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The example I thinking of is the common counterargument to "this job/industry/company is total BS": it can't be BS, because if it was no one rational would pay
by eigenvector 8y ago
The example I thinking of is the common counterargument to "this job/industry/company is total BS": it can't be BS, because if it was no one rational would pay someone to do it. This presupposes that everything operates in a perfectly efficient market where pay corresponds directly to utility to someone, somewhere.
The 2008 financial crash, for instance, arguably demonstrated that a lot of practices in the finance industry weren't really creating value for anyone, just deceptively pushing up the value of something worthless in order to profit from it. But if you had approached someone making $500k at Bear Sterns in 2007 and said that, it would have touched off a whole string of rationalizations that basically amount to: "I'm being paid a lot of money, so this must be useful, otherwise I wouldn't be so rich" and potentially even "if you are so smart, why aren't you making $500k?"
And it's not just finance. I've had a version of that conversation often with Googlers when I criticize the company's bizarre and inexplicably messaging strategy were they seem to deliberately blow up any semblance of a good product. Their argument is ultimately, "we get paid $200k+ to do this and you work in a power plant, how could you possibly know any better than us?"
That's what I'm trying to get at with "money as merit".
- rmspower 8y agoNot that this makes their messaging strategy any more coherent, but 200k is on the very low end of Google compensation; new grads have offers with total compensation north of that. But they're just new grads, so obviously they can't know much, right?
- jensv 8y agoI've noticed this on multiple occasions but why do people often create new accounts just to spread propaganda regarding compensation at Google? Is this a recruiting strategy executed by paid schills?
- EADGBE 8y agoGoogle doesn't want you to know that you can program websites in the middle of nowhere with very relaxed hours and have a content life that doesn't require you selling your soul to FAANG. I haven't looked deep into it because I just don't care at this point, but 200k in Mountain View isn't the same 200k in other places.
- rmspower 8y agoPosting the truth about Google compensation gets you automatic downvotes for some reason here. Google / Facebook / Netflix etc compensation helps the industry significantly by making sure that even software engineers in Pittsburgh make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. But also, compensation is a sensitive topic. I don't know of the other posts you're speaking of, but people don't like having compensation history go with their comments.
- ryandrake 8y agoLots of people post exaggerations here about tech salaries that “other people they know” get. Last time I pointed this out (and shared links to salary.com and Glassdoor) I was personally attacked for it. There seems to be some strong undercurrent of motivation somewhere for maintaining this meme that entry-level engineers are making $400k and all have second homes in Monaco.
- dang 8y agoThis comment breaks the site guidelines, which ask you not to insinuate astroturfing or shillage without evidence. If you'd review and follow https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, we'd appreciate it. Compensation is an intense topic for obvious reasons. There is a lot of variance in the data and it is anything but transparent. It's not surprising that people would create accounts to post sensitive information about it. I haven't seen examples of abuse in this area, but if you or anyone think you're seeing some, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate.
- hueving 8y agoBear Stearns employee comp is solely about the value the employees provide to the firm. The ones making that kind of money would easily be bringing in a multiple of that in sales, etc. Just because the company got wiped out by a black swan style event means nothing about whether their employees were providing a lot of value to the firm.
- Retric 8y agoNo, it clearly demonstrates that these employees where not creating that much value at the firm. Progressive betting strategies for example can appear to work in the short term, but anyone executing them is destroying value.
- hueving 8y agoJanitors were providing value whether or not Bear's long exposure to MBSs were too large. The same applies to traders, etc. My dentist fixing my toothache still provided value to me even if I die of a massive heart attack in two months.
- Retric 8y agoIf you sum up all work by everyone at Bear over the companies last year, they created negative value. Some lost far more money than others, but Traders as a group where not a net money maker. Really, the company did not die in "100 hours." People just noticed it was already dead.