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Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

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Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#351

Post by AtlasBarfed »

NhanH wrote: post #174
LBJsPNS wrote: post #149

But you don't understand! These people who were laid off are important ! So much so they didn't need a union, because the company couldn't possibly let them go. Unions are for all those other people who aren't important ! Perhaps some of you are beginning to understand the term Solidarity Forever.

Union does not protect you from layoff. They will be able to negotiate for severance package, but seeing the way big techs are handling it, I highly doubt unions can negotiate a better one.

What? Unions absolutely can protect against layoffs, by threatening to strike over them.

Union: Oh, you are making 16 billion profit and want to lay off 12,000 people on a whim? How about we strike and your profit is cut in half next quarter and you all miss your stock options?

Huh, no layoffs, funny.

Granted we haven't SEEN an effective labor union in the US (aside from the police unions) in about 100 years, that doesn't mean they can't work in principle.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#352

Post by acdha »

refurb wrote: post #350
acdha wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more nuanced than that: 1. Someone making $200k is definitely doing well compared to almost anyone in the US (94th percentile, 98th at $300k) but those salaries are heavily clustered in very expensive areas where that might not even be the top 10%. Someone making that much working at Apple or Google is living in a normal house - a nice one, sure, but not a mansion - and still feeling things like childcare costs.…

Im not not sure what point #1 means. They own a house in a HCOL area - the very definition of being upper class and privileged! A billionaire might “feel” the cost of his private jet fleet but that doesn’t mean he’s not rich.

It means that their income is linked to unavoidably higher burn rate, making it seem like their life is more elite than it actually is. For example, how nice is a $1M house in Silicon Valley compared to a $1M house in Podunk? The latter is a rich person’s lifestyle choice, the former is wanting to have room for kids and less than an hour commute. Unlike that hypothetical private jet, these are not optional expenses if the job doesn’t allow 100% remote – you need somewhere to live, if you aren’t wealthy but still want kids you need childcare until they go to school, etc.

And, again, I’m not saying that this is a pity-worthy situation – only that it’s a lot closer to the average worker than the average rich person in terms of having to go to work every day, think about finances, etc.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#353

Post by refurb »

acdha wrote: post #352
refurb wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not not sure what point #1 means. They own a house in a HCOL area - the very definition of being upper class and privileged! A billionaire might “feel” the cost of his private jet fleet but that doesn’t mean he’s not rich.

It means that their income is linked to unavoidably higher burn rate, making it seem like their life is more elite than it actually is. For example, how nice is a $1M house in Silicon Valley compared to a $1M house in Podunk? The latter is a rich person’s lifestyle choice, the former is wanting to have room for kids and less than an hour commute. Unlike that hypothetical private jet, these are not optional expenses i…

But it doesn’t work that way. The expense is the location itself not the house.

Your average middle class American could never afford to own anything in a HCOL city.

That’s the privilege.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#354

Post by reducesuffering »

thewildginger wrote: post #4
ebiester wrote: post #3

The part I thought was the best was this: "This was not an easy decision to make. It’s weighed heavily on me for the past month, keeping me up at night and nearly causing me to cancel the exec team’s offsite, even though Bad Bunny’s appearance fee was only 50 percent refundable. Let’s not mince words, though; the accountability for this decision rests with me. The consequences, on the other hand, rest with you, but s…

Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

"Make no mistake, though they are the ones leaving, it is I who must remain, and bear the heavy burden of their failure."

https://youtu.be/u48vYSLvKNQ?t=44

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#355

Post by r00fus »

gavinmckenzie wrote: post #199
l1silver wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't the inbetween contract jobs a tenuous time?

In the first couple of years I would worry about this, but I haven’t in a very long time. The only occasions when I’ve had a gap between contracts is when I’ve chosen to take a break. I manage my finances to ensure I have several months of equivalent income saved. My process is that 60 days before the end of my current contract, whether my current client has said they intend to renew or not, I start seeking other con…

> I should note that I’m in Canada and so I don’t have to worry about healthcare coverage.

This is a BFD. I know that I had colleagues in France when I was also doing contract work (amusingly as a US ex-pat) who a) didn't make as much as me but b) felt more secure in their future

Similar kind of situation if you're in the US but your spouse/partner has medical coverage through FT employment.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#356

Post by roenxi »

refurb wrote: post #353
acdha wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means that their income is linked to unavoidably higher burn rate, making it seem like their life is more elite than it actually is. For example, how nice is a $1M house in Silicon Valley compared to a $1M house in Podunk? The latter is a rich person’s lifestyle choice, the former is wanting to have room for kids and less than an hour commute. Unlike that hypothetical private jet, these are not optional expenses i…

But it doesn’t work that way. The expense is the location itself not the house. Your average middle class American could never afford to own anything in a HCOL city. That’s the privilege.

Another argument you might appreciate - there is some practical limit to the number of people who can live in a HCOL area (from the available housing stock). Say that is N people. The market will organise itself so that the price is just high enough that person N+1 can't afford to live there.

Of course a lot of the people who live in a HCOL of living area feel like they can only just afford to live there. If they thought it was cheap, more of their class would move there - it is a desirable area. You have to be so rich that everyone in your wealth/income class can afford to live in an area before housing costs will be low enough to ignore. So the top 100 billionaires don't feel the housing costs of living in a HCOL area because all the billionaires in the world could probably move there and not fill up the available housing stock. But if all the millionaires in the world want to move somewhere then the price will be high enough that a millionaire feels like they can't afford to be in the area. And that is really just a subtle market hint that a lot of millionaires think it is a nice area. Doesn't make the people involved less rich.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#357

Post by refurb »

roenxi wrote: post #356
refurb wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn’t work that way. The expense is the location itself not the house. Your average middle class American could never afford to own anything in a HCOL city. That’s the privilege.

Another argument you might appreciate - there is some practical limit to the number of people who can live in a HCOL area (from the available housing stock). Say that is N people. The market will organise itself so that the price is just high enough that person N+1 can't afford to live there. Of course a lot of the people who live in a HCOL of living area feel like they can only just afford to live there. If they tho…

That's pretty much it.

It doesn't matter the wealth or income someone has, there is always something they can't afford. So clearly the existence of "limited resources" is not a good indication of whether someone is wealthy or not.

But ignoring the type of house and it's location - if someone can afford the down payment and mortgage payments on a $2M homes (typical single family home in the Bay Area), the are objectively very well off.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#358

Post by gorgoiler »

WalterBright wrote: post #294
gorgoiler wrote: post #7

I grind away at our codebase day in day out causing me immense personal anxiety and burnout risk and all for what? Well! The honest answer is because software engineering is an incredibly satisfying intellectual pursuit. So satisfying that outside of work in my spare time I literally do it for free , giving away my work to strangers as free / open source software. Why draw a salary then? Or stock? Well obviously I ha…

> So why is their exit equivalent to several mansions and mine is around about a year’s worth of salary? Because their decisions make or break the company, and your's do not. For a well known example, Steve Jobs took over Apple when it was 90 days from bankruptcy. With the same group of workers, he took it to the biggest company in the world. Just by making different leadership decisions. That's why he made the big b…

I think this is correct only for the right size of company. There’s also a long tail of businesses out there in the $10m to $100m range where the balance of responsibility between the C-suite and the top technical talent makes it much less clear that the two should diverge in comp quite so much. I suppose it’s ironic that the big tech companies are also the ones that give such big pie slices to their engineers, and the smallest businesses are the ones where the tech ICs are replaceable while the C-levels are uniquely brilliant.

How many businesses have we seen slowly fade away as the tech team ebbs one by one leaving only a remnant core of mostly non tech roles?

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#359

Post by manmal »

mshake2 wrote: post #340
manmal wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is replaceable, in some way. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates seem to have been replaceable, at least from a stock owner perspective. I'd like to offer a different explanation: Entrenched in-groups and institutions control access to the highest paid jobs. You need to become a part of those to be allowed to participate.

>Entrenched in-groups and institutions control access to the highest paid jobs. You need to become a part of those to be allowed to participate. That's the same thing as being difficult to replace. You gain "access" by being perceived as difficult to replace. The more difficult you are to replace, the higher your access.

Sure, it’s not easy to replace anyone. It’s often not even easy to replace cleaning personnel. But nobody is irreplaceable.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#360

Post by mook »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #34
username_my1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wrong view / comparios ... in a 5% interest rate environment, companies fight for investors money .. if you don't do the cuts and find a way to be efficient investors will put their money somewhere else that's more profitable. this reasoning is pure and simple and correct, you start from the top, not from the fact "they can afford it" because their job is not to spend the money they have their job is to increase valu…

Let's do a little root cause analysis. Why do companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, with massive income streams combined with substantial cash holdings, need investor money? Maybe Toyota's "Five Why's" can shed some light on it. We need to fire thousands of people. Why? Because it will make us more attractive for investors. Why? So they put their money in our company. Why? Because that will buoy our stock pric…

I think the last answer is a bit off.

… Why?

Because that will buoy our stock price, which is important.

Why?

Because a significant portion of executive compensation is in stocks.

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