Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

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I can’t help but lead with “ego” and “legacy” because the entire ability to create something from nothing (programming) and to get disproportionally rewarded for doing so (programming salaries) comes along with more than a touch of blind privilege.

#Fail

http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/software-engi...

Programmers are well-compensated compared to most people outside of the 1%, but this idea that we're this overpaid class of people is ludicrous. Look at the Bay Area: there's immense value being created entirely by some of the world's top programmers, most of whom can't even afford to buy a house there.

We make enough money that no one should pity us, but the general payoff we get is on the low side of fair, especially in VC-istan where the upside is mostly hogged while the downside risks (damaged careers, sudden firings, constant reorgs, rapid obsolescence of skills) are externalized to the engineers, who are almost trained to personalize their failures amid the dysfunctional institutional miasma (marginal, poorly-managed companies) the VCs have created.

Even if it were true, it would be against our interest to say that we're an overpaid, entitled class. The fact that it's not true makes it even more ridiculous when I hear people say it.

I don't know if I can properly distinguish the difference between programmers being overpaid and the rest of humanity being underpaid.

> Even if it were true, it would be against our interest to say that we're an overpaid, entitled class.

Not everything that's true or right has to be in our interest.

I think everyone can agree that what you are paid to work should be near the value your work provides to whomever is paying you.

Therefore people are underpaid if they provide a lot of value and receive a lot less in return and vice versa.

Therefore are lawyers who create bad patents and then sue people over them, thus destroying value and producing none themselves overpaid? Yes

Is a fast food worker working for minimum wage for a company that makes billions of dollars in profits underpaid? Yes.

Unfortunately supply and demand determine our salaries and not strictly the value our labor produces.

Therefore people are underpaid if they provide a lot of value and receive a lot less in return and vice versa.

The problem is determining the value those people provide.

If a business owner invests $10 million dollars in a complex machine that creates $10 million dollars a year, is the employee who flips the machine on and off every day and replaces toner cartridges producing $10 million dollars in value? Hardly. The person/company who created the machine more directly produced the value and he/they determined to sell it to the business owner for $10 million dollars.

Is a fast food worker working for minimum wage for a company that makes billions of dollars in profits underpaid? Yes.

No.

This has similarities to my contrived scenario. Billions of dollars were spent in creating fast food companies that can mostly be operated by teenagers with little or no skills. What creates the profit, the investment in all of the infrastructure that lets the teenagers follow simple instructions or the easily replaceable teenagers themselves?

You seem to often conflate the world of programmers with the world of VCs. It looks like tunnel vision or myopia.

I know plenty of people who are 30 years old, and are making 20-30k, or don't have a career and are still working in the service industry. We are fortunate.

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