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Where are they written off, exactly? They are most definitely included. If anything, they are specifically the people who am I talking about. Unless there is s

Where are they written off, exactly? They are most definitely included. If anything, they are specifically the people who am I talking about. Unless there is some reason their function isn't actually necessary, in which case, yes, the jobs may disappear. But I do not see the trouble with unnecessary jobs disappearing. Nobody is crying over the loss of loom operators either.

ubernostrum 9y ago
Turns out a city needs police officers. And firefighters. And garbage collectors. And transit operators. And cooks. And cleaners. And waiters. And teachers. And construction workers. And... lots and lots of jobs that don't involve getting paid $200k to use node.js to build a platform that does nothing, earns no revenue, and goes under 12 months later having provided no return on $100m in VC money. But for some reason that is the job people on HN think is "value".
- randomdata 9y ago
  There is no big book in the sky that says how much a job has to be paid. It is simply supply and demand. If the populace needs police officers, firefighters, garbage collectors, transit operators, cooks, cleaners, waiters, and teachers, there is no reason those jobs cannot also pay $200k per year – if that is what it takes to keep people in the region doing those jobs. Nobody thinks there is special value in that node.js job. It is simply that $200k is what it takes to incentivize someone to both live in the Bay Area and work on that node.js project. If the VCs could find people matching that criteria to do the job for less, they would be jumping all over those people. Why do you think SV's largest tech companies have been pushing the government so hard to ensure that everyone learn how to code in school? But, for now at least, they don't exist. And when the people for the other aforementioned jobs don't exist at a lower price, pay has no choice to go up for the jobs as well. Unless the local population decide those jobs aren't as necessary as you claim they are and choose to forego them entirely. Which is always an option too.

ubernostrum 9y ago

Turns out a city needs police officers. And firefighters. And garbage collectors. And transit operators. And cooks. And cleaners. And waiters. And teachers. And construction workers. And... lots and lots of jobs that don't involve getting paid $200k to use node.js to build a platform that does nothing, earns no revenue, and goes under 12 months later having provided no return on $100m in VC money. But for some reason that is the job people on HN think is "value".

randomdata 9y ago
There is no big book in the sky that says how much a job has to be paid. It is simply supply and demand. If the populace needs police officers, firefighters, garbage collectors, transit operators, cooks, cleaners, waiters, and teachers, there is no reason those jobs cannot also pay $200k per year – if that is what it takes to keep people in the region doing those jobs. Nobody thinks there is special value in that node.js job. It is simply that $200k is what it takes to incentivize someone to both live in the Bay Area and work on that node.js project. If the VCs could find people matching that criteria to do the job for less, they would be jumping all over those people. Why do you think SV's largest tech companies have been pushing the government so hard to ensure that everyone learn how to code in school? But, for now at least, they don't exist. And when the people for the other aforementioned jobs don't exist at a lower price, pay has no choice to go up for the jobs as well. Unless the local population decide those jobs aren't as necessary as you claim they are and choose to forego them entirely. Which is always an option too.