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The parent post sounds borderline conspiracy theory. Working in big tech, I see a lot of volunteer opportunities to promote STEM among the youth because it's ob

The parent post sounds borderline conspiracy theory. Working in big tech, I see a lot of volunteer opportunities to promote STEM among the youth because it's obvious that those CS jobs provide good salary and great living conditions, and people wanna share their passion. What I haven't seen are internal memo, OKRs or shareholder messages stipulating a strategy to commodize CS to reduce labor costs.

lalos 7y ago
1. Salaries are reported to Wall St 2. Profits go up, stock goes up. Costs go down, profits go up. 3. Wall St and investors want higher profits 4. Salaries depend on supply and demand. Demand is high and supply is stagnant then cost goes up. 5. Companies push for increasing supply of workers. It's economics and business not a conspiracy theory. Doesn't Apple apply the same logic for all the components to make an iPhone? Even going as far as doing their own chips to have a hand in increasing supply. This is the same Apple (along with Google and the rest) involved in this lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
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kemiller2002 7y ago
Actually, I heard the founder of Coder Dojo talk (Bill Liao) as to why he started it, and this is exactly what he said.
harlanji 7y ago
I've been a professional programmer since age 15, now age 34 and homeless in San Francisco/Mountain View, unemployed and seeking in tech for 2 years, salary cuts and decreased respect and more training my replacements at each stop since 2015. Teaching "opportunities" are everywhere, but I prefer to wait tables and do independent software research in lack of a suitable paid position in software development. OKRs to reduce labor costs are an interesting concept, though. What forms of results would you be looking for? I've never worked under a productive OKR or KPI system, so the more detail in your thought process the better.
tepidandroid 7y ago
> Working in big tech, I see a lot of volunteer opportunities to promote STEM among the youth because it's obvious that those CS jobs provide good salary and great living conditions, and people wanna share their passion. Will these be the same people complaining about age discrimination in 10-15 years when their employer replaces them with an 18 year old with no college degree, at one quarter of their salary? A pessimist might say that’s a case of digging one’s own grave.
overthemoon 7y ago
It's indisputable that 1.) more people looking for programming work will lower salaries and 2.) we are seeing an increase in people seeking these jobs, and 3.) big tech companies are investing in code camps and young adult CS education. Regardless of whether people volunteering to share their passion (a motive I don't doubt for a minute), there's no way this shakes out as anything but a boon for, say, Google, and a net loss for programmers in general. And I don't mean protectionist oldheads who are already pulling down 6 figures, I mean everyone. A kid learning to code will not get salary he was promised in a decade.
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jstarfish 7y ago
How do you disrupt the nascent taxi industry? Make it so anybody can be a taxi driver.

lalos 7y ago

1. Salaries are reported to Wall St 2. Profits go up, stock goes up. Costs go down, profits go up. 3. Wall St and investors want higher profits 4. Salaries depend on supply and demand. Demand is high and supply is stagnant then cost goes up. 5. Companies push for increasing supply of workers. It's economics and business not a conspiracy theory. Doesn't Apple apply the same logic for all the components to make an iPhone? Even going as far as doing their own chips to have a hand in increasing supply. This is the same Apple (along with Google and the rest) involved in this lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

deleted 7y ago
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kemiller2002 7y ago

Actually, I heard the founder of Coder Dojo talk (Bill Liao) as to why he started it, and this is exactly what he said.

harlanji 7y ago

I've been a professional programmer since age 15, now age 34 and homeless in San Francisco/Mountain View, unemployed and seeking in tech for 2 years, salary cuts and decreased respect and more training my replacements at each stop since 2015. Teaching "opportunities" are everywhere, but I prefer to wait tables and do independent software research in lack of a suitable paid position in software development. OKRs to reduce labor costs are an interesting concept, though. What forms of results would you be looking for? I've never worked under a productive OKR or KPI system, so the more detail in your thought process the better.

tepidandroid 7y ago

> Working in big tech, I see a lot of volunteer opportunities to promote STEM among the youth because it's obvious that those CS jobs provide good salary and great living conditions, and people wanna share their passion. Will these be the same people complaining about age discrimination in 10-15 years when their employer replaces them with an 18 year old with no college degree, at one quarter of their salary? A pessimist might say that’s a case of digging one’s own grave.

overthemoon 7y ago

It's indisputable that 1.) more people looking for programming work will lower salaries and 2.) we are seeing an increase in people seeking these jobs, and 3.) big tech companies are investing in code camps and young adult CS education. Regardless of whether people volunteering to share their passion (a motive I don't doubt for a minute), there's no way this shakes out as anything but a boon for, say, Google, and a net loss for programmers in general. And I don't mean protectionist oldheads who are already pulling down 6 figures, I mean everyone. A kid learning to code will not get salary he was promised in a decade.

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jstarfish 7y ago

How do you disrupt the nascent taxi industry? Make it so anybody can be a taxi driver.