Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#321

Post by js8 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #134

js8 wrote: post #132

My explanation is that the free market doesn't exist, and nobody really wants it. In a perfectly competitive free market, wages (and capital gains, too) should correspond to subsistence wages. However, this poses a problem. If all that additional value is created by firms, to whom is it all divided, if everybody gets just subsistence? In my view, simply, this situation cannot happen. Instead, in the real world, the m…

> In a perfectly competitive free market, wages (and capital gains, too) should correspond to subsistence wages. Wait, why? You might want to support that claim a little better before you build a whole theory on it. Mainstream theory suggests that in the long run profit will converge to zero, but that doesn't mean that wages , which are the prices set in the labor market, will all converge on the same value. Frankly…

According to classical theory, just like with capital, the cost of labor should converge to the marginal cost that was needed to produce it (i.e. to zero profit for the employee). Of course it doesn't mean that everybody has to have to the same wage (for example, if your job requires more education, that's additional cost).

But if profit (value) is created in the economy as a whole (that is the reason to have it in the first place), and yet every unit in it converges to have zero profit (marginal revenue = marginal cost), what happens with all the extra money?

Or ask the other way around. Under neoclassical theory, the price of all commodities should converge to their costs. If labor is just another commodity, it should be true for labor as well. What is different for labor, from the perspective of the neoclassical theory, that it wouldn't behave like that?

I think the neoclassical theory is inconsistent, and the assumption, that because all these can converge to zero profit independently, they also can converge altogether, is simply wrong. Therefore, there will always be an area in the economy, which doesn't operate according to neoclassical theory, where the profits are close to zero, that is, there will a component of income that cannot be explained away by costs (which is what the article is trying to do).

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#322

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

sireat wrote: post #230

pydry wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore. I'm still a software developer. Just not there. It's ironic that the country had a serious case of silicon Valley envy and would try literally anything to clone some of that valley magic. They threw a lot of money around in pursuit of this goal. They'd try anything, that is, other than decent, internationally competitive pay and working conditions.

Curious where did the money go then if it did not go into competitive salaries?

Canada, Japan and Singapore are notorious for just refusing to pay competitive salaries for programmers.

I have a feeling it started off as lack of appreciation for software, then turned into intransigence at raising salaries since then "everybody would want a raise too."

The money goes to other parts of the business.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#323

Post by st1ck » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #195

chii wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But by this hypothesis, countries that have a different culture, but have similarly good programmers, would be able to produce a product suited to their own culture and thus out-compete the imported english version. But this rarely happens, if at all. So there's something that's still amiss.

This does indeed happen and the biggest example is probably China. Wechat with its super-app concept has done something that didn't really have a Western analog. Didi replaced Uber in China, Alipay and TikTok and a lot of other apps constitute an entirely different, domestic ecosystem. It's also starting to happen with banking / finance apps. Nubank is growing very fast in Latin America, Africa is starting to have a…

China is not a free market, but your other examples are mostly on point. Except that Telegram (and Viber) are really popular only in a few countries. Most of Europe (and the world) uses WhatsApp.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#324

Post by st1ck » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

speeder wrote: post #61

I am Brazilian, I tried to get jobs in other countries multiple times and many times it failed due to reasons not related to my competency: 1. Rejected from working in a gamedev in Europe because I am not EU Citizen. 2. Lots of companies on USA have to follow some crazy tax rules or general regulations that make them not allowed to hire foreigners, don't even need to be military stuff. Noticed some companies won't ev…

Assuming your timezone is GMT-3, it's 5 hour difference with California and 4 hours with most of Europe. At least one of them should be manageable (either waking up around 5am or going to bed around 3am).

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#325

Post by JSavageOne » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

Out of all the hypothesis outlined, "Management location dictates office location" seems most accurate to me. The highest programming salaries are at big tech companies in SF/NYC because those companies make so much money per employee that they don't blink an eye at $500k/yr comp packages.

Meanwhile no bootstrapped founder in their right mind would try to hire in SF to build an MVP unless they've got VC investors with deep pockets adamant on it. The smarter move would be to hire remotely, vastly opening up the talent pool and getting significantly more bang for your buck.

If you're a U.S. citizen, you can always move to SF/NYC and make those high salaries. You just might choose not to because you don't want to move there. If you're Swiss, there are plenty of high paying jobs, not just in IT but other fields.

If you're a Ukrainian citizen, you don't have the option to make $500k+/yr at (unless you're willing and able to go through the immigration process into the U.S., which is difficult). Naturally that leads to less bargaining power.

Ultimately wages are just a negotiation.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#326

Post by bobwernstein » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

YarickR2 wrote: post #254

ambicapter wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming all of this is true (which I believe), it exasperates me that this is yet another indicator that raising the baseline education for all should be the most important priority for any country that is seeking economic growth.

Education has nothing to do with work ethics and general attitude to your job and it's position in your life. You can be educated all the way, but without sufficient motivation your abilities and skills will be left unused - by you

why do you think it is that those that are in dire need of oppertunities blow them with the lack of work ethics while those in first world countries are willing to work long hours to get even richer? Is it really greed and/or keeping up with the joneses? At the expense of free time?

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#327

Post by dgudkov » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:21 AM UTC

grumple wrote: post #240

dgudkov wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. In Eastern Europe a decent programmer earns 35-45K after tax. I know it because I work with developers from Eastern Europe. 12-16K is more a fresh grad level, really junior.

Just for clarity, US salaries are usually discussed before tax. If you're taking home 35-45k, you're basically at US salary levels. Remember than even here, Silicon Valley salaries are way above salaries elsewhere in the US. Increased competition for the best / closest programmers increases wages.

>If you're taking home 35-45k, you're basically at US salary levels.

That's exactly the point. Also keep in mind that it's not uncommon for developers in Eastern Europe to pay only 5-10% income tax when they register as private entrepreneurs (and benefit from small business tax reliefs), far lower than the tax rate in the US.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#328

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

It really boils down to how wealthy the country is and how stratified the wealth is. In the US we have higher averages because we have higher salaries on the high end, but that does not carry all the way through for the entire country.

The idea that most good programmers move to rich countries is just asinine.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#329

Post by pdimitar » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #305

belval wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I wish it was more like that in the west, it's great to not glorify people being assholes, but when coworker X pushes a security fix on all production servers at the same time on a Friday afternoon, crashes the entire thing and somehow my manager talks about "the importance to avoid fingerpointing" in the post-mortem.

> my manager talks about "the importance to avoid fingerpointing" in the post-mortem. I sometime am, and will continue to be that guy. At least partly because it's the right way to handle post mortems, but partly because coworker X is only a symptom of the problem - and the underlying problem here is a manager who hasn't got a process in place to ensure Friday afternoon rush fixes on production don't happen. That's a…

> That's a process problem which is neither your nor coworker X's fault. That's my fault. Sorry...

I wouldn't rush to blame you if you were my manager. It's not the manager's job to breathe down everyone's neck -- they have to make sure to foster the right culture (like don't push potentially breaking changes to production at Friday afternoon) and ensure that the people hired are actually able and motivated.

From then on though, all bets should be off. Maybe the guy/girl had an awful day and is otherwise excellent. Maybe they felt pressured due to miscommunication (or a coworker being an ass and they took it personally and figured they'll speed through the task), or maybe they simply were novice in that particular problem or technology.

None of that would be your fault.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#330

Post by DataGata » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

ambicapter wrote: post #222

gwern wrote: post #202

To toss in a second-hand anecdote: I once asked someone who worked at/with companies screening Africans for diamonds in the rough, smart guys who could do programming but were being paid peanuts, like $10k/year, and paying them a multiple of that for outsourcing, why it wasn't such a great idea, when Africa seems to have so many under-utilized people. He said that despite expectations, they were not much cheaper to h…

Assuming all of this is true (which I believe), it exasperates me that this is yet another indicator that raising the baseline education for all should be the most important priority for any country that is seeking economic growth.

This is where education becomes a poverty issue- if you're poor, you're often not well-incentivized to make sure you kid goes to school. He can do work, or she can be married off, or a dozen other opportunities. School is seen as an investment with heavily, heavily diminishing returns. Imagine trying to explain to a person that can't read, and who has gotten by fine, why his child needs to read. "So he can be rich?" "But ah, I have my farm and he will work on that farm etc etc etc"