And why should we artificially restrict the supply of immigrants? It's not like it's a zero-sum game, something that Greenspun ought to realize.
http://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs...
http://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs...
I don't think the economics of that add up, though, long term. If there are a bunch of people willing to work, and an artificial barrier, that barrier will only work for so long before people route around it.
The collusion between the big tech companies to drive down salaries for top personnel strongly suggests that the market salary for these people is actually higher than what they're currently paid. They're grade-A talent in a hot field, the fact that their salaries are high doesn't mean they're above-market.
Paul Graham makes the following claim:
"if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the US, where they then paid them the same as they’d have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they’re telling the truth: there are just not enough great programmers to go around."
Phil Greenspun makes the common (common because, in my opinion, it's so sensible) argument that perhaps a "shortage" exists because the market rate is too low to draw people into the field - that if you raised the price to well above what it currently costs to get a programmer, you'd draw considerably more people into the field. Greenspun claims that Graham's argument is based on the flawed notion that "there is no way that if companies nationwide paid programmers more than the BLS’s median pay of $74,280 per year (source), additional Americans would be attracted to this field."
Part of the problem with Greenspun's retort is that PG claims to be talking only about an extreme elite, not the run of the mill programmers. However, the logic still stands in my opinion. Have you seen what elite people earn in other fields? I guess if you think that it's impossible to get someone who would otherwise have gone to med, law, or finance into programming by offering more money at a comparably elite level of talent, you'd agree that the supply of people is fixed and doesn't respond to market signals. That seems to be the basis of the disagreement.
No, it really isn't. Read my article and the linked economic research.
> if there was 10 fold increase in programmers
There has been a 10 fold increase in programmers since 50 years ago, but more than a 10 fold increase in the amount of programming work, so salaries have done just fine. Also, those programmers are already there, in other countries, so artificial barriers can only create so much salary disparity before companies will pursue other options. At that point, why were you bothering trying to keep them out in the first place?
Read the linked article: it is not a zero-sum game.
EDIT: And yes every average heart surgeon is capable of doing heart surgery otherwise they would not get a degree in the first place. There is no such thing as 10x heart surgeon.
So you see there is something like a 10X heart surgeon, he/she is called a specialist.
1. Take 10 times less time performing heart surgery.
2. Could perform successful surgery at 10 times less cost.
3. Invent new ways of doing work of 10 heart surgeons.
4. Survival rate of his/her patients would be 10 times that of other heart surgeons.
5. Could perform heart surgery so complicated that it would generally require 10 heart surgeons during the surgery.
Are you going to find such a heart surgeon ? If so, how many? would entire healthcare system be functional if all hospitals are adamant on just hiring 10x surgeon and at the same time advocating bringing more 1x heart surgeons into the market.
You want the procedures to be built around superstars?
If I were building a software company that I wanted to survive and thrive long term, I would definitely try to cater to BOTH the superstar and more average programmers. Both have their place.
I tried to explain this to a manager: instead of trying to find a developer with perfect skills, get a junior one and train him.
There is no shortage of developers, but there is definitely a shortage of senior developers with (quoting one of the emails i get weekly):
5+ years of experience in the following skill sets... Web-Based C# / ASP.NET 3.5 / 4.0 Development – Design / Development / Implementation MVC Design Pattern Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) Framework – Entity Framework WebServices / SOAP / XML WCF – Windows Communication Foundation SQL Server 2005 / 2008 – T-SQL / Database Design Frameworks