Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielodievich | Hacker News Reader

I am one of the brain drain 2 waves ago from mid 90ies. Especially these days I thank my family to have moved from there to USA. I have an uncle who is twice the programmer than I am and he had a chance to come bit stayed there because, you know, emigration is rely hard and his girlfriend didn't want to come. Now he's just super stuck in Moscow with mortgage in a modest apartment, wife whose job got killed due to sanctions and two children and unsure that he has energy to make a move. Hope programs like that can help him but he should have moved 20 years ago....

View on HN

Is it really a good idea to take all the brains out of Russia? What would be left? Criminals and nuclear weapons? Is this a good outcome?

If you’re targeted towards high end scientists, then that’s not all of intelligencia. That said, you want enough smart people that there’s some opposition, but it hasn’t seem to do too much in recent years.

The flight is happening anyway, the issue is where they land.

Russia has a very long history of importing foreign tech and know-how, largely to support their natural resource export economy. Foreign expertise will be imported for pay when sanctions drop, someday.

It hasn't made any positive difference leaving the present brains in Russia - look where we're at. Those brains that ideologically align with the liberal West are presently trapped inside of a Russia they are likely to fundamentally disagree with, we should bring them over to our side if we can.

What will be left? The same power structure and malevolent culture that already exists, minus some of the brains.

I believe the last few rounds of brain drain out of Russia have helped to leave their scientific, aerospace and military programs in the relatively dire condition they are at present vs the Soviet past (emphasis on helped, there are other factors such as eg Ukraine no longer being part of the USSR, with Ukraine being an important contributor to various Soviet accomplishments). It has net weakened Russia considerably in my opinion, that's a good thing, until or unless their culture changes.

Culture is not the same as government.

> Is it really a good idea to take all the brains out of Russia? What would be left? Criminals and nuclear weapons? Is this a good outcome?

For the past decades, it already felt that the main exports from Russia were a) fossil fuels, b) organized crime. What else does Russia provide the world?

They're the world's largest exporter of wheat.

Not for Russia, no. But that's not whose program this is, now is it?

The ideal situation for the American ruling class is to simply import highly skilled workers from other countries, rather than produce them at home. This alleviates the domestic burden of paying for a truly world class education system.

What’s his area of speciality?

He runs an software engineering group in MTS, a big telecom. I think mostly large-scale distributed backend engineering.

Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out. Still, I don't think he have any but first world problems.

> Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out.

No, it doesn't. This "woe is me, underpaid all the time" rhetoric from someone with a software dev salary is getting really tiring.

Moscow is huge. And Software devs are a small minority of all occupations. Plenty of people afford living in Moscow just fine without anywhere near the level of salary typical of software.

Probably the only place in the world that priced out software devs was pre-Covid SV, where you weren't able to work remotely from cheaper accommodations. But that really is a unique location and a self-inflicted CA problem.

It's not even a first-world problem. It's more of a middle-upper class spoiled rich brat with a 1% salary problem. The NY alternative for this is "woe is me I can't afford private school for my 6 kids and a 5th ave apartment at the same time"

> Probably the only place in the world that priced out software devs was pre-Covid SV, where you weren't able to work remotely from cheaper accommodations.

You'd be surprised.

As far as I know, in the US both Seattle and Austin became terribly expensive to the point FANG salaries don't allow for a comfortable, well-off life style with a lot of disposable income to spare.

Austin alone is renowned for requiring a >$100k salary to live comfortably, when FANGs with a presence there barely pay $120k.

Personally, I know a couple of ex-Amazon developers from Madrid who outright quit because Amazon's salary (around €40k for SDE1) wasn't enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city center.

> Moscow is too expensive

Compared to what? Compared to other Russian cities it is certainly expensive. Compared to e.g. San Francisco it is very cheap.

> it prices even software developer leads out.

Doesn't match my experience at all. It doesn't require extraordinary thrift for someone with a software developer lead salary to start a family and pay off a mortgage for a decent apartment.

> Compared to what?

Given the context provided for the statement, “Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out”, local wages, since (as described) it is too expensive for even relatively high-wage workers.

The only expensive part in Moscow is home/appartment. Everything else is cheaper than in other cities. Moscow is a major logistic hub of whole country, everything is here. Food, entertainment, great public transport system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com