10 ms·

>Good for you if you're OK with that extreme imbalance. But, I know too many people that discovered only upon an exit, that the financial reward was never desti

by lsc 9y ago

>Good for you if you're OK with that extreme imbalance. But, I know too many people that discovered only upon an exit, that the financial reward was never destined for them. so personally? I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting and how that compares to what I can get elsewhere. I understand I'm playing in a rich man's sandbox, and I'm okay with that. The fact that the man three levels up makes ridiculously more than I do doesn't diminish the fact that I'm getting treated better (mostly measured in getting paid better) than I would be at the next best job I could get. That said, if I was an investor in the company and not another beneficiary of investor largess, I'd be pissed.

Frondo 9y ago
Ok, personally, I do care about the imbalance, and I strongly encourage my fellow techies to care, too. Why? Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. None of this stuff is set in stone. Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave the world a better place for my successors; not just the same status quo. What's the point of life otherwise?
- lsc 9y ago
  >Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave the world a better place for my successors; not just the same status quo. What's the point of life otherwise? dude, I'm a silicon valley computer technician. I literally make 10x what the service people I see every day make, and on top of that, my employer cooks gourmet meals for me, 3x a day, and provides a luxury bus system. Yes, I'm at near the bottom of my local technical prestige hierarchy, but If you think these are crumbs, If you don't think that this is worth a little bit of bowing and scraping, I think you need to stop and look around... look at how normal people live. If you want to work to make the world a better place, If you want to alleviate suffering, work to raise the salaries of those who make 1/10th what we do.
  - kome 9y ago
    to be fair, you can do both at the same time. and not only you can, but to achieve the second, you need the first.
    - lsc 9y ago
      Perhaps I am not parsing. I'm reading this as "We should work to increase our wages in order to increase the wages of those who are paid less well" I think that in a real way, people who create and maintain automation infrastructure are playing a role a lot like the role of management in the economy, except we manage machines that do the job of the worker rather than managing workers. Capital can pay for management to figure out how to pay the old professions to get a job done, or capital can pay us to automate that job away.
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    You are being fooled. Those meals and buses are to keep you at work. Anything other than cash only ties you more tightly to the company. Demand money, not better snacks at the company store.
    - snakeboy 9y ago
      > You are being fooled. Those meals and buses are to keep you at work. It would be extremely naive to think otherwise at this point, so I'm sure the parent is aware and enjoys the benefits despite the ulterior motives behind them.
    - swampthinker 9y ago
      Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual income ceiling is approximately $180-$200k. All of this, without having to risk your health like many other blue collar jobs. All of this, attainable very quickly after graduating college (if you even get to graduating). Feel free to demand the amount of money you think you deserve. I do think programmers are underpaid for the value they create. But don't make it seem like engineers are lowly serfs or something of that ilk. You have it so much better than most Americans. [1] $59,039 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-...
- antisthenes 9y ago
  So why just the techies? Shouldn't you be advocating for everyone to be receiving a larger share of the pie when the company does well? > I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. Oh please. US West coast engineers already have it nearly as good as it can possibly get on this planet, in all of human history. The violin playing for the horrible conditions they must endure is very small if at all existent. I'd be totally with you if you were advocating for a fairer CEO/Owner vs Worker pay in general, but singling out 'techies' is kind of a disingenuous way to go about it.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    As I said in another comment, there are other groups working to help lower-paid service workers organize. They're better suited to that task than I'd ever be. (And I'm not even a part of any union, I just think we in the tech world are long overdue for organized negotiation.) And, so, you do agree with me, but don't like some of my word choices? Can you maybe put that stuff aside and see that, organizing and negotiating together in our very individualistic field starts somewhere?
    - antisthenes 9y ago
      Yes, I do agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, in my own environment, any attempt to organize among workers has fallen upon deaf ears. The workers themselves seem to be resistant (or perhaps fearful) to organizing in a manner that would give them more rights and fairer compensation.
      - Frondo 9y ago
        Awesome. And yeah, I think there's a big element of fear to it--fear of losing what is, right now, a pretty sweet deal for a lot of technical folks. That fear isn't entirely misplaced, anyway; individually, any of us could get fired for almost anything at almost any time. And there's a long and storied history of firing folks when they even whisper about organizing. So I don't think the fear of organizing is irrational--but it is a fear that, I think, should be overcome, because the benefits are, of course, huge. I dunno, I don't think it's all fear, I just think that's a much larger underlying force than people really want to recognize. If the risk were minimal, why wouldn't people be lining up to do this stuff? OH, and FYI I am all in on addressing CEO/worker pay disparity. And, while we're at it, on how low-paid workers (janitors, call center stuff, etc.) get outsourced to another corp, etc. Those are just problems that, I think, would need to be addressed directly through the political system, and not one that workers can take on in an organizing campaign of their own. They're all part of this constellation of "the American worker is getting screwed" but I feel like I gotta pick my battles, at least when I'm posting on the internet.
- hn_throw_1234 9y ago
  "crumbs" What field are you in in this industry? I started making more than my parents combined income by 25. This industry pays incredibly well. Additionally, you're not all addressing any imbalance in impact. "Imbalance" as seen from a perspective of dollars per worker isn't very meaningful unless you advocate for removing incentives and defaulting to a system more reminiscent of communism.
  - lsc 9y ago
    >Additionally, you're not all addressing any imbalance in impact. "Imbalance" as seen from a perspective of dollars per worker isn't very meaningful unless you advocate for removing incentives and defaulting to a system more reminiscent of communism. I actually... want to point out that there's a lot of disagreement there, at least in the technical field. There are a lot of people who claim that money is mostly a 'hygiene issue' in that you need to pay something in the realm of what your people could get elsewhere or else people will leave, but that actually paying more doesn't make that much difference. Personally, I think it varies a lot. I know that you can pretty reliably get me to switch jobs by offering me an additional 20%...[1] but I know people in my field who are better than I am, technically, who basically don't ask for raises, and end up making a lot less than I do simply because I ask for more. These people mostly only switch jobs when the situation forces it. And some of those people are brilliant people and incredible workers. I mean, we're talking on the order of 10 and 20%, not orders of magnitude here, but the point being that the relationship between money and motivation is not as clear cut as it is, say, in sales [1]Another interesting side is that while you can totally get me to switch jobs by giving me more money, I'm not sure you can get me to do much better at my current gig by offering me more money; I think I'm already in the neighborhood of doing the best I can. But, would this change if my salary stopped going up?
- elmar 9y ago
  > Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. no need to wait, you can change the sandbox right now, you can create your own startup and give equal ownership to everyone.
  - slewis 9y ago
    Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero.
    - lsc 9y ago
      > Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero. I dunno; co-ops have been successful in other areas of endeavor. It's as reasonable a way of organizing a company as any other. I mean, mostly they are businesses that provide goods and services for money; businesses who's value rests mostly at their profit in a point in time, but it's possible you could come up with a co-op like structure that would work for a tech company where a lot of the value is in the company and getting the company bought out by a larger entity. I don't know how you'd do it, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done. I can tell you that as a tech worker with options, I would be whole hell of a lot more likely to join a pre-IPO company if they structured the thing in a way that was more transparent and respectful to the workers when it came to the equity component of their compensation.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    I could do that. And, at the same time, my fellow techies in any given megacorp (I'm not in one now, used to be long ago) can start organizing and negotiating together, to establish better working conditions, better pay, more autonomy, more of a say in how the company is run. This isn't an either/or situation.
    - elmar 9y ago
      > I could do that. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
      - 9y ago
afterburner 9y ago
> I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting Yeah that's how they get you.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Is that really a problem? If you're making double than what you would make elsewhere then who cares what some random exec is making?
  - afterburner 9y ago
    You could be making triple, or the people below could be making double. Imbalance runs both ways, and encouraging it in either case ends badly for all of us. Why are you surrendering so much power and wealth to the top?

by lsc 9y ago

Frondo 9y ago

Ok, personally, I do care about the imbalance, and I strongly encourage my fellow techies to care, too. Why? Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. None of this stuff is set in stone. Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave the world a better place for my successors; not just the same status quo. What's the point of life otherwise?

lsc 9y ago
>Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave the world a better place for my successors; not just the same status quo. What's the point of life otherwise? dude, I'm a silicon valley computer technician. I literally make 10x what the service people I see every day make, and on top of that, my employer cooks gourmet meals for me, 3x a day, and provides a luxury bus system. Yes, I'm at near the bottom of my local technical prestige hierarchy, but If you think these are crumbs, If you don't think that this is worth a little bit of bowing and scraping, I think you need to stop and look around... look at how normal people live. If you want to work to make the world a better place, If you want to alleviate suffering, work to raise the salaries of those who make 1/10th what we do.
- kome 9y ago
  to be fair, you can do both at the same time. and not only you can, but to achieve the second, you need the first.
  - lsc 9y ago
    Perhaps I am not parsing. I'm reading this as "We should work to increase our wages in order to increase the wages of those who are paid less well" I think that in a real way, people who create and maintain automation infrastructure are playing a role a lot like the role of management in the economy, except we manage machines that do the job of the worker rather than managing workers. Capital can pay for management to figure out how to pay the old professions to get a job done, or capital can pay us to automate that job away.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  You are being fooled. Those meals and buses are to keep you at work. Anything other than cash only ties you more tightly to the company. Demand money, not better snacks at the company store.
  - snakeboy 9y ago
    > You are being fooled. Those meals and buses are to keep you at work. It would be extremely naive to think otherwise at this point, so I'm sure the parent is aware and enjoys the benefits despite the ulterior motives behind them.
  - swampthinker 9y ago
    Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual income ceiling is approximately $180-$200k. All of this, without having to risk your health like many other blue collar jobs. All of this, attainable very quickly after graduating college (if you even get to graduating). Feel free to demand the amount of money you think you deserve. I do think programmers are underpaid for the value they create. But don't make it seem like engineers are lowly serfs or something of that ilk. You have it so much better than most Americans. [1] $59,039 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-...
antisthenes 9y ago
So why just the techies? Shouldn't you be advocating for everyone to be receiving a larger share of the pie when the company does well? > I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. Oh please. US West coast engineers already have it nearly as good as it can possibly get on this planet, in all of human history. The violin playing for the horrible conditions they must endure is very small if at all existent. I'd be totally with you if you were advocating for a fairer CEO/Owner vs Worker pay in general, but singling out 'techies' is kind of a disingenuous way to go about it.
- Frondo 9y ago
  As I said in another comment, there are other groups working to help lower-paid service workers organize. They're better suited to that task than I'd ever be. (And I'm not even a part of any union, I just think we in the tech world are long overdue for organized negotiation.) And, so, you do agree with me, but don't like some of my word choices? Can you maybe put that stuff aside and see that, organizing and negotiating together in our very individualistic field starts somewhere?
  - antisthenes 9y ago
    Yes, I do agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, in my own environment, any attempt to organize among workers has fallen upon deaf ears. The workers themselves seem to be resistant (or perhaps fearful) to organizing in a manner that would give them more rights and fairer compensation.
    - Frondo 9y ago
      Awesome. And yeah, I think there's a big element of fear to it--fear of losing what is, right now, a pretty sweet deal for a lot of technical folks. That fear isn't entirely misplaced, anyway; individually, any of us could get fired for almost anything at almost any time. And there's a long and storied history of firing folks when they even whisper about organizing. So I don't think the fear of organizing is irrational--but it is a fear that, I think, should be overcome, because the benefits are, of course, huge. I dunno, I don't think it's all fear, I just think that's a much larger underlying force than people really want to recognize. If the risk were minimal, why wouldn't people be lining up to do this stuff? OH, and FYI I am all in on addressing CEO/worker pay disparity. And, while we're at it, on how low-paid workers (janitors, call center stuff, etc.) get outsourced to another corp, etc. Those are just problems that, I think, would need to be addressed directly through the political system, and not one that workers can take on in an organizing campaign of their own. They're all part of this constellation of "the American worker is getting screwed" but I feel like I gotta pick my battles, at least when I'm posting on the internet.
hn_throw_1234 9y ago
"crumbs" What field are you in in this industry? I started making more than my parents combined income by 25. This industry pays incredibly well. Additionally, you're not all addressing any imbalance in impact. "Imbalance" as seen from a perspective of dollars per worker isn't very meaningful unless you advocate for removing incentives and defaulting to a system more reminiscent of communism.
- lsc 9y ago
  >Additionally, you're not all addressing any imbalance in impact. "Imbalance" as seen from a perspective of dollars per worker isn't very meaningful unless you advocate for removing incentives and defaulting to a system more reminiscent of communism. I actually... want to point out that there's a lot of disagreement there, at least in the technical field. There are a lot of people who claim that money is mostly a 'hygiene issue' in that you need to pay something in the realm of what your people could get elsewhere or else people will leave, but that actually paying more doesn't make that much difference. Personally, I think it varies a lot. I know that you can pretty reliably get me to switch jobs by offering me an additional 20%...[1] but I know people in my field who are better than I am, technically, who basically don't ask for raises, and end up making a lot less than I do simply because I ask for more. These people mostly only switch jobs when the situation forces it. And some of those people are brilliant people and incredible workers. I mean, we're talking on the order of 10 and 20%, not orders of magnitude here, but the point being that the relationship between money and motivation is not as clear cut as it is, say, in sales [1]Another interesting side is that while you can totally get me to switch jobs by giving me more money, I'm not sure you can get me to do much better at my current gig by offering me more money; I think I'm already in the neighborhood of doing the best I can. But, would this change if my salary stopped going up?
elmar 9y ago
> Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. no need to wait, you can change the sandbox right now, you can create your own startup and give equal ownership to everyone.
- slewis 9y ago
  Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero.
  - lsc 9y ago
    > Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero. I dunno; co-ops have been successful in other areas of endeavor. It's as reasonable a way of organizing a company as any other. I mean, mostly they are businesses that provide goods and services for money; businesses who's value rests mostly at their profit in a point in time, but it's possible you could come up with a co-op like structure that would work for a tech company where a lot of the value is in the company and getting the company bought out by a larger entity. I don't know how you'd do it, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done. I can tell you that as a tech worker with options, I would be whole hell of a lot more likely to join a pre-IPO company if they structured the thing in a way that was more transparent and respectful to the workers when it came to the equity component of their compensation.
- Frondo 9y ago
  I could do that. And, at the same time, my fellow techies in any given megacorp (I'm not in one now, used to be long ago) can start organizing and negotiating together, to establish better working conditions, better pay, more autonomy, more of a say in how the company is run. This isn't an either/or situation.
  - elmar 9y ago
    > I could do that. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
    - 9y ago

afterburner 9y ago

> I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting Yeah that's how they get you.

Spivak 9y ago
Is that really a problem? If you're making double than what you would make elsewhere then who cares what some random exec is making?
- afterburner 9y ago
  You could be making triple, or the people below could be making double. Imbalance runs both ways, and encouraging it in either case ends badly for all of us. Why are you surrendering so much power and wealth to the top?