6 ms·

>"If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride."

by xiaoma 10y ago

>"If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride." It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads.

monodeldiablo 10y ago
It's depressing how often I hear this sentiment. So I'll just repeat: Those are far from the only two options available. Advertising makes up about 20% of the US economy. Is it really so hard to believe that there are rewarding, ethical jobs available in that other 80%?
- xiaoma 10y ago
  Of course not. It's just that a lot of the biggest software companies—Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat and to an extent, LinkedIn—are advertising companies
  - Fej 10y ago
    Twitter's not so bad. It is civically important. Revolutions grow because of Twitter. Opposing armies tweet menacingly at each other. And for better or worse, it is the current US President's primary mouthpiece.
  - RestlessMind 10y ago
    That line of thinking is wrong and is similar to saying entire newspaper industry is "advertising" industry, just because their business model needs bulk of the revenue from Ads. I mean, newspaper journalism cannot sustain simply on subscription revenue. And just like newspapers have clear separation between news and ads, companies like Google have clear separation between Search and Ads. So does that mean any journalist working on hardcore investigative journalism is working on advertising? If yes, your world view is a bit warped. If no, please explain why you think a Google search ranking engineer is essentially working on advertising?
    - mercutio2 10y ago
      I strenuously disagree that the previous poster's line of thinking is wrong. Incentives matter. A lot. Companies who derive the vast majority of their revenue from advertising will have their culture and technological choices shaped by the underlying business needs. Heavily marketing dozens of largely unsuccessful moon shots to keep people excited does very little to change this underlying analysis. Newspaper business models continue to be mainly advertising driven, so I don't disagree with your analogy, just your conclusion. Advertising shaped journalism enormously even before that business model was crippled by Google and Facebook. I would have the same difficulty working for Buzzfeed as Google.
      - RestlessMind 10y ago
        > Companies who derive the vast majority of their revenue from advertising will have their culture and technological choices shaped by the underlying business needs. I worked at Google, on Search. My work (and my team and org's work) was never affected by Ads and how Ads worked. We just focused on making Search better. So I object to your imagination of how Google culture and choices are shaped.
        mercutio2 10y ago
        I have many friends who have worked in Search in the last decade. You seem to be interpreting "incentives and culture" as "explicit directives or pressure from Ads". There are many ways for culture to grow. Chinese walls can prevent many overt pathways from growing, but they aren't an antidote to the overall role incentives play inside companies.
        RestlessMind 10y ago
        Do you mind sharing some specific examples, rather than speaking in abstract?
- Zanta 10y ago
  20% seems insanely high to me - do you have a source for this? First google hit for me returned this [1], which puts the number between 1% and 2% of GDP [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings-century-of-flat-line-growth https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-03/advertisi...
  - monodeldiablo 10y ago
    Yeah, that seems vastly more reasonable. I was quoting AdWeek (I know...) because it was the most conservative number available. So yeah, let's be more realistic and say that advertising makes up 2% of GDP. There's got to be an ethical job in one of the industries making up the other 98%. I've never worked for an ad-supported business and I don't find employment difficult to come by...
bogomipz 10y ago
>"It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful ..." But the "cheaper" part is largely because rides are being subsidized by VC money no? Is it that meaningful if its not sustainable?
- jasode 10y ago
  >But the "cheaper" part is largely because rides are being subsidized by VC money no? Uber is a private company so their accounting isn't publicized but as far we can tell, the VC subsidies target a very specific situation: the low prices from competition such as Lyft/Didi Leaving out the "price wars" aspect, the unsubsidized higher Uber fares would still be lower than: 1) taxis (especially out to the suburbs) 2) the TOC (Total Cost Ownership) of owning a car if consumers make a behavioral change from buying their own car and instead, switch to an on-demand "car as a service". E.g. using Uber 10 to 20 times a month is less than purchase price of car + loan interest + taxes + annual registration + insurance + parking garages.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    That price equation probably only holds for new or used luxury cars or within major cities. A cheap beater or something like a new Kia would likely be more cost effective for commuting over the life of the vehicle in my estimation.
    - jasode 10y ago
      Yes, I didn't mean for my example to be a universal cost savings for everyone. It's definitely a case-by-case basis. If one is doing a lot of driving around such as real estate agent or soccer mom with 3 active kids, relying on Uber instead of owning a car would be not be cost effective. That aside, many would see cost savings by making the economic switch from car-as-ownership to car-as-a-service and that scenario doesn't depend on VC subsidies.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    How did you arrive at number 1 if you don't know what the subsidy is? Similar with number 2, if don't actually know what the subsidy is worth how can you state this?
manigandham 10y ago
> more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads. This nonsense needs to stop. That's not how "meaning" works. Marketing and advertising are one of the primary drivers of the economy and very likely the reason the company you work for is successful in staying in business, finding customers and paying you. It's also the primary business model behind several of the largest companies on the planet and funds an immense amount of content across the web for everyone. The advertising industry is not full of evil hackers running scams. It has some of the brightest people working on challenging problems and has driven several other sectors forward, including software development and database technologies that are often discussed here on HN and used for many other ventures. There is no inherent ranking of morality, it takes all kinds of jobs and people to make this world go around. Claiming otherwise is shortsighted and simplistic at best, and never leads to good discussion.
- inimino 10y ago
  You don't see a difference in meaning between advertising and SpaceX? One is moving humanity forward potentially into a spacefaring species in our lifetimes. The other is playing zero-sum games to help Pepsi avoid being outcompeted by Coke.
  - tsunamifury 10y ago
    Do you know where most of SpaceX's funding comes from? Companies who make money by selling ads. Besides listen to it from Musks own mouth, "Meaning is about the delta between impact and scale. Whether you help millions of people share a photo more easily or send one person to mars."
    - inimino 10y ago
      Non sequitur. If you work for a company selling ads, do you derive meaning from how the company invests its profits? Or from the direct effects your actions have on the world? The rationalizations some people will accept to avoid taking responsibility for how they spend their own lives... Edit: clarity
misiti3780 10y ago
By this logic - working at google isnt meaningful?
- RestlessMind 10y ago
  Even worse example: by this logic, working as a journalist at NYT is not meaningful either.
abenga 10y ago
Are you saying the amount of value provided to billions of people by the Google search engine, Maps, Gmail, etc. is worthless, because the primary way the company makes money is by ads?

by xiaoma 10y ago

monodeldiablo 10y ago

It's depressing how often I hear this sentiment. So I'll just repeat: Those are far from the only two options available. Advertising makes up about 20% of the US economy. Is it really so hard to believe that there are rewarding, ethical jobs available in that other 80%?

xiaoma 10y ago
Of course not. It's just that a lot of the biggest software companies—Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat and to an extent, LinkedIn—are advertising companies
- Fej 10y ago
  Twitter's not so bad. It is civically important. Revolutions grow because of Twitter. Opposing armies tweet menacingly at each other. And for better or worse, it is the current US President's primary mouthpiece.
- RestlessMind 10y ago
  That line of thinking is wrong and is similar to saying entire newspaper industry is "advertising" industry, just because their business model needs bulk of the revenue from Ads. I mean, newspaper journalism cannot sustain simply on subscription revenue. And just like newspapers have clear separation between news and ads, companies like Google have clear separation between Search and Ads. So does that mean any journalist working on hardcore investigative journalism is working on advertising? If yes, your world view is a bit warped. If no, please explain why you think a Google search ranking engineer is essentially working on advertising?
  - mercutio2 10y ago
    I strenuously disagree that the previous poster's line of thinking is wrong. Incentives matter. A lot. Companies who derive the vast majority of their revenue from advertising will have their culture and technological choices shaped by the underlying business needs. Heavily marketing dozens of largely unsuccessful moon shots to keep people excited does very little to change this underlying analysis. Newspaper business models continue to be mainly advertising driven, so I don't disagree with your analogy, just your conclusion. Advertising shaped journalism enormously even before that business model was crippled by Google and Facebook. I would have the same difficulty working for Buzzfeed as Google.
    - RestlessMind 10y ago
      > Companies who derive the vast majority of their revenue from advertising will have their culture and technological choices shaped by the underlying business needs. I worked at Google, on Search. My work (and my team and org's work) was never affected by Ads and how Ads worked. We just focused on making Search better. So I object to your imagination of how Google culture and choices are shaped.
      - mercutio2 10y ago
        I have many friends who have worked in Search in the last decade. You seem to be interpreting "incentives and culture" as "explicit directives or pressure from Ads". There are many ways for culture to grow. Chinese walls can prevent many overt pathways from growing, but they aren't an antidote to the overall role incentives play inside companies.
        RestlessMind 10y ago
        Do you mind sharing some specific examples, rather than speaking in abstract?
Zanta 10y ago
20% seems insanely high to me - do you have a source for this? First google hit for me returned this [1], which puts the number between 1% and 2% of GDP [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings-century-of-flat-line-growth https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-03/advertisi...
- monodeldiablo 10y ago
  Yeah, that seems vastly more reasonable. I was quoting AdWeek (I know...) because it was the most conservative number available. So yeah, let's be more realistic and say that advertising makes up 2% of GDP. There's got to be an ethical job in one of the industries making up the other 98%. I've never worked for an ad-supported business and I don't find employment difficult to come by...

bogomipz 10y ago

>"It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful ..." But the "cheaper" part is largely because rides are being subsidized by VC money no? Is it that meaningful if its not sustainable?

jasode 10y ago
>But the "cheaper" part is largely because rides are being subsidized by VC money no? Uber is a private company so their accounting isn't publicized but as far we can tell, the VC subsidies target a very specific situation: the low prices from competition such as Lyft/Didi Leaving out the "price wars" aspect, the unsubsidized higher Uber fares would still be lower than: 1) taxis (especially out to the suburbs) 2) the TOC (Total Cost Ownership) of owning a car if consumers make a behavioral change from buying their own car and instead, switch to an on-demand "car as a service". E.g. using Uber 10 to 20 times a month is less than purchase price of car + loan interest + taxes + annual registration + insurance + parking garages.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  That price equation probably only holds for new or used luxury cars or within major cities. A cheap beater or something like a new Kia would likely be more cost effective for commuting over the life of the vehicle in my estimation.
  - jasode 10y ago
    Yes, I didn't mean for my example to be a universal cost savings for everyone. It's definitely a case-by-case basis. If one is doing a lot of driving around such as real estate agent or soccer mom with 3 active kids, relying on Uber instead of owning a car would be not be cost effective. That aside, many would see cost savings by making the economic switch from car-as-ownership to car-as-a-service and that scenario doesn't depend on VC subsidies.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  How did you arrive at number 1 if you don't know what the subsidy is? Similar with number 2, if don't actually know what the subsidy is worth how can you state this?

manigandham 10y ago

> more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads. This nonsense needs to stop. That's not how "meaning" works. Marketing and advertising are one of the primary drivers of the economy and very likely the reason the company you work for is successful in staying in business, finding customers and paying you. It's also the primary business model behind several of the largest companies on the planet and funds an immense amount of content across the web for everyone. The advertising industry is not full of evil hackers running scams. It has some of the brightest people working on challenging problems and has driven several other sectors forward, including software development and database technologies that are often discussed here on HN and used for many other ventures. There is no inherent ranking of morality, it takes all kinds of jobs and people to make this world go around. Claiming otherwise is shortsighted and simplistic at best, and never leads to good discussion.

inimino 10y ago
You don't see a difference in meaning between advertising and SpaceX? One is moving humanity forward potentially into a spacefaring species in our lifetimes. The other is playing zero-sum games to help Pepsi avoid being outcompeted by Coke.
- tsunamifury 10y ago
  Do you know where most of SpaceX's funding comes from? Companies who make money by selling ads. Besides listen to it from Musks own mouth, "Meaning is about the delta between impact and scale. Whether you help millions of people share a photo more easily or send one person to mars."
  - inimino 10y ago
    Non sequitur. If you work for a company selling ads, do you derive meaning from how the company invests its profits? Or from the direct effects your actions have on the world? The rationalizations some people will accept to avoid taking responsibility for how they spend their own lives... Edit: clarity

misiti3780 10y ago

By this logic - working at google isnt meaningful?

RestlessMind 10y ago
Even worse example: by this logic, working as a journalist at NYT is not meaningful either.

abenga 10y ago

Are you saying the amount of value provided to billions of people by the Google search engine, Maps, Gmail, etc. is worthless, because the primary way the company makes money is by ads?