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This is just a cultural divide “dream team” to someone from the UK would be met with a harsh eye roll at best.

There’s some irony here though - UK software companies pay shit. Netflix engineers were routinely making 400-800k in cash with a similar amount of severance if it didn’t work out. Wanker talk aside, I’d rather be at Netflix with top compensation than a UK software company paying devs 60k/yr with heavy top down management.

Sure, use a top US tech company with a random UK company as your example, also prices are not in line with market rates. I earned twice as much in a £1M/yr revenue small company.

That said, the price comparison between US and Europe is always ignoring the myriad of economic difference between the two places, and in this case whether you're working for wankers that only care about their dream team or where you're treated like a decent human being and not a human resource.

There's a reason why many UK developers stay here and don't move to the Silicon Valley to work for Netflix for half a million dollars a year. Not because we're all idiots.

> There's a reason why many UK developers stay here and don't move to the Silicon Valley to work for Netflix for half a million dollars a year.

Because it's incredibly hard to get a work visa, and it comes with a lot of restrictions.

It's better for the US corporations to keep us as colonies of cheap labour for offshoring.

No, that's not the only factor. It may come as a surprise to some, but not everyone wants to live in the US, or live the US company life. I couldn't care less about getting a work visa and doubling my salary if it means I have to live in Silicon Valley. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it's not for me, and for many others.

$250k/yr in Europe > $500k/yr in US, especially since in Europe that would put me somewhere in the 1% and I would live like a prince pretty much everywhere.

And more personally, $250k/yr at a company I enjoy > $1M/yr at a FAANG. I have no interest in getting filthy rich working for any of those companies, but YMMV.

I make $230k now and I'm willing to halve that to get out of America.

Every time I've visited Europe I'm reminded of how money really doesn't buy happiness as cliche as thet sounds.

Yeah go be poor in Europe, see how fun that is

My brother got a job in London long ago, only thing he could do is rent a bedroom in a shared house

Compared to renting a house in Canada with similar wage

There are places in Europe other than London. In fact, put up with a 90-minute commute a couple of days a week, and you can be living in places with half the housing costs.

I always find it strange that on HN we all end up talking about London salaries and London cost of living. Believe it or not, other options exist…

Makes 100k+ euro in Europe is not "being poor"

Despite the reductiveness of your argument there are things people value more than just buying a big house.

The quality of life you get In Europe is superior in my opinion to the one in America. The way cities are laid out and the pervasiveness of public transit allows for a better social life.

I could go on and on but if you're going to be on this forum and engage with others you should adjust your attitude.

London != Europe

But almost no-one is earning $250k/year in Europe. Not even the Prime Minister.

That's the issue, it's more like earning $60k in EU vs. $160k in the US for most Tech workers. And the latter is much, much better.

Ah yes. That classic job. Prime Minister of Europe...

I'm closer to the second figure working in the UK, actually. You won't certainly get $60k/yr working for one of the FAANG offices in London.

In fact, how many US Netflix employees are actually earning $500k/yr like we were discussing upthread? I doubt that's the salary of a junior frontend employee. If it is, good for them. I don't think my quality of life and happiness would change dramatically between $250k and $1M/yr, but apparently this is so hard to convey to an American audience that thinks more money == more happiness.

I think for Americans (I am one), more money == less fear. We don’t have any real social safety nets, so making $500k/year let’s you pay off your house and save for retirement faster.

I’d give up my $500k/year salary to move to Europe and feel more supported if anything went wrong, but I do wonder how much support someone on a work visa in the UK/EU gets if they lose their job.

Social safety net like what?

I just moved to Canada

Health care is free and I am covered on my visa

Medication / dentist is not but my company has private health insurance so I am covered for that too

Education for kids is free too

Public transport sucks but that is because I am in a small city

Europe is better connected and I’ve heard their public health care is better, but I doubt it would be too different

I don’t know at what else the social safety net in Europe would be better

Unless people want to leave miserably, they need to pay rent and food everywhere (heck, you even have food stamp in the states)

Keep in mind things tend to be cheaper in the US than in Europe

Yeah, this is the obverse of why I don't go to the US. I know the guy upthread was smarmily pushing the "oh, it's just because you CAN'T get a visa / get a job / figure out how the fuck you're meant to apply for an ESTA / etc" line, but it's not really that. I'm at the not-literally-top-percentile-but-very-very-close mark in London, and I'm confident I'd be paid commensurately in the US. But the healthcare situation is an absolute, hard no.

I don't care if I get private insurance in the States. I get private insurance here too, and I even use it now and again. But I care about knowing that, no matter what happens to me, ever, I won't be saddled with a life-ruining debt that wipes out what I've gained. Not without my consenting to borrow such an amount.

I'm not interested in playing snakes and ladders. I'm not interested in the equivalent of someone selling me a mortgage without my knowledge in my sleep (and with no house at the end of it). And I know that insurers - unlike the UK govt - are in the business of avoiding making payouts[0].

(That's the main thing, at least, by far. Then the salary-erasing real estate costs, in all the places where those endlessly-quoted salary figures are from, make me not-particularly-sad that I ruled it out.)

[0] I'm not imputing dishonesty. I'm just saying their literal business model is maximise premiums, minimise claims.

Plenty of Prime Minster's or similar roles in European governments that earn 120k+ euro per year

60k anywhere in EU gives you pretty comfy life with two to three proper holidays a year and regular short weekend trips. And there's something left on the table for savings and hobbies as well. You will probably never be rich rich but you will have no money worries.

$250k ~= £200k which gets you a decent lifestyle in London but definitely not living like a prince!

You won't get a four bedroom in Mayfair with that salary, but living in Mayfair is not my idea of fun either.

Yet with that salary you can afford a very nice house outside of central London, you can travel, eat at a fancy restaurant whenever you want, get the latest iDevice every year and buy a new car with cash when the old one breaks, provided you're smart with your money. To my European tastes that's living like a prince (not a king)

In the UK £200k puts you solidly in the 1% bracket - that is, 99% of people earn less than you. If that's not princely, I don't know what is.

For one, I'd think actual princes and princesses[1] in UK live a bit better than what you described. But I can see your point: you take comfort in knowing that you are wealthy relative to the masses. I get this a lot from the recruiters from UK/Europe.

It does not do anything for me: if I have to live in an apartment instead of a house I am not going to feel happy about it because 99% of people live in even worse apartment.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_British_prince...

I earn in excess of 200K£ (So 300K$) in London and in no way I live like a prince. I managed to buy an average flat (at least for continental European standards) in a semi-decent area (Battersea) and that took 10 years of savings plus 3K£pm in mortgage (which is roughly one third of my net income) for the next 25+ years. I pay 2K per month for a random nursery and another 500-600£ for a baby sitter, because the nursery doesn't keep the baby after 1630. I spend in excess of 1K pm in food and bills. That’s a total of almost 7K£ per month just to put a (continental European quality) roof over my head and it’s 70-80% of my aftertax income. If I lose my job, I’m homeless in 3 months.

I’d gladly move to the US if I didn’t have to go through their hellish immigration system (and I may leave the UK if the Brexit madness keeps degenerating).

Holy shit, you need to learn to make your money work for you. If you're homeless in 3 months on a 200k salary, you're doing something very wrong.

That's not a fault of the UK salaries, it's you being terrible with your money. The US won't save you from yourself.

London is insanely expensive and you need a household income of ~140-150K£ to live like a normal person in continental Europe (80sqm flat with 2.6mt ceilings and insulated windows and working kitchen, I'm not asking for a toilet with a window because that would be super-upper class). If you don't go on holidays and are parsimonious with take-aways, the additional 50K to get to 200K are taxed at ~50%, so you get to keep 25K. If you lose your job, one year of savings earns you 3-4 months of survival.

Funny, english people crying about being colonies.

I think GP is referring to the obnoxious type-A personalities that dominate management where everything has to be the best (or at least be presented as such) and virtuous (hah!) competition weeds out the weak. They like to see themselves as moneymaking stablemasters cultivating fine workhorses for their shareholders.

I personally had a manager refer to me as an athlete on a big-league sports team (I was a software developer), and it was incredibly off-putting. I don't like athletes, I don't like sports or athletics, and I don't like zero-sum bullshit at work. If I didn't like the guy otherwise he would have been one of the wankers GP is referring to.

And now the time has come for the Netflix dream team.

Stock down 72% in 6 months.

You know it's kind of funny, because many former Olympic dream teams have famously fallen short from time to time. The most noteworthy is the American basketball team losing early rounds to smaller countries, but also Canadian Hockey "dream teams" being knocked out of early rounds too. Every so often there are upsets, even if you do have a "dream team".

https://lebronwire.usatoday.com/lists/team-usa-basketball-ev...

“Upset” is usually used to refer to a one-off, when a team expected to win has been defeated by an underdog, but then the team often returns to their former level of dominance.

So your analogy suggests Netflix will quickly return to its former glory days.

I think this is premature, at best, if not incredibly optimistic. I think this is the beginning of a long uphill battle for Netflix, and that if they ever return to their former glory days, it will be much further down the road than what is a typical recover from an upset.

I’m not convinced they ever will be the same. Not even close.

This reminds me of my friends who are generally disappointed when the English team with their favorite 'premier league' players loses to other teams in the world cup.

Turns out great players in a league are playing in a specific team configuration, and the context of the league in general is very different compared to a competition between national teams at the world cup level.

So is it time for Hastings and Sarandos to get cut from the team? They’re clearly not achieving dream team results lately, and it has nothing to do with the worker bees.

"Rules for thee but not for me"

I cant beleive they say with a straight face they have a dream when when they cant even implement a search catalogue correctly!

People are leaving netflix because its value propersition is sh*t. Its dream-team algorithm is eating its profit and so full of wankers no one has noticed.

The amount of times ive herad an ex-netflixer tell me they never saw the content i saw is just the writing on the wall.

You had an early mover advantage and the dream team dropped the ball! The only reason your a house-hold name is because of account sharing your users will never pay what will make you profitable. People have left Network TV and the news. Creators no longer dream of Hollywood. Actors are moving to direct to fan engagements. Movies are just re-hashing classics.

The world has moved on.

> I cant beleive they say with a straight face they have a dream when when they cant even implement a search catalogue correctly!

s/can't/won't/ I believe they're gamifying their app to be the software equivalent of a discount retail outlet clothes bin. You get frustrated with the experience and just pick something. Now they're going to put ads in their app. The moment I start seeing ads is the goodbye netflix moment.

Gamify? Finding Movies that are not even playable/available?

Netflix isn’t “successful” as a business. It thought of itself as a technology company instead of a content company. It’s content is second rate compared to its competitors were able to throw money at companies like BamTech (now owned by Disney) to have “good enough” technology.

Yes it’s “profitable”. But until last year, it was having to borrow more money than if was making just to produce and acquire content and the acquired content was ripped away from them by their competitors.

If found Netflix to be better than Disney for content. Amazon prime is a close second to Netflix and loads better than Disney.

I'm in NZ maybe our catalog is that different?

Netflix with VPN is vastly vastly better than US Netflix for sure. Of course they now aggressively block the VPN services for some reason :(

Mentioning Ewing but not Larry Legend... Ouch. Also Chuck Daly was the coach.

That was a cool read. I knew there were some American basketball legends in the 90s but I had no idea the sheer level of dominance they had over the rest of the world.

> The team has been described by journalists around the world as the greatest sports team ever assembled.

> The team defeated Cuba 136–57, prompting Cuban coach Miguel Calderón Gómez to say, "You can't cover the sun with your finger."[33] Marv Albert, who announced the game, recalled that "it was as if [the Americans] were playing a high school team, or grade school team. They were so overwhelming ... a blowout after blowout."[16] The Cubans were the first of many opponents who were more interested in taking photos with the Americans than playing them.

> The coach was the famous Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.

Mike K. was part of the coaching team, led by Chuck Daly.

> The coach was the famous Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.

The coach was Chuck Daly.

In any case, all of this is just the usual self-serving blah blah of top executives to rationalize to extract as much value as possible from the employees while minimizing the cost. I suppose that's the rational, cold thing to do, but I could be spared from the BS discourse.

>They try to assemble a "dream team" for each thing they do.

Uhh yeah the Star Trek "dream team" is really something else ;)