I'm not anti-union generally, and I'm glad to see a revival of unionization where it makes sense, e.g. places like Starbucks and Amazon, where workers are largely treated like interchangeable cogs by management already, and so a union improves employee bargaining power. And I also think it would make sense for certain areas of tech, and certain software companies, to want to unionize.
But this is Google. As others have commented, many software engineers at Google easily make hundreds of thousands annually in stock awards alone. I can't imagine any highly competent software engineer there wanting a union, because it means that their bargaining power is no better than the "average" software dev, which is obviously false.
I think Sundar's compensation is absurd, but I also think layoffs were warranted given the obscene levels of overhiring many of these tech companies did during the pandemic. And when you say "compensation is way down", at big FAANGs that is largely due to the value of stock awards, but many people would rather get compensated in stock to begin with - Google employees especially reaped gargantuan rewards up until 2022 based on stock.
Google’s origins can be traced back to really smart people innovating through brilliant new algorithms. So it’s understandable why people at Google believe that being brilliant is an irreplaceable asset. If only enough Jeff Deans could be brought together, something amazing would surely happen. But how accurately does this belief match reality? Most successful companies today innovate on product, not raw technology. 99% of product work really can be done by anyone. There are now plenty of multi-billion dollar companies that had original products engineered by total amateurs. Raw technical ability just isn’t that important anymore. And you see this in Google’s business. For how self-proclaimedly smart Googlers are, they sure have a hard time growing the business through new products.
And when I say total comp is down, I’m not talking about existing employees (although their comp is down too for the reason you mention). Go look at job openings near you. More likely than not, base salaries and equity packages will be much lower than before.
LOL
It's true that raw technical brilliance doesn't automatically translate to good products, but it's painfully obvious with Google's non-ability to create compelling products in recent years that product work can't be done by just anyone...
People who own stock are shareholders
You’re conflating two things: earning a decent salary and having power with management. Current Google engineers have good salaries, but they hold no power with management. Their positions could eliminated without them having a say.
I highly recommend you look at other industries. How many people are earning 500K? Not many. Do you really believe software engineers are so special? No. We existed in a specific period of time: explosive economic growth, coupled with low interest rates, coupled with low supply of software engineers. The industry is maturing. Money is no longer free. Tens of thousands of software engineers are pumped out of universities every year. The writing is on the wall. The lifestyle software engineers have come to enjoy is under threat. Why will software look any different than any other professional industry?
Probably you’ll answer with something like: “software has 0 marginal cost so software engineers have extreme productivity numbers.” That’s true, but your wage, absent a union or scarcity of skill, is not tied to your productivity. Take construction nail production. Nails used to be made by hand. Now someone with some rolls of steel wire and a machine can make hundreds of thousands of nails in the time it took to make a few by hand. Yet the person making nails probably earns less than the person who made them by hand. The surplus value is captured by the owner of the machine.
You, as an engineer, are not special. You have no moat. From this conversation, I get the impression you’re not even particularly intelligent. Get over yourself.
It doesn't matter. Compared to the average person, they will still reap a lot of the benefits of rising stock value. Given that stock is a major part of compensation, owning $1 million or more dollars worth of shares is more common than you think, but how should you know? You haven't worked in tech, and judging from your comments it doesn't seem like you've even joined the work force yet.
> I highly recommend you look at other industries. How many people are earning 500K? Not many. Do you really believe software engineers are so special? No. We existed in a specific period of time: explosive economic growth, coupled with low interest rates, coupled with low supply of software engineers. The industry is maturing. Money is no longer free. Tens of thousands of software engineers are pumped out of universities every year. The writing is on the wall. The lifestyle software engineers have come to enjoy is under threat. Why will software look any different than any other professional industry?
We are talking about circumstances in the past and present ie right now, and not in the far off future of 10-20 years from now. It is nonsensical to unionize when both the pay and benefits are decent. When this changes, then behaviour will naturally change.
> From this conversation, I get the impression you’re not even particularly intelligent. Get over yourself.
Given all of the convoluted logic from your comments, that applies more to the person you see in the mirror rather than myself. You live in an ivory tower; you need to experience the real world first before you double down on a subject that you're not very familiar with.
You're also too overconfident. It's not merited.
I have no idea what you guys (esp sibling comment) are arguing about. Larry and Sergey control the company and no other shareholders, no matter how many millions of shares they hold, would be able to block a decision that Larry and Sergey approved of.
Employees at Google are made shareholders because its cheaper for the company than paying cash. Employees form an absolutely tiny minority. The point of unionizing is to increase the leverage of the workers at a company. Workers would benefit much more from unionization than they would from holding the stock at a company without a union.
Maybe this would work if the employees have some sort of monopoly like the people who work at the ports. However, with knowledge workers there’s a threshold when it’s simply cheaper to move states or even countries.
Employees who are well compensated also do not have an incentive to form a union.
You’re still wrong. What’s your next proposal? Investment bankers should unionize?
Software engineers are primarily manufacturers. They make products. The barrier to entry is extremely low for this line of work. I get that you think you’re really smart, but there are tens to hundreds of millions of people in the world who could do your job adequately. Your only leverage is to band together with others doing your work and demand your fair share from the business’ owners.
This is so laughably insane when it comes to Google-caliber software engineers.
> I get that you think you’re really smart, but there are tens to hundreds of millions of people in the world who could do your job adequately.
This is my point, and you’ve just bolstered it. If knowledge workers ”band together”, the company will just hire elsewhere. Your arguments are terrible
If the reason not to unionize is that the company will just move, how much job security do you have without the union? As soon as it’s cheaper to do your job elsewhere, your job will be gone. At least with a union, you have a hope of protecting your livelihood.
This makes sense for factories, but it’s a weak argument for knowledge workers. There’s a lot less physical infrastructure and we’ve literally just proven that remote work is effective for entire organizations within the last 3 years.
> As soon as it’s cheaper to do your job elsewhere, your job will be gone
Did you not read my previous comments? The second a union is created is the same second it’s cheaper to move elsewhere for knowledge workers. You’ve even validated this argument with your “engineers from other places are good enough” line
You haven’t thought this through given your terrible logic, and your comments make it seem like you still haven't graduated and started work yet.
I did read your comment. If the company is perfectly free to close up shop and move, then what is applying upward pressure on your wage? Nothing. You can expect your wage to continually fall until it is inline with other college-educated professionals. You don't even need to be licensed to be a software engineer, and many influential engineers aren't even college educated. It's just not that hard of a job. Median college educated salary is $80,000, which is in-line with mechanical and civil engineering salaries. You can expect software engineering salaries to settle around there absent any intervention from labor.
One issue I have with your argument is that you are providing hypotheticals. "Hypothetically, software businesses will relocate when faced with unionization." But software companies are already paying an extreme premium for labor. That premium implies it's not possible to find the required talent elsewhere. There also are unionized software shops, e.g. game developers, so it's not a given that businesses will automatically be relocated.
Essentially my argument is one along the lines of preparing for a rainy day. The best time to save is when times are good so you can spend when times are bad. Times have been good for software engineers. Now the times are changing. Those who haven't saved are in for a rough ride.
Keeping in my that we are talking about Google and companies like it; historically, investors such as angels and VCs want to minimize risk when investing in volatile startups. How do you do this when investing in knowledge based companies? One way is by past accomplishments of the founders, but a more common method is by looking at their credentials. You invest based on an individual’s university alma mater and previous employers. The institutions matter. The more exclusive the better. There’s less criticism on your judgement if you hire from Stanford and MIT. Fast forward. When a company matures, this mentality of hiring stays within its cultural DNA whether or not they admit it. There are a finite number of those graduates from those schools with those majors.
> It's just not that hard of a job.
It’s a much harder job than being an armchair economist. This is not accurate at all. You should just stop being very wrong with overconfidence. The only thing you’re achieving is constantly reminding me that economics isn’t a real science that it pretends to be. It has no repeatable theoretical model, hence all of the contradictory conclusions.
> You can expect software engineering salaries to settle around there absent any intervention from labor.
It may happen in the next 10 - 20 years, but that’s not reality at the moment or in the past.
> One issue I have with your argument is that you are providing hypotheticals. "
Wow, the kettle likes calling the pot black. Most if not all your arguments are also hypotheticals.
> That premium implies it's not possible to find the required talent elsewhere.
See my first paragraph for the reason
> Essentially my argument is one along the lines of preparing for a rainy day.
If we remember the original argument being that Google engineers should unionize, this is just stupid. Time and effort are finite resources. By the time the day of reckoning comes, and I agree that it will one day, our generation will be either retired or transitioned because we have a half life. Most engineers transition to other positions like management and other job functions by their early to mid 40s, or even much sooner. Unionizing now isn’t logical because it interferes with maximizing our gains now and in the immediate future ie promotions and immediate job stability. Seriously, before you double down on theory, maybe you should start a career first in the tech industry before you keep making terrible assumptions.
Do you have an actual argument, or do you just plan on name-calling until people shut up and fall in line?
> A large chunk of techie compensation is in stock.
Oh ok, I guess they can fire Sundar Pichai/Mark Zuckerberg when he underperforms, then? What? They don't own enough stocks to do that?
There you go. That's your problem.
It’s literally the 2nd sentence.
An ignorant person is someone who is lacking in knowledge. It’s pretty accurate in this case
> Oh ok, I guess they can fire Sundar Pichai/Mark Zuckerberg when he underperforms, then? What? They don't own enough stocks to do that?
What are you even trying to say?
Shares generally give you two benefits, one is a share of the up/downsides, and another is a right of governance in the company. The way employee share distributions are done right now means employees get a tiny fraction of the first and none of the second, even though they are a large stakeholder in the company's future.
Yes, and the goal of communism is to "share the resources and maximize everybody's potential", wonderful if you are incredibly naive and believe that these systems always do exactly what it says on the sticker, and just an empty platitude if you've lived at least two days in the real world.
Here's an example [1] of pro capitalists fucking over 49% of the shareholders to favor 51% of them, and you can find plenty more examples of you look through recent financial news. So tell me once again how being a 1e-7th shareholder of a trillion dollar tech company is guaranteed to "benefit you no matter what"?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-02/merger...