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Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

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Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever hear of the court case involving the Dodge brothers and Ford? Maybe we fucked up there, and a century later, we finally arrived at this current state. > In the landmark 1919 case Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in favor of minority shareholders John and Horace Dodge, holding that a corporation’s primary purpose is to maximize profit for its shareholders. The court ordered Ford to pay ou…

We absolutely fucked up there. There definitely needs to be protections for shareholders to reduce the chance of exploitation and fraud, but part of the “free market” as it were is for shareholders to fuck off to other companies if they don’t like how one is run. The “shareholder value” mandate is one of the greatest perversions of the “free market” out there, miles above any discourse about minimum wages or worker p…

I agree with you. How do we undo those things?

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#82

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

> They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing.

I read these sentiments, and I honestly don’t understand the tone. This kind of behavior is exactly what you’d expect after taking just a few introductory undergraduate economics courses.

Free markets are predicated on the free movement of capital and labor, and American companies being able to go overseas for cheaper labor is exactly what they're going to do unless there are laws preventing that. When we have laws keeping jobs in one place they get called "regulation."

Generally speaking, I’m really shocked at how uneducated people are — programmers in particular — about how the labor market works, how the economy works, or how anything in the real world works, really.

There's a reason studying humanities is valuable - history, philosophy, economics, etc. It clues you in that when someone wants to exploit you, it's usually based on well-established precedent.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else first? Doesn't every democratic countries populace broadly attempt to vote in their own interests? Was there ever a pretext that they shouldn't?

There’s a lot you can do to directly help other countries that indirectly helps your own country. Creating a rules based system (vs a “might makes right” system) means the powerful don’t just get to take everyone shit, but it does mean everyone gets an opportunity to prosper. Allowing US companies to find talent abroad means those companies can deliver better products and makes competition more viable (ie lowers pric…

Why should American voters be expected to vote in India's interests? Cheaper shit isn't good enough, not least because that derives from the premise that companies pass savings on to consumers.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#84

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

I'm in the cybersecurity space and we largely shifted hiring and funding to Tel Aviv. Israeli [0] tech salaries are comparable to Atlanta [1] and Dallas [2], yet we get better talent across the board - less bootcamp grads and more people with a background in OS and algos. [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/israel [1] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/atlanta... [2] - https…

> less bootcamp grads and more people with a background in OS and algos.

I’m going to wager at least one reason for this is Israel is big in industries that demand that sort of knowledge where in the US, most money was made by CRUD monkeys putting together high level line of business applications.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We absolutely fucked up there. There definitely needs to be protections for shareholders to reduce the chance of exploitation and fraud, but part of the “free market” as it were is for shareholders to fuck off to other companies if they don’t like how one is run. The “shareholder value” mandate is one of the greatest perversions of the “free market” out there, miles above any discourse about minimum wages or worker p…

I agree with you. How do we undo those things?

Typically? Legislation would handle it, but most western democracies are so captured by Capital that getting this done nationally would take decades of time we simply do not have, and be far too risky.

Another court opinion reversing those decisions in some part is an alternative, but equally unlikely given current politicization of SCOTUS.

International treaties could work, if we still didn't have the military and economic might to twist arms in our favor - though with the EU very firmly refuting America's trade policies and expansionist regime, these might be closer than we think.

International finance could also apply pressure for a reversal through pulling investment or only funding firms focused on fundamentals and long-term strategy over quarterly results and share prices alone. Unfortunately we still hold most of the Capital, so that's going to take time to create change.

Then there's the thing. The thing could do it, but it would destabilize global geopolitics in the process by removing the sole remaining stabilizing superpower from the board for the thing. It's always an option, but also one of absolute last resort as a way of resolving the otherwise unresolvable. I am personally strongly opposed to the thing, but man I don't see many ways of avoiding it this far into the current mess.

The more likely immediate course of action is continued protests, riots, and rising violence - just short of becoming the thing, but still bad enough to send a signal to the world that our way of doing things was unsustainable and that everyone else needs to reign things in immediately or risk following suit. China seems to acutely understand this, hence why they take great pains to incarcerate and reign-in Capital lest toxic western economic practices take root within their party or economy; France is in the midst of a similar such moment, and we don't know where they'll end up.

Unfortunately I don't have a clear-cut answer other than "apply pressure to those in power such that compliance with the demands of their people is more palatable than taking funds from Capital or acting in their self-interest."

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#86

Yup. All the H1B haters are going to get what they want: silicon valley will lose its engine and the next major tech companies will be overseas. I see it personally. People who are awesome. Their FAANG desperately wants to get them to come to the US. They can't for years. Then they give up and open an office in India or Eastern Europe and the US loses hundreds of jobs and great talent. This teaches such companies to…

> silicon valley will lose its engine and the next major tech companies will be overseas.

Good god, we may just be able to save America!

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the old Google, new Google lays off teams and moves them to India. New grad hiring is all but paused, hiring just enough to Seniors to backfill attrition and trying to slot them in at n-1 or n-2 levels.

I've been told by completely different friends, at unrelated companies spanning countries and different US states that if I was only Indian they're sure HR would have called me back. I applied at each of these companies over the years. There's no shortage of talent in the US, there's an uptick in hiring discrimination.

End of the day, given roughly equivalent talent availability, cheaper is where companies go. Maybe some will call it "cost discrimination" or something just as strange, but the many will know it as "sound business strategy".

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot you can do to directly help other countries that indirectly helps your own country. Creating a rules based system (vs a “might makes right” system) means the powerful don’t just get to take everyone shit, but it does mean everyone gets an opportunity to prosper. Allowing US companies to find talent abroad means those companies can deliver better products and makes competition more viable (ie lowers pric…

Why should American voters be expected to vote in India's interests? Cheaper shit isn't good enough, not least because that derives from the premise that companies pass savings on to consumers.

Companies don’t pass savings to consumers, competition does.

Why should American voters pay more for everything so that SWEs can be paid exorbitantly?

I shouldn’t need to explain to you why protectionism is bad. There’s 200 years of economic research on this and it shows that protectionism always backfires.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are Americans entitled to those jobs? If there are people in other countries happily willing to accept 1/10 of the pay do to the same work, why is it morally wrong deny them those jobs?

I don't think anyone believes they're entitled to them. However, in my opinion, if these companies want to continue to enjoy preferable tax treatment and the deregulated environment the US provides them, then they should be expected to hire people in the US to drive the US economy. If they're not going to do that, then we (meaning the Government both state and federal) should stop incentivizing them. Why would we giv…

> stop incentivizing them

And at that point they simply... shift the bulk of their operations somewhere that still gives incentives, and maybe just leave a lightly-staffed satellite office in the US.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else first? Doesn't every democratic countries populace broadly attempt to vote in their own interests? Was there ever a pretext that they shouldn't?

There’s a lot you can do to directly help other countries that indirectly helps your own country. Creating a rules based system (vs a “might makes right” system) means the powerful don’t just get to take everyone shit, but it does mean everyone gets an opportunity to prosper. Allowing US companies to find talent abroad means those companies can deliver better products and makes competition more viable (ie lowers pric…

Things become a great deal more complicated when you consider the US is not the only country on earth, and the vast majority of countries do not have the well-being of their population at heart.

The extreme cases are well known. But let's just give the statistic: the average global wage is $24000 in PPP, according to the UN. In other words, such a global system will be on average a 75% pay cut for US workers.

By the way, that's a PPP paycut, in other words a paycut without anything getting 1 cent cheaper. Not your housing. Not your food. Not your playstation. Not your cost of living. We'll be back to deciding which day in the month we'll have a little bit of meat.

The scary thing if you've ever been there is that India actually cares more than most countries for it's people.

And the truly terrifying thing is that income is distributed along a power law. In other words, it'd be a 50% pay cut for Donald Trump and a 90% pay cut for you and me.

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