I hope the perception leans more towards 'uber rich tech execs conspired to pay their employees less' and not 'some of the best paid employees complain about how little they make'.
Someone I know in SF posted a picture today of their new Audi with a caption about how they were finally a real adult now that they owned one. I think that's pretty disconnected from reality, and sadly I think it is somewhat typical of the mindset that a lot of engineers have in this industry.
Even when I was making $15 an hour answering phones, I'd hear no end about how the bus drivers on strike shouldn't get paid $20 an hour. Yet no one wanted to quit their job and become a bus driver.
To the rest of the public, we probably look like complaining oil or Walmart execs. While the rest of the general public is dealing with insane commutes and thankless/soul-crushing jobs, we got things like "The Social Network" movie, San Francisco gentrification issues, fancy catered parties and Google Glass. I can't even explain this to the rest of my family. They're like "Why are the people in your field complaining? Aren't they partying like it's 1999?" And seriously, my life is basically a dream compared to the rest of my family and past classmates not in tech. I make more money than I ever thought possible, I have no commute because BART is so close, I can WorkFromHome just about anytime I want, I work in San Franciso with lost of food options and my job is something I'd be doing on my free time anyway. I have the flexibility to be at my standing-desk on HN debating with people online while drinking my fancy glass bottle VOSS water from Norway. And the icing on the cake is probably the minimum 2 recruiter LinkedIn emails I get a week offering even more money. Also, I never negotiate salary. I just take the first offer so I assume I'm in the lower-range compared to most of HN.
Seriously, go try and explain this to the average lower/middle-class American outside of tech. This must look ridiculous. I'm right in the heart of this tech scene and I'm not even convinced we should be complaining.
The 20s called. They want their cliches back. Most of the world is richer than US poor people these days. Of course, even if "most" are, there's still 1 billion people barely making enough for food, I'll grant you that.
Yeah. If you spout shallow nonsense like this, I cannot take you seriously. But out of pity, here goes:
Don't let my username fool you. I am probably much younger than you are. I grew up poor in a third-world country in awe of the average American. Now, people like me are being called "techie scum" by the same kind of people I used to adore and envy.
My point is this: Don't hate on people more hardworking or just plain lucky than you are. If you are commenting on the internet you are probably at the top of the world.
Oh, and "most" = "majority" = >51%. World population = 6.5 billion people sans US. US poor = probably less than 10k dollars per year (maybe less at PPP). So at least 3.5 billion people should be making more. Middle class Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, etc, should definitely cover my claim, based on PPP prices.
Lawyers can charge hundreds of dollars an hour but no one begrudges them that because that is what the market for their services is. Maybe the market for strong IT workers will land in that range too if the market was allowed to work.
No, it's not our fault that others aren't as well off. But that doesn't make mean we can't do anything to help; it does mean we should complain about getting paid marginally lower six figures with a little more self-awareness.
Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voss_%28water%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy
I was walking around lake Elisabeth in Fremont just this afternoon marveling at the massive water pipes. There are two continuous strips of undeveloped land that go through Fremont and the South Bay that mark the travel of San Franscico's water supply.
I think baseball players are a fairer analogy. People love to hate on baseball player salaries, but it's not their fault that the market value of their skills is what it is. They are obligated to fight collusion and have a union anyway, though.
It doesn't help that this is non-recruitment/poaching vs blacklist. That seems greedier that people are complaining about lack of inbound recruitment vs more heavy-handed/less abstract techniques.
I think it has to be fought, because of the precedent, like companies defending copyrights.
That's a shame, because collusion of this sort is illegal, full stop. If our industry "complains" about it, and wins, this precedent sends a very clear message to companies - including, and perhaps especially, those in other industries - that wage-fixing pacts of this sort are not tolerated. This may not completely stop other companies from attempting similar antics, but it certainly changes the cost-benefit analysis.
Engineer's pay pales in comparison to the value they create. That's an issue.
Average office drone X probably shouldn't even have a job so yeah, they shouldn't expect to get paid as much as a developer at Google.
Who lives in this ultra expensive real estate? The execs stiffing the developers on pay while making bank on their work.
My point is that people CAN afford to live in these places and those people built their fortunes on the back of a labor supply with artificially suppressed wages.
Do you think the execs at Google/Apple care what Joe the plumber thinks about how much money they make. No, they're going to court to beat the settlement down.
You can be broke and have the adoration of the poor, or you can be rich and hated by the poor.
(There is a 3rd option which is chuck a few thousand at a democratic politician, and write an op ed piece in the NYT every few years about how the rich should pay more taxes, and enjoy not paying taxes.)
They understand that different workers earn different salaries, and they get that "paid below fair market wage" means what it means, regardless of what "fair market wage" is the calibration.
But we can't have unions or talk of unions in the software industry, because that might upset the rather hilariously mistaken insider perception of this industry as being a meritocracy.