research facilities, and other market conditions that simply did not physically manifest in any other place.

On top of all that, the software industry has one of the lowest COGS (cost of goods sold) of any major industry. Facebook’s sales per employee is close to $2 million [1]. The fact that their SV employees cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than employees is quite nearly irrelevant. Someone that’s 10 or 20 percent more productive will make up that labor cost difference by bringing in 10 or 20% more revenue, so it doesn’t really make sense for Facebook to abandon the best talent pools in search of cheaper rent or wages.

Tech giants are building out in Austin for its specific traits, and they don’t seem to mind that it’s rapidly becoming expensive and congested just like California. The question that might be asked is: why is Apple in Austin instead of Houston or Dallas or Nashville or Omaha?

[1] https://csimarket.com/stocks/FB-Revenue-per-Employee.html

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