Nothing to do with cheap money, tech companies are some of the most profitable and revenue efficient companies in history.
Because it is true. And because I am sick and tired of this self hate of "inflated salaries". Jesus, we are working in one of the most profitable industries, whatever we build tends to be a long term force multiplier, and somehow a large portion of the sector thinks our earnings are inflated.
The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is inflated. Not a software engineer living a decidedly middle class life.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/217489/revenue-per-emplo...
From the stuff I'm reading, the layoffs that are happening are mostly cutting unprofitable programs, or unnecessary support staff. And in very small numbers (5% or less).
At this point, I'm not sure what we're really discussing since this started out as talking about how above average tech salaries are at these top-tier companies, both in terms of the industry and in general. My only point was that I don't think unionizing would be beneficial to increasing tech salary or to preventing there layoffs. Where they would be useful is more consistent treatment of employees and adherence to their own policies.
Haha, ok. Can you not clearly see your own subjective bias? Why doesn't that hedgefund manager deserve it? Many of the people working for tech companies are not middle class. At the very least, $500k+ salaries are above middle class. The starting salary at most top-tier companies is multiple times the median salary. I say top-tier companies, because these are the ones doing the layoff. Analysts are saying there will be, or is, a slow down in many if the types of products (data) sold by these companies.
You can continue to think that $500k+ salaries are warranted because you're a force multiplier etc, but that's the same reasoning CEOs and fund mangers use. Maybe they are. But don't be surprised when hordes of average people call you out.
Edit: Why disagree?
I can’t think of anything else that takes so much, while adding nothing to society.
Not all hedge funds are malicious.
We can also see issues in tech that are similar. Look at all the hate Meta gets for their business model - using addicting algorithms to gather and sell users' info. There can certainly be an argument made here about the potential societal damage they cause being a parasite.
We should absolutely hold Big Tech accountable for their business models and actions.
On the whole though, they have released many orders of magnitude more useful things than Hedge Funds.
Is there a Citadel Maps I can use ? Or a TwoSigma framework like React ?
At least Big Tech has ad-powered useful services.
Hedge funds gobble up PhD holders and the cream of the crop and use them to make 0.1% of the population 5% wealthier ?
Well no shit - you're comparing an entity that creates "things" to one that doesn't!
"gobble up PhD holders and the cream of the crop and use them to make 0.1% of the population 5% wealthier"
Um, Google does this with data scientists. Maybe they do create a useful app, but make no mistake that their primary goal is to make the stock owners (mostly the top 1%) richer off the backs of their unsuspecting users.
An entity that puts nothing into the host system, but consumes resources from the host to fatten itself is a parasite.
In the case of hedge funds, it’s a zero-sum game. Either you or the counter party lose depending on how the bet goes. In aggregate, society gets nothing, but the cost of the net zero value is high (highly skilled people, taking resources away from other things). It’s profitable but net useless.
In the case of Google Maps, no one has to lose for me to make a journey. It’s profitable and useful.
Saying, ohh but they both operate in a capitalistic system to make money for shareholders is not relevant.
How is that money generated ?
You seem to miss how the system works. Those companies are where they are today because of financing. Stock purchases, including demand for existing shares drives that.
"In the case of Google Maps, no one has to lose for me to make a journey."
No, you trade your data (lose privacy) for that journey.
Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME.
Where is the “financing” in that?
What about all the companies that “got to where they are now” aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit ?
The fact you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and claiming that just buying stock = increasing demand = creating value should be a red flag.
“No, you trade your data”
How exactly does that happen in offline mode ?
"Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME."
Who's scraping the bottom of the barrel now? Not all hedge funds operate that way.
"aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit?"
Please elaborate. Shorting does not itself lead to a company dissolving.
"claiming that just buying stock = increasing demand = creating value should be a red flag."
I've claimed no such thing. Stop straw manning. Demand for shares increases stock price, which allows the company to issue shares at a higher price, generating more capital for future expansion. The company can increase demand by increasing their value, either realized or speculative.
You seem to have an emotional vendetta against hedge funds and aren't interested in a real discussion from a systems thinking perspective. Hopefully some third party has gained something from this conversation, otherwise it was a complete waste of time.
Besides, 1.5 million A DAY, is near a billion a year, which is an absurdly high number. Especially if said person cries about "inflated tech salaries". You can't ignore these people have exceptional talent, in one of the highest cost of living cities.
Finally, what do these people get for 300k salaries (which was the most common number used for Google, for example)? If you stop looking at the number but the life quality, and what these people have, you will notice quickly that most of it is what we would classify as middle class a couple decades ago.
A single person earning $300k is above middle class.
If we look solely at quality of life (which you don't even define), then the results are meaningless. Even if the things they have would have been considered middle class decades ago, they are not middle class now due to population increase and density increase in that area (you can't all have SFH in the finite space). Or possible if you mean the quality of has overall decreased, then those people still have more that the people who are currently middle class. I don't think quality of life has actually gone down, but I'd be interested in numbers either way.
Pando had good coverage: https://web.archive.org/web/20200304045453/https://pando.com...
I used to think that we didn't need unions, until that came up.
It's been asked, how would unions have helped with that, and I don't know, but it seems like there's some room for improvement somehow.
Perhaps unions are not the end all be all, however we definitely need to follow suit like architects in my opinion. Somehow having a unified say, a way to decide on what are the standards etc. will help tremendously as far as the health of our sector goes.
Us workers already have Universal protections and job security while striking even if they're not in a union.
No need for sick time, huh. Mat leave, pat leave. Generally US worker protections are some of the weakest in the developed world. So yeah I mean it's possible that these can be achieved without unionization, they definitely haven't been. A lot of those protections you allude to were actually obtained because of unions.
The weekend, and not locking workers in leading to them burning to death in downtown New York are all thanks to organized labor. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
>So yeah I mean it's possible that these can be achieved without unionization, they definitely haven't been.
Maybe I'm missing something, but almost all big tech companies have these and never had a union.
>The weekend, and not locking workers in leading to them burning to death in downtown New York are all thanks to organized labor.
When was the last time US programmers were locked in an office? I have never heard of this as a big issue.
We were talking universal protections. I said they don't exist. It's disingenuous to then pivot back to not just tech, but specifically big tech. Plenty of smaller companies have less generous policies. This isn't the case in places that have the universal protections of which you spoke. Although on second reading you may have been referring to individuals striking only.
Universal protections around striking specifically are pretty dismal, with extremely limited enforcement in the US. Also, what good is a strike without organization? You gonna get three people outside holding up a sign? Strikes only work if you get enough people doing it.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but almost all big tech companies have these and never had a union.
Correct, but workers are the beneficiaries of policies that were brought in thanks to predecessor unions and the organized labor movement. This is like saying that we don't need the EPA anymore because the Cuyahoga hasn't caught fire in a while.
> When was the last time US programmers were locked in an office? I have never heard of this as a big issue.
You can thank a union for that. Feel free to read the wikipedia article I linked you in my original reply and circle back. Specifically the 'consequences and legacy' section. The history of worker rights everywhere (and the US is no exception) was written in blood.
The part that kills me is how differently people get treated. Employees of similar skills/output/etc can be treated entirely differently. There's no transparency in ratings and performance reviews. I've seen my company violate its policies multiple times to screw people over, including myself. A real contract, with or without a union, would be a huge step.
It's also about perspective. I'm below the median for a US dev, but even so, I'm above the median in general. We have to use the Area Median Income (AMI) for a specific locale. Middle class goes up to 2x the AMI. On much of the east coast, it's about $140k per household. It's very easy to exceed this if married with both spouses working and one being in tech.