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> Also, it's much more difficult to quantify the impact of a software engineer compared to investment bankers and consultants. The latter two are directly makin

> Also, it's much more difficult to quantify the impact of a software engineer compared to investment bankers and consultants. The latter two are directly making money for the firm. Yes, it is difficult, but possible. Here's quick and dirty analysis - consider Sears, Walmart, and Amazon: - Amazon pays its engineers near top of market - $1.5T market cap. - Walmart has a pretty good engineering culture. They acquired a tech company to start Walmart Labs for data science stuff and they even have popular open source software (Hapi.js) - they're the largest company by revenue and $370B market cap. - Ever been to Sears.com? Me neither - largest retailer in 1980 to bankrupt in 2018, stock price at $0.23 and $94M market cap. I deduce that investment in software engineers == higher stock price.

reaperducer 6y ago
I deduce that investment in software engineers == higher stock price. Easy to do when you cherry-pick three companies. Run your analysis on 10,000 companies large and small and you might have something.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  I wonder if we looked at stock price / developers. Would it prove or disprove this statemenet?
- game_the0ry 6y ago
  > Easy to do when you cherry-pick three companies. * Netflix vs Blockbuster * Uber / Lyft vs taxi cabs * Airbnb vs hotels * Blogs vs print media * Youtube /Instagram vs TV * porn tube sites vs porn studios I could keep going. I've also tried the corollary - companies that are successful while cutting cost in tech, but I can't think of any successful companies that are cutting investment in tech.
Aunche 6y ago
I meant quantifying an individual's impact. For i-banking that's easy. The more money an i-banker the raise, the better they are. There isn't a simple metric you can use for software engineering. Some terrible developers write a lot of code. Some amazing developers barely write any code. Of course there is still meaningful signal you can use to differentiate developers, but it's going to be fuzzy. I-banking and consulting increase wages for their employees by firing everyone who doesn't meet a certain bar. In addition to creating a toxic work environment, this practice isn't possible with only fuzzy signals.

reaperducer 6y ago

I deduce that investment in software engineers == higher stock price. Easy to do when you cherry-pick three companies. Run your analysis on 10,000 companies large and small and you might have something.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
I wonder if we looked at stock price / developers. Would it prove or disprove this statemenet?
game_the0ry 6y ago
> Easy to do when you cherry-pick three companies. * Netflix vs Blockbuster * Uber / Lyft vs taxi cabs * Airbnb vs hotels * Blogs vs print media * Youtube /Instagram vs TV * porn tube sites vs porn studios I could keep going. I've also tried the corollary - companies that are successful while cutting cost in tech, but I can't think of any successful companies that are cutting investment in tech.

Aunche 6y ago

I meant quantifying an individual's impact. For i-banking that's easy. The more money an i-banker the raise, the better they are. There isn't a simple metric you can use for software engineering. Some terrible developers write a lot of code. Some amazing developers barely write any code. Of course there is still meaningful signal you can use to differentiate developers, but it's going to be fuzzy. I-banking and consulting increase wages for their employees by firing everyone who doesn't meet a certain bar. In addition to creating a toxic work environment, this practice isn't possible with only fuzzy signals.