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It will have a cleansing effect for our ecosystem, much as forest fires do for theirs. The arrogance and irrational exuberance that has become commonplace among

It will have a cleansing effect for our ecosystem, much as forest fires do for theirs. The arrogance and irrational exuberance that has become commonplace among founders and VCs will be curtailed, and rent & traffic may become somewhat manageable.

kasey_junk 11y ago
And lots of engineers will be out of work (or working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations)...at least if the last bubble pop is any indication.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attempt to drive down engineering wages by increasing enrollment in CS programs, pumping up H1B allocations, and wage fixing[1]. Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay[2], despite running companies into the ground, often because of their inability to perform basic management tasks correctly[3,4,5]. 0: http://www.fwd.us/ http://www.fwd.us/ 1: https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/marissa-mayer-severance-benefits/76781384/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris... 3: http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-... 4: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-polyvore-acquisition-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-... 5: https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/ https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-mot...
  - splintercell 11y ago
    Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.
    - jjoonathan 11y ago
      > splintercell > if labor prices fall drastically ... more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. > somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining Next time a bubble pops and I get a 30% pay cut I will take comfort in the fact that the prices of goods & services around me will soon fall by >30% to compensate (because of all the prosperity) thus preserving my quality of life and proving that my concerns were merely "emotions kicking in" and "childish whining" rather than predictions that the terms of my social contract were about to get dramatically worse.
      - splintercell 11y ago
- Ologn 11y ago
  > working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations When the tech bubble crashed in 2000, and I moved from a startup to a Fortune 500 company, my job became less enjoyable, but my salary did not go down. Then again, I began looking for a job in April 2000, as I had been anticipating a correction - some people with no college and no non-startup experience rode it out to 2001 at their startup, were laid off and had trouble finding work. Being based in a big job market outside the Bay area where I am rooted and networked was also helpful in 2000. One difference between now and 2000 - the only real capital expense to start many software businesses nowadays is payroll. It is much less expensive to start a business. This may affect things.
  - kasey_junk 11y ago
    I actually got a small pay increase when I moved to Big Corp. But I think that had more to do with luck than anything else. Lots of my colleagues took pay cuts and/or dealt with wage stagnation for a fair bit of time afterward. The ones that were really hit were new grads who had accepted jobs that went away before they got there or had only been on the job a couple of months. Another big difference (I hope) was that 9/11 came along right after and changed things in a much more macro scale. Don't know how much we can draw from that.

kasey_junk 11y ago

And lots of engineers will be out of work (or working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations)...at least if the last bubble pop is any indication.

w1ntermute 11y ago
Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attempt to drive down engineering wages by increasing enrollment in CS programs, pumping up H1B allocations, and wage fixing[1]. Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay[2], despite running companies into the ground, often because of their inability to perform basic management tasks correctly[3,4,5]. 0: http://www.fwd.us/ http://www.fwd.us/ 1: https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/marissa-mayer-severance-benefits/76781384/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris... 3: http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-... 4: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-polyvore-acquisition-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-... 5: https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/ https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-mot...
- splintercell 11y ago
  Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.
  - jjoonathan 11y ago
    > splintercell > if labor prices fall drastically ... more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. > somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining Next time a bubble pops and I get a 30% pay cut I will take comfort in the fact that the prices of goods & services around me will soon fall by >30% to compensate (because of all the prosperity) thus preserving my quality of life and proving that my concerns were merely "emotions kicking in" and "childish whining" rather than predictions that the terms of my social contract were about to get dramatically worse.
    - splintercell 11y ago
Ologn 11y ago
> working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations When the tech bubble crashed in 2000, and I moved from a startup to a Fortune 500 company, my job became less enjoyable, but my salary did not go down. Then again, I began looking for a job in April 2000, as I had been anticipating a correction - some people with no college and no non-startup experience rode it out to 2001 at their startup, were laid off and had trouble finding work. Being based in a big job market outside the Bay area where I am rooted and networked was also helpful in 2000. One difference between now and 2000 - the only real capital expense to start many software businesses nowadays is payroll. It is much less expensive to start a business. This may affect things.
- kasey_junk 11y ago
  I actually got a small pay increase when I moved to Big Corp. But I think that had more to do with luck than anything else. Lots of my colleagues took pay cuts and/or dealt with wage stagnation for a fair bit of time afterward. The ones that were really hit were new grads who had accepted jobs that went away before they got there or had only been on the job a couple of months. Another big difference (I hope) was that 9/11 came along right after and changed things in a much more macro scale. Don't know how much we can draw from that.