6 ms·

another major part of the problem is the entitled, defocused employee culture in silicon valley. generated by the fact that crazy talent competition ensures emp

another major part of the problem is the entitled, defocused employee culture in silicon valley. generated by the fact that crazy talent competition ensures employees have a huge safety net in the form of big tech. i raise capital in silicon valley. but i do not want to hire people there. i hire amazing engineers in russia at a fraction of the cost and they: - are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every opportunity. - have skin in the game - are focused on building products and not on things like "we need to hire more female engineers even though none are applying." and lifestyle-wise the bay area is just unpleasant. aggressive homeless people. abysmal dating environment. awful traffic. and of course the costs, taxes etc. top it all off. that being said in terms of concentration of smart people that one can connect with at a moment's notice, and in terms of fundraising, the Bay Area is absolutely unparalleled. my conclusion is to spend couple months a year there but live and hire elsewhere.

chosenbreed 8y ago
> and lifestyle-wise the bay area is just unpleasant. aggressive homeless people. abysmal dating environment. awful traffic. Mmm...could you elaborate on the abysmal dating environment? :-)
- linguae 8y ago
  I'm not the original poster, but I'll respond (disclaimer: I'm a single male, about to turn 30 in a few months, who lives near Silicon Valley): 1. Single men vastly outnumber single women in Silicon Valley due to the unfortunate gender demographics of the tech industry, making for a very competitive dating environment for single men. 2. Due to the Bay Area's high housing prices, single people living in the Bay Area who are not Bay Area natives tend to be highly-paid young professionals. These people tend to be driven, ambitious, and have very high dating standards. There's nothing wrong with having high standards, but it makes the dating scene more difficult since you have to work on meeting those standards in order to be successful with the dating scene. It seems like a man has to be in excellent physical shape, make a ton of money, and have the right pedigree in terms of degrees and credentials in order to be attractive in Silicon Valley since there are so many young professional single men in this area. 3. There's a big problem with "flaking" in the Bay Area, where some people have a bad habit of standing people up on dates and other social outings. This has happened to me, and it is very rude and inconsiderate, especially with the busy schedules that many people in Silicon Valley have, as well as the traffic. 4. This is probably my most controversial point, but despite the Bay Area's reputation as a politically progressive place, ethnic minorities seem to have a harder time dating than non-minorities. This matters to me since I'm black, a rarity in Silicon Valley. While the statistics on this page from OkCupid (https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-107dcbb4f060 https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...) are not confined to the Bay Area, based on my personal experience and on empirical research I've done by reading other sites regarding the dating scene in the Bay Area, it is a problem here. To be frank, while I enjoy Silicon Valley's career opportunities, the high cost of living and the difficulties I've experienced dating here make me want to research some alternatives, although as a lifelong Californian (but not a Bay Area native), I'm a bit apprehensive about leaving the state since I enjoy California's diversity and weather. I've thought about Tokyo, which I've lived before as an intern and absolutely loved, but it would be a massive cut in salary.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    Your point #4 will be magnified to the extreme in Tokyo.
    - linguae 8y ago
      Interestingly enough, back when I lived in Tokyo, I seemed to get more attention from women there than I ever did in California, whether it was the Central Valley, the Bay Area, or the Central Coast. But I was pining for someone back at home while I was on my internship (spoiler alert: I was rejected as soon as I returned home), and so I ignored the attention I received. This has nothing to do with the dating scene, and I risk deviating from the topic, but I felt this indescribable, overwhelming sense of freedom as an African-American in Japan that I never felt in America. I felt the difference in treatment, where I was treated better in Japan than in America. Women in Japan wouldn't walk on the opposite side of an alley whenever I walked by, nor would they act scared whenever I was alone in an elevator with them (I had an incident in Sacramento as a teenager when a white woman refused to enter an elevator with me and another black guy.) I felt like I was in a place where I could finally be myself. To me, being a "gaijin" in Japan was an upgrade from being an African-American in America.
      - veebat 8y ago
        That really speaks to the horrors of America, given that in Japan, as a white male foreigner with command of "hai", "arigato" and on good days, "ah, so desu ne", I definitely got the sense of being put up with - albeit more so in Tokyo than elsewhere. But at the same time I can sympathize in that street interactions in California have grown openly hostile across the board. The level of polite hospitality is so low and paranoia so high that it is actually hard to go outside and do business without ending up in a confrontation of some kind. Just the other week I was crossing the street in SF after seeing a movie[1] and a lady(a white lady) crossing the other direction gave me the finger and screamed "fuck you, fuck you" for no reason I could fathom. We passed, and then I had a feeling of deja vu and thought, "didn't that happen the last time I saw a movie here too? Does this woman just go around in the evening cursing out strangers for self-care?" And that is the kind of thing that sounds dreadfully believable for SF these days. The privilege spares me from most avenues of material loss, but that's hardly something to be proud of. [1] The film was Sorry to Bother You, if it matters. I enjoyed it
deleted 8y ago
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l8again 8y ago
So, paying competitive is now being "entitled". Engineers have been played for far too long, and this post shows that it isn't over yet. I, for one, am glad that silicon valley is going the right direction in terms of the total comp for engineers, which has been kept artificially low until facebook came to the scene.
- repolfx 8y ago
  He didn't actually say that he was thinking of high pay in respect to being 'entitled'. There are lots of other ways SV based workforces show this characteristic, e.g. the constant complaints about the exact nature of the free food I saw when I was at Google. Whilst the no-poach agreements were wrong, I don't think comp was kept artificially low in the way you mean. What drives up comp in the valley at the moment is the existence of companies that make tons of money but have voting, share structures and cultures that don't incentivise them to return any to investors. The combination of huge profits, endless vanity hiring and no dividends or share buybacks is fairly new and it's not clear to me it's a good trend. I don't believe Facebook, Google or Twitter actually need all those engineers they're hiring.
  - 0xB31B1B 8y ago
    You think it’s better that they return money to the fat cat investors then to invest in their own products?
    - repolfx 8y ago
      The "fat cat investors" are to a large extent these days things like pension funds, or VC firms that will just immediately turn around and re-invest the money into new startups. And yes, I think that'd be the right thing to do. The sums of money we're talking about here are vast. They're not going to go into the pockets of some stereotyped "fat cat" capitalist. Outside of pension payouts they'll be reallocated to other companies that may be doing important things of the sort that big internet firms just won't tackle, like biotech/drugs research. Look at it like this. Does Google really need to create yet another instant messaging product for the seventh time? Or would the capital used to do that be better re-allocated to some other part of the economy?
scarface74 8y ago
are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every opportunity. - have skin in the game Why do companies expect “loyalty” beyond the employer gives the employee a paycheck and the employee works X number of hours per week, doesn’t try to compete with the employer while at the company, and doesn’t steal IP? Does the employee have an ownership stake in the company? If not, the only “skin in the game” they have is will they get paid next week.
- redm 8y ago
  Why do you think that companies don't care about employees? Everyone who works at a company has an emotional stake in the work, the product, and usually pride in what they do. That matters. Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there. Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Why do you think that companies don't care about employees I’m not saying they wish their employees harm. But if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, your company is going to send flowers to your family and have an open req for your position before your body is buried. The company’s first priority is the well being of the company. Your first responsibility is what’s best for you. As long as those two things intersect, your company won’t let you go and you don’t have any reason to leave. Everyone who works at a company has an emotional stake in the work, the product, and usually pride in what they do. That matters. Yes, I take pride in my work and want to see my work get into production. But that’s separate from having any loyalty to the company more than I described above.* Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there. Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people. I agree. But no company’s - especially one that is publicly owned or investor funded - first priority is its employees.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
alexpetralia 8y ago
This is exactly why I left a quantitative trading company in NYC and moved to Poland for software engineering talent. This certainly baffled my coworkers. More and more companies will eventually recognize the talent abroad is how you want to supply your business, while the market demand you want will still remain in the U.S.
- romanovcode 8y ago
  > More and more companies will eventually recognize the talent abroad is how you want to supply your business That is until those poor folks at Eastern Europe realise they can charge much more and the circle will repeat.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Market demand isnt going to remain in the USA if most jobs get shipped overseas
- madengr 8y ago
  How about someplace in the USA that isn’t SV or NYC?
  - TheArcane 8y ago
    It's easy for talented people in the US to move to SV and NYC. It's a lot harder for the same kind of people abroad to move to SV and NYC.
    - deadmetheny 8y ago
      Not all talented people want to move away from their friends and families to live in 4x price of living shitholes.
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
Ah yes, another naysayer who somehow manages to mention Russian Talent..... Am I seeing the troll factory at work in realtime here..
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> are loyal Generally this doesn't work both ways. If times get tight, engineers are among the first to be canned. Good engineers command higher prices because they need the buffer to live on after that "loyalty" gets them RIFed.
deleted 8y ago
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noelsusman 8y ago
I wouldn't want to live or hire in SV either, but your Russian engineers are only loyal because the Russian economy has been in a tailspin since 2013. It's not that SV engineers are entitled, they just have options and your Russian friends don't. I also don't see how wanting more female engineers could get in the way of building products so I'm not sure why you threw that in there. It's not like people are staring at the wall all day pondering diversity issues instead of building products.
draw_down 8y ago
I hate when the serfs get uppity too
wool_gather 8y ago
(I'm not in SV.) I'm pretty well paid as a software developer, and I feel fortunate to be so. But there's a very plain fact that, without another salary, I wouldn't be able to raise a family in the city where I work. Why should that be considered "entitlement"? The salary that seems high on paper, on the ground is really just reasonable compared to the cost of living.
notfromhere 8y ago
it's not loyalty, russia has an abysmal economy and the average wage is incredibly low. you're not really making a case against the bay area, you're making a case for why companies outsource: low wages, low labor regulations, and a captive workforce available to be exploited.
sammoth 8y ago
You sound like an entitled employer
sidlls 8y ago
Your comment is a verbose version of "I exploit economically, socially and politically depressed and/or oppressive environments to find workers who won't demand much for fear of losing a job" with some extra (mostly subjective or false) decoration around it.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  How do you know he's exploiting them? He didn't tell you how much he pays them.
  - baby_wipe 8y ago
    And even if he did tell us how much he paid them, none of us are qualified to determine what wage rate is “exploitation”.
    - philipov 8y ago
      They said "A fraction of the cost," and knowing a little bit about how much developers in Russia get payed, that's probably about 30,000$ per year. Hopefully someone else will chime in with how that compares to the cost of living.
  - sidlls 8y ago
    The same way I know someone who says "Them immigrants just steals our jobs" is ignorant and racist. Put it this way: there is a slim chance he's paying Bay Area wages and treating his employees well, but odds are he's just paying a bit more than the regional median or average and treats his workers like disposable tissues besides.
    - m52go 8y ago
      You're ignorant for making up a narrative the commenter never put forth. Also, I think it's odd that you consider regional median and average wages to be exploitive.
chasely 8y ago
Do you speak Russian, or do you target those that went to top colleges, e.g., Moscow State Univ. that are more likely to speak fluent English? Every Russian I've worked with that went to MSU or MIPT had excellent English, but they also all went to the US for grad school so I don't know how representative they are.
untog 8y ago
> "we need to hire more female engineers even though none are applying." > abysmal dating environment It's kind of funny you say that you're sick of people complaining about lack of diversity then you yourself follow it up with a complaint about a lack of diversity.

chosenbreed 8y ago

> and lifestyle-wise the bay area is just unpleasant. aggressive homeless people. abysmal dating environment. awful traffic. Mmm...could you elaborate on the abysmal dating environment? :-)

linguae 8y ago
I'm not the original poster, but I'll respond (disclaimer: I'm a single male, about to turn 30 in a few months, who lives near Silicon Valley): 1. Single men vastly outnumber single women in Silicon Valley due to the unfortunate gender demographics of the tech industry, making for a very competitive dating environment for single men. 2. Due to the Bay Area's high housing prices, single people living in the Bay Area who are not Bay Area natives tend to be highly-paid young professionals. These people tend to be driven, ambitious, and have very high dating standards. There's nothing wrong with having high standards, but it makes the dating scene more difficult since you have to work on meeting those standards in order to be successful with the dating scene. It seems like a man has to be in excellent physical shape, make a ton of money, and have the right pedigree in terms of degrees and credentials in order to be attractive in Silicon Valley since there are so many young professional single men in this area. 3. There's a big problem with "flaking" in the Bay Area, where some people have a bad habit of standing people up on dates and other social outings. This has happened to me, and it is very rude and inconsiderate, especially with the busy schedules that many people in Silicon Valley have, as well as the traffic. 4. This is probably my most controversial point, but despite the Bay Area's reputation as a politically progressive place, ethnic minorities seem to have a harder time dating than non-minorities. This matters to me since I'm black, a rarity in Silicon Valley. While the statistics on this page from OkCupid (https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-107dcbb4f060 https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...) are not confined to the Bay Area, based on my personal experience and on empirical research I've done by reading other sites regarding the dating scene in the Bay Area, it is a problem here. To be frank, while I enjoy Silicon Valley's career opportunities, the high cost of living and the difficulties I've experienced dating here make me want to research some alternatives, although as a lifelong Californian (but not a Bay Area native), I'm a bit apprehensive about leaving the state since I enjoy California's diversity and weather. I've thought about Tokyo, which I've lived before as an intern and absolutely loved, but it would be a massive cut in salary.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Your point #4 will be magnified to the extreme in Tokyo.
  - linguae 8y ago
    Interestingly enough, back when I lived in Tokyo, I seemed to get more attention from women there than I ever did in California, whether it was the Central Valley, the Bay Area, or the Central Coast. But I was pining for someone back at home while I was on my internship (spoiler alert: I was rejected as soon as I returned home), and so I ignored the attention I received. This has nothing to do with the dating scene, and I risk deviating from the topic, but I felt this indescribable, overwhelming sense of freedom as an African-American in Japan that I never felt in America. I felt the difference in treatment, where I was treated better in Japan than in America. Women in Japan wouldn't walk on the opposite side of an alley whenever I walked by, nor would they act scared whenever I was alone in an elevator with them (I had an incident in Sacramento as a teenager when a white woman refused to enter an elevator with me and another black guy.) I felt like I was in a place where I could finally be myself. To me, being a "gaijin" in Japan was an upgrade from being an African-American in America.
    - veebat 8y ago
      That really speaks to the horrors of America, given that in Japan, as a white male foreigner with command of "hai", "arigato" and on good days, "ah, so desu ne", I definitely got the sense of being put up with - albeit more so in Tokyo than elsewhere. But at the same time I can sympathize in that street interactions in California have grown openly hostile across the board. The level of polite hospitality is so low and paranoia so high that it is actually hard to go outside and do business without ending up in a confrontation of some kind. Just the other week I was crossing the street in SF after seeing a movie[1] and a lady(a white lady) crossing the other direction gave me the finger and screamed "fuck you, fuck you" for no reason I could fathom. We passed, and then I had a feeling of deja vu and thought, "didn't that happen the last time I saw a movie here too? Does this woman just go around in the evening cursing out strangers for self-care?" And that is the kind of thing that sounds dreadfully believable for SF these days. The privilege spares me from most avenues of material loss, but that's hardly something to be proud of. [1] The film was Sorry to Bother You, if it matters. I enjoyed it

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

l8again 8y ago

So, paying competitive is now being "entitled". Engineers have been played for far too long, and this post shows that it isn't over yet. I, for one, am glad that silicon valley is going the right direction in terms of the total comp for engineers, which has been kept artificially low until facebook came to the scene.

repolfx 8y ago
He didn't actually say that he was thinking of high pay in respect to being 'entitled'. There are lots of other ways SV based workforces show this characteristic, e.g. the constant complaints about the exact nature of the free food I saw when I was at Google. Whilst the no-poach agreements were wrong, I don't think comp was kept artificially low in the way you mean. What drives up comp in the valley at the moment is the existence of companies that make tons of money but have voting, share structures and cultures that don't incentivise them to return any to investors. The combination of huge profits, endless vanity hiring and no dividends or share buybacks is fairly new and it's not clear to me it's a good trend. I don't believe Facebook, Google or Twitter actually need all those engineers they're hiring.
- 0xB31B1B 8y ago
  You think it’s better that they return money to the fat cat investors then to invest in their own products?
  - repolfx 8y ago
    The "fat cat investors" are to a large extent these days things like pension funds, or VC firms that will just immediately turn around and re-invest the money into new startups. And yes, I think that'd be the right thing to do. The sums of money we're talking about here are vast. They're not going to go into the pockets of some stereotyped "fat cat" capitalist. Outside of pension payouts they'll be reallocated to other companies that may be doing important things of the sort that big internet firms just won't tackle, like biotech/drugs research. Look at it like this. Does Google really need to create yet another instant messaging product for the seventh time? Or would the capital used to do that be better re-allocated to some other part of the economy?

scarface74 8y ago

are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every opportunity. - have skin in the game Why do companies expect “loyalty” beyond the employer gives the employee a paycheck and the employee works X number of hours per week, doesn’t try to compete with the employer while at the company, and doesn’t steal IP? Does the employee have an ownership stake in the company? If not, the only “skin in the game” they have is will they get paid next week.

redm 8y ago
Why do you think that companies don't care about employees? Everyone who works at a company has an emotional stake in the work, the product, and usually pride in what they do. That matters. Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there. Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Why do you think that companies don't care about employees I’m not saying they wish their employees harm. But if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, your company is going to send flowers to your family and have an open req for your position before your body is buried. The company’s first priority is the well being of the company. Your first responsibility is what’s best for you. As long as those two things intersect, your company won’t let you go and you don’t have any reason to leave. Everyone who works at a company has an emotional stake in the work, the product, and usually pride in what they do. That matters. Yes, I take pride in my work and want to see my work get into production. But that’s separate from having any loyalty to the company more than I described above.* Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there. Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people. I agree. But no company’s - especially one that is publicly owned or investor funded - first priority is its employees.
jjoonathan 8y ago

alexpetralia 8y ago

This is exactly why I left a quantitative trading company in NYC and moved to Poland for software engineering talent. This certainly baffled my coworkers. More and more companies will eventually recognize the talent abroad is how you want to supply your business, while the market demand you want will still remain in the U.S.

romanovcode 8y ago
> More and more companies will eventually recognize the talent abroad is how you want to supply your business That is until those poor folks at Eastern Europe realise they can charge much more and the circle will repeat.
throwaway2048 8y ago
Market demand isnt going to remain in the USA if most jobs get shipped overseas
madengr 8y ago
How about someplace in the USA that isn’t SV or NYC?
- TheArcane 8y ago
  It's easy for talented people in the US to move to SV and NYC. It's a lot harder for the same kind of people abroad to move to SV and NYC.
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    Not all talented people want to move away from their friends and families to live in 4x price of living shitholes.

throwawaymanbot 8y ago

Ah yes, another naysayer who somehow manages to mention Russian Talent..... Am I seeing the troll factory at work in realtime here..

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> are loyal Generally this doesn't work both ways. If times get tight, engineers are among the first to be canned. Good engineers command higher prices because they need the buffer to live on after that "loyalty" gets them RIFed.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

noelsusman 8y ago

I wouldn't want to live or hire in SV either, but your Russian engineers are only loyal because the Russian economy has been in a tailspin since 2013. It's not that SV engineers are entitled, they just have options and your Russian friends don't. I also don't see how wanting more female engineers could get in the way of building products so I'm not sure why you threw that in there. It's not like people are staring at the wall all day pondering diversity issues instead of building products.

draw_down 8y ago

I hate when the serfs get uppity too

wool_gather 8y ago

(I'm not in SV.) I'm pretty well paid as a software developer, and I feel fortunate to be so. But there's a very plain fact that, without another salary, I wouldn't be able to raise a family in the city where I work. Why should that be considered "entitlement"? The salary that seems high on paper, on the ground is really just reasonable compared to the cost of living.

notfromhere 8y ago

it's not loyalty, russia has an abysmal economy and the average wage is incredibly low. you're not really making a case against the bay area, you're making a case for why companies outsource: low wages, low labor regulations, and a captive workforce available to be exploited.

sammoth 8y ago

You sound like an entitled employer

sidlls 8y ago

Your comment is a verbose version of "I exploit economically, socially and politically depressed and/or oppressive environments to find workers who won't demand much for fear of losing a job" with some extra (mostly subjective or false) decoration around it.

wilsonnb3 8y ago
How do you know he's exploiting them? He didn't tell you how much he pays them.
- baby_wipe 8y ago
  And even if he did tell us how much he paid them, none of us are qualified to determine what wage rate is “exploitation”.
  - philipov 8y ago
    They said "A fraction of the cost," and knowing a little bit about how much developers in Russia get payed, that's probably about 30,000$ per year. Hopefully someone else will chime in with how that compares to the cost of living.
- sidlls 8y ago
  The same way I know someone who says "Them immigrants just steals our jobs" is ignorant and racist. Put it this way: there is a slim chance he's paying Bay Area wages and treating his employees well, but odds are he's just paying a bit more than the regional median or average and treats his workers like disposable tissues besides.
  - m52go 8y ago
    You're ignorant for making up a narrative the commenter never put forth. Also, I think it's odd that you consider regional median and average wages to be exploitive.

chasely 8y ago

Do you speak Russian, or do you target those that went to top colleges, e.g., Moscow State Univ. that are more likely to speak fluent English? Every Russian I've worked with that went to MSU or MIPT had excellent English, but they also all went to the US for grad school so I don't know how representative they are.

untog 8y ago

> "we need to hire more female engineers even though none are applying." > abysmal dating environment It's kind of funny you say that you're sick of people complaining about lack of diversity then you yourself follow it up with a complaint about a lack of diversity.