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How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

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Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#41

Post by fjp »

munk-a wrote: post #19
izzydata wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to judge how much an engineer is worth to a company making billion upon billions of dollars a year? If some of these engineers are what is enabling these companies and their executives to make millions then maybe they really are worth a 1 million dollar salary.

I think the fair thing to realize, as a society, is that corporate profit taxes just make sense. If a company is operating in a high profit margin line of business it has more than enough money to invest in future growth, fairly compensate employers and owners _and_ provide a societal benefit for all those other community members that work in less high profit margin societies. Sure, you've got good healthcare and wha…

I can't understand how people don't realize that putting some of our massive, massive wealth towards building a better society would not benefit them.

Can you imagine how many more inventions and advancements there would be if everyone had access to good education? Didn't have to worry about going bankrupt or dying because they can't meet medical expenses? If we put money into things that don't necessarily directly directly go into corporate bottom lines by next financial quarter? (roads, transportation infrastructure, clean water and air...)

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#42

Post by macspoofing »

turc1656 wrote: post #11

Notice the difference: " Top executives of leading tech companies secretly agreed among themselves not to hire each other’s employees" "...brought charges against the companies " They should have been indicting both, or just the executives for their explicit role in this criminal behavior. I really detest the lack of individual accountability in all these cases when we deal with large companies. If this was a couple…

Meh. It really wasn't that big of a deal. They got caught and fined and that feels like an appropriate level of punishment. There are times when a prison-term against bad-actor executives is the right punishment ... this isn't it.

>If this was a couple of small, local competitors who were the only two [whatever] in the area and they did this, I guarantee you the owners would be individually indicted.

No. 100% NO. I guarantee you that the regulators wouldn't care. And if they did care, the 'local competitors' would get AT BEST a slap on the wrist like a strongly worded letter with a time-frame or MAYBE a fine (if that). There would be no indictments.

I work with regulators all the time (FDA, Health Canada), and they will work with you to get you under compliance. Consider the fact that all companies are under a large amount of legal and regulatory constraints and chances are every company is doing something against some law or some regulation (knowingly or unknowingly), and you can see that as long as what you did didn't result in undue hardship (though I'm sure you'll try to claim that this was an egregious action - I disagree) and you fix your behaviour, you'll be fine.

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#44

Post by defen »

DannyBee wrote: post #9
izzydata wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to judge how much an engineer is worth to a company making billion upon billions of dollars a year? If some of these engineers are what is enabling these companies and their executives to make millions then maybe they really are worth a 1 million dollar salary.

Sure, but the ones who aren't doing that are also getting paid really well. In your scheme they would not :)

> Sure, but the ones who aren't doing that are also getting paid really well.

So, don't require a 4.3 GPA from Stanford/MIT/Caltech for entry-level back-office/maintenance type developers. It seems like you're claiming that FAANGs are overpaying non-contributors, or at least those whose impact is not easily measured. So, stop paying so much and see what kind of developers you get.

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#45

Post by erikpukinskis »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #30
turc1656 wrote: post #11

Notice the difference: " Top executives of leading tech companies secretly agreed among themselves not to hire each other’s employees" "...brought charges against the companies " They should have been indicting both, or just the executives for their explicit role in this criminal behavior. I really detest the lack of individual accountability in all these cases when we deal with large companies. If this was a couple…

Part of the reason modern corporate bureaucracies are so bloated and complicated is to reduce the personal risk to executives by muddying the apparent decision-making process at the top. Executives can make it look like they're people who execute complicated processes rather than decision-makers. They end up taking credit when things go well, and they might look bad when things go poorly, but they essentially never g…

This is a powerful insight, thank you.

I am fascinated by the way "fitness landscapes" manifest in companies OUTSIDE the financial fitness of the company's trade. People often act like trade fitness is the only realm where we compete in capitalism, but there are so many more.

Moat fitness for a company doesn't benefit their trade at all. Customers don't benefit when you kill a competitor, but you do.

Similarly PowerPoint doesn't benefit the customer or the business. It's a tool for employee theater, using it makes employees appear less fit to be fired.

And I like your point that unaccountability fitness is also an existential competition for executives.

I wish there were a big list of these for me to ponder.

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#46

Post by Spooky23 »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #30
turc1656 wrote: post #11

Notice the difference: " Top executives of leading tech companies secretly agreed among themselves not to hire each other’s employees" "...brought charges against the companies " They should have been indicting both, or just the executives for their explicit role in this criminal behavior. I really detest the lack of individual accountability in all these cases when we deal with large companies. If this was a couple…

Part of the reason modern corporate bureaucracies are so bloated and complicated is to reduce the personal risk to executives by muddying the apparent decision-making process at the top. Executives can make it look like they're people who execute complicated processes rather than decision-makers. They end up taking credit when things go well, and they might look bad when things go poorly, but they essentially never g…

That’s a very one dimensional view. Bureaucracy exists to standardize control and improve consistency.

Think of a group of friends who go out for dinner. When the group grows, you generally need to set rules to avoid folks stuffing on tips or itemizing their bill to save a buck.

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#49

Post by mtgx »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #33
munk-a wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, there is far too much ability to transfer liability in the modern world which lets this sort of stuff get abstract and easier to dismiss. Companies should be held accountable to the extent their growth has encouraged bad behavior, but individuals at that company committed the behavior and, if they were instructed to do so and blindly followed then... 1. "Just following orders" isn't now and has never been a…

"Just following orders" was a valid excuse until the Nuremberg trials.

You don't think people were executed post-war for "just following orders" before the Nuremberg trials?

In other words, do you really think such people got off easy before the Nuremberg trials? If anything, much worse has happened to them throughout history, because the kings and dictators didn't have to put them through a judicial process.

Re: How Apple, Google, and other tech companies conspired against their own workers

#50

Post by stcredzero »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #39
stcredzero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With something as complex as employment decisions, there could be a lot of confounding factors. Example: What if A and B are located somewhere more desirable? There may naturally be a desire to stay where you are and less impetus to move. A and B might be in a class of company which confers more prestige, so there would be less impetus to move. A and B might entail more risk somehow. There are many of these. Using bu…

If A and B are both located in desirable locations, and C is not, then the strangeness of there being more A->C->B jumps than A->B is only stronger. If A and B are in the same desirable location, all the weirder.

If A and B are both located in desirable locations, and C is not, then the strangeness of there being more A->C->B jumps than A->B is only stronger.

Again, you're assuming that there only a few entirely orthogonal variables. If A and B are both located in a desirable location, the cost of moving to A or the cost of moving to B might be high enough, such that it's only justified if there is a large increase in salary. So this factor might well apply more to moving from C->A than it would A->B or B->A. The same housing expenses might also motivate other people to move from A->C. In this case, you might well see more A->C->B jumps than A->B.

However, none of these are cleanly applicable to real people in the real world. We're not dealing with particles or spherical cows here.

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