Googlers angry about CEO’s $226M pay after cuts in perks and 12,000 layoffs

Post by junipertea » Thu, May 04, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

segasaturn wrote: post #50

airstrike wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People generally get paid the amount that it costs to find someone else to do their job¹ It is very easy to find someone else to be a "rater". Certainly easier than it is to find another software engineer You can argue SWE wages are inflated but comparing them to someone testing whether YouTube search returns the right results is inaccurate and feels disingenuous "Fairness" is a vague concept which nobody can agree o…

By that logic, Sundar's pay is completely justified, as well as the pay cuts for Software Engineers, as more and more people become software engineers every day and available pool of workers continues to increase.

Post by sbierwagen » Thu, May 04, 2023, 10:34 PM UTC

pdntspa wrote: post #38

segasaturn wrote: post #21

While I agree that CEOs are overpayed, I think the same applies to software engineers. Software Engineering has been a pay/perk bubble for years that was due for a correction, and like when Elon cut the free gourmet lunches and coffees for Twitter staff, I'm sure the Google engineers will survive. Meanwhile Google's "raters", the army of workers who do the hard work of moderating and testing Google's platforms are ge…

Show me another profession that can have such a dramatic impact on the bottom line where your work makes the company 100x-1000x your salary. If anything SWE are underpaid, we should be getting a slice of total business unit revenue. With my last job doing SWE for a bank, I know for a fact that my code saved the company hundreds of thousands dollars just from one project, and I know for a fact that some of my other co…

Post by dann0 » Thu, May 04, 2023, 10:35 PM UTC

pdntspa wrote: post #38

segasaturn wrote: post #21

While I agree that CEOs are overpayed, I think the same applies to software engineers. Software Engineering has been a pay/perk bubble for years that was due for a correction, and like when Elon cut the free gourmet lunches and coffees for Twitter staff, I'm sure the Google engineers will survive. Meanwhile Google's "raters", the army of workers who do the hard work of moderating and testing Google's platforms are ge…

Show me another profession that can have such a dramatic impact on the bottom line where your work makes the company 100x-1000x your salary. If anything SWE are underpaid, we should be getting a slice of total business unit revenue. With my last job doing SWE for a bank, I know for a fact that my code saved the company hundreds of thousands dollars just from one project, and I know for a fact that some of my other co…

Post by satao » Thu, May 04, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #53

satao wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the US, but around the world it us usually just a decent job. The main problem is not the engineers being overpaid, is the rampant inequality that the west has been experiencing without anyone doing anything. The situation is crazy right now. Engineers are not overpaid. The other jobs should have a better pay, while the CEOs should be paid a lot less.

Heck, from my perspective other professions are highly underpaid. I know a couple of friends who work in healthcare as medical proffesionals (nurses, doctors etc), their wages (especially of nurses) are atrocious compared to the value to society they provide.

Post by doctor_eval » Thu, May 04, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

justrealist wrote: post #18

gregdoesit wrote: post #11

Got to give it to Larry Page and Sergey Brin for having their cake and also eating it. They control ~51% of voting power with shares thanks to owning ~85% of class B shares. They have had the benefit of someone else running the company for 8 years - and increasing the value of it - and now, when things are not looking great, it’s Sundar Pichai who gets the blame, and the focus on his compensation: and not those who s…

Not sure I'm following. They aren't getting new equity grants, they're de-facto out of the picture and just riding the valuation. They have 51% voting power but it's not obvious they are actively making decisions, rather than just holding onto power in just-in-case. Sundar is getting new equity grants based on his "performance". That's not the same.