Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

There's only one real question that needs to be answered.

Is Ford willing to spend $150k/year to $200k/year for a large number of senior level developers to build out and train staff for the next 10 years to build a thriving tech culture from within the company?

And will these higher-paid staff members have real power and control within the company, such that they feel that they are doing useful and fulfilling work?

If so, then yes, Ford (or anyone else really) can become a Tech Company. Money and power, that's all developers want for the most part.

Give them money but without power to pursue interesting problems... then its going to be harder to recruit. Give them power without money, and it will be possible to get college kids maybe, but probably not the senior developers needed to bootstrap a culture from the ground up.

View on HN

They have another problem to address as well: Detroit. Or, culturally speaking, the high-strung midwest attitude. I say this having spent the first 15 years of my life about 30 miles outside of Detroit and then moved to the Seattle area to finish high-school, college & start a software development career. I've still got family back in Michigan, but they're so culturally closed-minded & uptight I don't know if a $200k salary and dirt cheap houses from what's left of The Great Recession would be enough put up with the rest that's broken. Oh - and if you have kids, don't forget about the mess that is the state educational system: Betsy DeVos' blueprint for destroying public education nation-wide.

"High-strung", "closed-minded"? I'm sort of offended. There's some good stuff going on in Detroit and Ann Arbor. Not to mention Grand Rapids and others.

Hopefully it's largely the family I left behind then;)

Don't worry - the poster's just being a bit closed-minded

So no one can point out close-mindedness without also being close-minded? Seems a bit close-minded.

I too grew up in the Metro Detroit area (and then moved to Seattle).

The suburban schools are quite good. Oakland County schools are some of the best in the nation. International Academy was rated as the top public school in America for many years (it's now amongst the top 10 or so).

In my opinion, Michigan is experiencing a statewide cultural divide. The more metropolitan areas are not nearly as culturally close minded as the less metropolitan areas. Ultimately, Michigan companies don't seem to value talent enough to pay them well. There's no reason somebody should be able to make 2-3x more outside of Michigan than in the state.

Good point. Washington State is also suffering from a cultural divide. It almost felt nerve wracking and threatening to drive outside of King county last year before the election and see Trump signs literally everywhere. You're either in a technology or technology supported work in King county dealing with 18% annual housing cost increases, or you're broke in outlying counties and the other side of the Cascade mountains wondering where all the jobs went.

This cultural divide has existed in Washington for a long time - but its not really a King County/not King County split - it has more to do with the Cascades. I'd also suggest that the outlying counties are not as broke as you seem to think they are.

Western Washington was an extractive economy that transitioned to manufacturing in the 20's and 30's - Eastern WA was and is primarily agricultural. It's a cultural divide that is usually pretty well bridged.

Why would you be afraid of Trump voters? They're Americans just like you are, and are trying to pick someone who'll solve their problems - which I'd note, are probably different than yours - a good reminder is, more people in King County voted for Trump than did in any other county, and King County accounts for 1/5th or so of the votes he got.

> Why would you be afraid of Trump voters?

Do you really want anyone to answer that question on HN?

and king county was 72% for Clinton, and Seattle was even more tilted that way.

i actually do - I want to understand what they're afraid of - because while trump makes me nervous, most trump voters dont.

You're not wrong. Something is off in southeast Michigan. I blame the insane legacy of racial segregation. And the dreary environment. I mean, look at the article...

>When we reached the end of the hall, Ford welcomed me into his office, a midcentury wooden cavern with a fish tank built into one wall and a panoramic view of Dearborn along the other. The dreary vista stood in stark relief with the golden-era artifacts in Ford’s office...

Another automotive company is way ahead of Ford.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20171002/OEM06/171009988/ran...

I don't think you need to replicate silicon valley culture and pay to be successful - arguable replicating it is harmful.

There is no good reason to pay 200k a year to a guy who can make 200k a year in Sunnyvale - in Michigan, he'll have as much disposable income at, 120-140k a year as he did at 200k a year in California.

Before you say people wont work for less - I know plenty of people who would, including myself.

You have to attract talent to Michigan though. California is in a prosperous loop where talented people move to the state for jobs which then encourages other companies to come to California for talent. The side effect of this is rising housing prices and rising wages.

Michigan doesn't have that cycle happening (or, at least to the same extent). Telling somebody to take a hypothetical pay cut to move somewhere with less appeal isn't a sound strategy for attracting talent.

There are sweeteners you can use to get people to move, like signing bonuses, or a bonus after a year, or upon termination, to alienate the concern that you wont be able to go back to a more expensive place after layoff or termination.

The sweetener is never enough compared to cash in hand from a traditional tech job (in my experience). Top dollar is top dollar, there is no substitute.

More people also probably prefer California's climate, beaches, and mountains.

> There is no good reason to pay 200k a year to a guy who can make 200k a year in Sunnyvale - in Michigan, he'll have as much disposable income at, 120-140k a year as he did at 200k a year in California.

This ignores two facts of wealth in the bay area.

The value of land has risen considerably, so an engineer can grow wealthy just by owning (as opposed to renting) even without any "disposable" income (although I recognize that owning/renting can involve dipping into "disposable" income).

The promise of equity growth is compelling in a small-ish company. The likelihood that Ford employee equity might appreciate is _very_ tiny, is dependent upon so many factors out of the control of the tech employees (industry competition, regulations, supply of low-interest financing, labor unions, etc) that may not affect other unions.

Yes, but the market has risen to the extent that people making 200k a year are having trouble entering it. That's also the key sign of a bubble.

As someone who has spent most of my career working for old line companies, I discount equity in the company as something akin to gambling - I'd rather take cash than options with a low strike price.

There's a difference between paying people what they are worth, and paying people what they could earn elsewhere.

GM paid $500-1,000MM dollars for Cruise Automation, an autonomous vehicle startup with 40 employees. That means that GM thinks that three years of work by these employees are worth in the neighborhood of $12.5 to $25MM each.

Meaning a $200k salary is a serious low-ball. The fact that a web-dev in California can earn that, doesn't mean that's a good benchmark for a world-class AI researcher.

So yes, there is a good reason to pay these people well. The company knows that, if they don't, they face an existential threat. These potential employees are better off creating their own startup and auctioning off the results in three years.

A world class AI researcher is going to make the same money wherever they go - but "senior level developers" wouldn't, they'll make market adjusted wages.

Ford has tons of engineers of other disciplines making $120-150k

Ford has a serious marketing problem when it comes to hiring.

It's pretty obvious that Google, Facebook, et al. spend a lot of energy and money marketing themselves as fantastic places to work with great pay and benefits.

Most non-tech companies don't spend this effort. Ford might pay well, but they don't spend effort properly marketing themselves as a great place to work. Part of this is that tech culture != Ford culture and many people might not like Ford's big business culture.

Probably because of this weird Midwestern attitude towards salaries.

An engineer earning a $250k+ salary is seen as greedy in these parts. You can witness this from Michiganders right here in this thread. There are a few posts here about how $250k is a ridiculous salary in Michigan and is completely unnecessary.

Ford will likely go bankrupt or be acquired if they fail to stay competitive in autonomous vehicle research. Since there's only a handful of people in the world capable of keeping them relevant, these people are worth literally billions of dollars to Ford and trillions to the Michigan/Ohio/Indiana economies.

Ford should have no problem paying these people millions and advertising that fact.

It's decades of unions that have led people to believe that there should be a certain sense of equality when it comes to wages. It's a ridiculous idea in the creative economy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com