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Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#61

Post by nindalf »

justin66 wrote: post #27
nindalf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This decision matters because the NYT influences other journalists to a large degree. The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, the 37-year old publisher and chairman of the NYT. Surely a man wielding so much power and influence would have earned the post through merit and hard work, right? In reality it’s a hereditary post of the Sulzberger family. It’s shocking that a man who is a product of n…

> The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, What evidence is there of this? Asking because it's not traditionally the case that the NYT editorial staff needs to be interfered with by ownership in order to make terrible decisions.

This wasn’t instructions to the editorial staff, it was to the regular reporters. This is alleged by reporters who heard of it second hand.

I wish I could link you to the investigative exposé about this decision published by the NYT, but they don’t look inward. And no other paper looked at them either. Instead they sycophantically copied the same direction to investigate tech.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#62

Post by nindalf »

uMeanPpl wrote: post #51
nindalf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This decision matters because the NYT influences other journalists to a large degree. The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, the 37-year old publisher and chairman of the NYT. Surely a man wielding so much power and influence would have earned the post through merit and hard work, right? In reality it’s a hereditary post of the Sulzberger family. It’s shocking that a man who is a product of n…

A man wielding so much power and influence I’ve never heard of them. Start a campaign against them. Oh that’s right it’s on everyone else to organize as you desire. Paranoid delusions of the anti-social crowd is all this rambling adds up to.

> that I’ve never heard of him

That’s my whole point, which flew right over your head. This is a man who has inherited power and influence. There’s no incentive for the NYT to investigate their own publisher + chairman. There seems to be little appetite for anyone else to do so either. So basically there’s no scrutiny of how he wields his power, or how nepotism is rife at the top of the NYT. That’s why you haven’t heard of him.

Do you understand now?

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#63

Post by mcphage »

troelsSteegin wrote: post #28

Across the executive mea culpas, there is this theme of "I over estimated demand". But, one could take the perspective that they correctly hired to extract value during peak demand, because on average each new resource is profitable, and are now are reducing resources because there is less value there to extract. An investor could argue that it is irresponsible not to hire for peaks and thus leave value inthe market.…

I don't think the mea culpa is at all honest—I think he hired up when demand was high, knowing that he'd just shed the extra load when demand dropped. I don't think this course of action was a surprise, I think it was the expected course of action internally when they hired.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#64

Post by justin66 »

nindalf wrote: post #61
justin66 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, What evidence is there of this? Asking because it's not traditionally the case that the NYT editorial staff needs to be interfered with by ownership in order to make terrible decisions.

This wasn’t instructions to the editorial staff, it was to the regular reporters. This is alleged by reporters who heard of it second hand. I wish I could link you to the investigative exposé about this decision published by the NYT, but they don’t look inward. And no other paper looked at them either. Instead they sycophantically copied the same direction to investigate tech.

> they don’t look inward

On that point we can agree.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#65

Post by 121789 »

bee_rider wrote: post #56
Eumenes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that sentiment is with the younger crowd. The fawning over FAANG seems to be a new grad/junior thing. It very much reminds me of young bragging over which Big 4/public accounting firm they were going to join, or which investment bank. The senior/experienced people know that a job is more than the name or endless swag.

Apple and Google are kind of a cut above the rest there, from a prestige point of view, right? Netflix is fine. Amazon is... "well good luck dude, don't get burnout." Facebook... I'll bag groceries instead, might not make as much money but at least I'll be helping people.

It depends on your position. Prestige is not really about morals, it's about selectivity and compensation. If you are in hardware or a designer, Apple is a cut above everyone else. If you are in software, it's probably Google/Meta/Netflix cuts above the rest you listed.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#66

Post by filoleg »

CaptainNegative wrote: post #12
bambataa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if moving to a FAANG means you work just the same as before, except get paid twice as much and are surrounded by competent colleagues?

> and are surrounded by competent colleagues Current FAANG employee here -- how I wish this were true.

Not trying to attack your experiences, but have you spent much time outside of FAANG?

As someone who did both (and have been at FAANG and the likes more recently), of course you will find incompetent colleagues everywhere, FAANG or not. The difference is, how many of those relative to the competent ones you will find on average.

It is a very different situation when a team of 8 has a couple incompetent devs vs. when a team of 8 has only a couple competent devs (aka the inverse).

Not trying to say that this is universally true for both FAANG and non-FAANG, exceptions apply in both cases and are based on a chance. Of course there are startups and non-tech companies that are composed almost entirely of very strong and competent devs. And there are some teams at FAANGs that are in "rest and vest" mode. But on average, that observation about the averages seemed to be true based on my personal experiences.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#67

Post by Eumenes »

bee_rider wrote: post #56
Eumenes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that sentiment is with the younger crowd. The fawning over FAANG seems to be a new grad/junior thing. It very much reminds me of young bragging over which Big 4/public accounting firm they were going to join, or which investment bank. The senior/experienced people know that a job is more than the name or endless swag.

Apple and Google are kind of a cut above the rest there, from a prestige point of view, right? Netflix is fine. Amazon is... "well good luck dude, don't get burnout." Facebook... I'll bag groceries instead, might not make as much money but at least I'll be helping people.

I guess it depends on your team/role/function re: prestige. Naturally, the technical hiring bar has dropped as these companies have grown.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#68

Post by filoleg »

socialismisok wrote: post #59
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you hire a lawyer that can't tie his shoes?

Your example is poor, because most 8 year olds don't know how local networking works, but do know how shoes work. But I'll engage with the questions intent. Would you hire a lawyer who doesn't know all the skills of their trade yet, because they are just entering the workforce? Does it impact his ability to practice law? Are they interested in learning but never had the opportunity? Sure, assuming I had something ver…

Let me correct their example to make it more on topic and relevant to the problem.

Would you hire a lawyer who cannot use a computer (so no email, digital records, etc) and communucates exclusively through fax machines?

Mind you, they can claim to be a good lawyer otherwise, since none of those things directly contradict their claim of good lawyer skills. But something tells me that if they don't use digital record-keeping and can't utilize PACER, I will have my doubts in their practical usefulness.

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#69

Post by msteffen »

justin66 wrote: post #27
nindalf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This decision matters because the NYT influences other journalists to a large degree. The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, the 37-year old publisher and chairman of the NYT. Surely a man wielding so much power and influence would have earned the post through merit and hard work, right? In reality it’s a hereditary post of the Sulzberger family. It’s shocking that a man who is a product of n…

> The person who took that autocratic decision was AG Sulzberger, What evidence is there of this? Asking because it's not traditionally the case that the NYT editorial staff needs to be interfered with by ownership in order to make terrible decisions.

Matt Yglesias claimed it in a meme: https://mobile.twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1588193914640...

Re: Tech’s talent wars have come back to bite it

#70

Post by [deleted] »

larrymyers wrote: post #3

The feels like exceptionally lazy reporting in the NYT. What was the expectation, that tech companies would be up and to the right perpetually? That public tech companies are immune to general market downturns? While a lot of tech companies are going through post-pandemic layoffs, most of them have headcounts that are still larger than where they were in Feb 2020, and have valuations that show steady growth. My predi…

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