Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 293 posts

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#31

Post by esotericn »

This is only surprising if you subscribe strictly to Sinclair's quote:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

In reality, many many people work at jobs that they don't believe in. I personally haven't been able to hack it - I'm too stubborn to keep my mouth shut at appropriate times.

But ultimately, people can and will vote against "their own self interest". I vote for and fund environmental parties, despite that meaning I will personally lose out in a lot of ways, because it's the right thing to do.

That's part of what being a mature adult is. Recognizing that it's not all about your personal status and/or livelihood.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#32

Post by jedberg »

I’m not very surprised. I’m a big fan of Warren but not a big fan of her break-up-tech policy.

But I realize that her heart is in the right place and I think what she says will benefit the country.

So I’m willing to accept what might be a bad idea (breaking up tech) for the good ideas that come with it.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#33

Post by dickeytk »

option wrote: post #25
pytester wrote: post #5

Wasn't too surprised to see that Bloomberg neglected to mention a pretty self evident reason why tech workers might want that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... I'm pretty sure that if the anti-trust litigation in 2001 hadn't battered microsoft then tech wages would not be as high today. Competition among employers is good for wages, and the fewer and bigger the employers, the less the co…

I am not quite sure that smaller companies can offer higher wages. Also, keep in mind a story of Bell Labs - the innovation power house hugely responsible for tens of Nobel Prize winning inventions such as transistor and solar cells. You need an insanely rich and powerful parent company to fund something like this (only Alphabet is kind pf doing it these days)

There is a difference between big companies and monopolies. Big companies will likely always be the ones offering the highest salaries and they'll always exist. Once they monopolize the labor market though: they'll no longer have a need to offer those wages as high (even if they're the highest within the market).

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#34

Post by [deleted] »

option wrote: post #25
pytester wrote: post #5

Wasn't too surprised to see that Bloomberg neglected to mention a pretty self evident reason why tech workers might want that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... I'm pretty sure that if the anti-trust litigation in 2001 hadn't battered microsoft then tech wages would not be as high today. Competition among employers is good for wages, and the fewer and bigger the employers, the less the co…

I am not quite sure that smaller companies can offer higher wages. Also, keep in mind a story of Bell Labs - the innovation power house hugely responsible for tens of Nobel Prize winning inventions such as transistor and solar cells. You need an insanely rich and powerful parent company to fund something like this (only Alphabet is kind pf doing it these days)

[deleted]

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#35

Post by twobat »

skybrian wrote: post #26
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #16

Breaking up big tech companies is undoubtedly good for the workers, create more competition in hiring. It would probably send money downwards and be a huge boon to innovation tbh.

Well, maybe. But on the other hand, the biggest tech companies seem to pay the most? Why is that?

At least in my region (Eastern Europe) the question is: why is it that the smaller companies can't pay a living wage?

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#37

Post by friedman23 »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #16

Breaking up big tech companies is undoubtedly good for the workers, create more competition in hiring. It would probably send money downwards and be a huge boon to innovation tbh.

> Breaking up big tech companies is undoubtedly good for the workers, create more competition in hiring.

Many of the largest tech companies are only large because of their cost centers. If we split up google what would likely happen is that youtube and gmail would simply die.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#39

Post by LordFast »

option wrote: post #25
pytester wrote: post #5

Wasn't too surprised to see that Bloomberg neglected to mention a pretty self evident reason why tech workers might want that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... I'm pretty sure that if the anti-trust litigation in 2001 hadn't battered microsoft then tech wages would not be as high today. Competition among employers is good for wages, and the fewer and bigger the employers, the less the co…

I am not quite sure that smaller companies can offer higher wages. Also, keep in mind a story of Bell Labs - the innovation power house hugely responsible for tens of Nobel Prize winning inventions such as transistor and solar cells. You need an insanely rich and powerful parent company to fund something like this (only Alphabet is kind pf doing it these days)

It's about 50k employers versus 5k employers, not 500 versus 5.

The real effective argument/consideration IMO is the question of whether the technology MARKET is more prosperous /because/ of the centralization, and therefore leading to higher demand/wages, or vice versa.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#40

Post by giaour »

sedeki wrote: post #2

Can someone explain why SV tech workers are more left-wing to me as an outsider? I always thought these tech workers were more libertarian.

I would need to find data to back this up, but my sense is that much of the political difference can be accounted for with demographics.

Tech workers as a group are younger than the population at large. Tautologically, the group excludes retirees, and as the industry has expanded over the past decades, it's growth has been fueled by hiring recent college graduates. Lower ages and higher levels of education are correlated with left-wing views in polling results.

If you controlled for age and education, I don't think you would see any ideological distinctions between tech workers and the rest of the population.

Post reply on HN