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Comment by Retra | Hacker News Reader

Whose competition? Other companies are not employee's competition, they are potential places to work. They only compete with the company, not the employees.

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Kickstarter's prime competition is Indiegogo. Kickstarter employees who think their competition is against Kickstarter leadership rather than Indiegogo are at risk to seriously suboptimize, IMO. (The same is true for Kickstarter leadership, of course.)

employees who think their competition is against Kickstarter leadership rather than Indiegogo are at risk to seriously suboptimize

Suboptimize what? By what metrics? And why are those the primary metrics I should be using to make extremely important life choices?

The overall success and value they are able to create jointly with their colleagues and take home a portion of for themselves and their family. I also find that to be an interesting, motivating, fun, and financially rewarding game to play.

I support your right to use other metrics as you prefer to make your choices, of course.

take home a portion of for themselves and their family

I'm sure there are companies where the portion of value I get to take home is directly related to the value I and my colleagues created, but I've never worked at such a company. Perhaps that is the sort of thing unions could help with?

edit: That being said, I've worked at companies where the primary 'enemy' was either "the bosses at HQ" or rival departments and I agree that it is toxic and a terrible way to run a company. However when the company ends up in that state it is a failure of management and not of the workers.

In such a tech company, I’d recommend employees leave rather than unionize. Simpler, faster, more effective, more thorough fix.

How many companies are located within such close geographic proximity to their competitors that employees can choose to work for the competition without moving to a completely separate place? Outside of natural resource extraction, this kind of thinking only applies to nascent eras of new and flourishing industries such as the late 19th century steel industry, early 20th century automobile industry, and current SV-centered tech industry. Eventually those industries will expand away from that overly competitive region in a fragmented manner, divorcing an employees choice in employment from affecting any change in the labor market for a given industry.

None of that is relevant to the employer-employee relationship. My employer's competition is not my competition. Even if there were no hiring competitors, they would still not be my competition. I would still want equitable bargaining power with my employer.

And regardless of that, if my employer is willing to pay our CEO over 20x what they pay their average employee, they are not in a position to niggle over the kinds of systemic inefficiencies they would suffer under a union.

> And regardless of that, if my employer is willing to pay our CEO over 20x what they pay their average employee, they are not in a position to niggle over the kinds of systemic inefficiencies they would suffer under a union.

Do you not believe that a CEO could have at least 20 times the impact on the value of a company than the average employee, and if so, should they not be compensated accordingly?

No, I do not believe in the divine right of kings.

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