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> There are certainly those in America who believe that Facebook and Google produce little of value relative to the profit they rake in; maybe China’s leaders,

> There are certainly those in America who believe that Facebook and Google produce little of value relative to the profit they rake in; maybe China’s leaders, for reasons that will remain forever opaque to us, have simply reached the same conclusion. Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue from advertisement or... how to create as many "phone-addicts" as possible... could be quantified as producing tons and tons of negative value. If China's crackdown on "consumer-facing tech" is about this, that could be a very good thing for China long term. I grew up wanting to work on NASA and putting stuff on space, and during university got offered 10x the NASA salaries at FAANG companies, and was to week to just say "no thanks". 10 years later I am starting to wonder what my legacy is going to be.

f00zz 5y ago
> "That's just from EU consumers, never mind the rest of the world - spending so much on mobile netlink that companies can clear more than thirty billion in profit, in profit alone, over two years. Think of the gross! So you tell me - is that the best way of spending humanity's money, webbing friends, playing games on the bus? A fraction of a single percent of that money, we could have bases on Mars in five years. Destiny - possibility - glorious - but, no, we'll keep frittering our money on games, on cosmetics, on flim-flam, and we'll turn round in five hundred years and still be right here where we are now." - from Adam Roberts' sci-fi novel "Gradisil"
- dematz 5y ago
  I mean, I can see the point. Maybe facebook is getting money but not actually creating value for people. ...but if we get Mars bases, so what? I'd rather play video games on earth than farm potatoes on Mars. Call it a lack of imagination but yeah.
atom_arranger 5y ago
I have a similar experience. I grew up wanting to work in robotics but found pure software work to be as enjoyable (maybe not as "meaningful", but as enjoyable), and much more lucrative. Not sure why coding CRUD pays so much more than what robotics tends to. I guess there's more material costs, costs to get a company started and profitable could be higher.
fksadfji12 5y ago
Even if you get rid of FAANG companies, it's not like NASA is going to pay you more. You just lose the choice to work at a FAANG company for 10x the salary...
jszymborski 5y ago
Another comment mentioned this, but I think Tencent and Alibaba are poor stand-ins for the sort of companies that aim to make phone-addicts.
nemo44x 5y ago
> 10 years later I am starting to wonder what my legacy is going to be. Isn't this a major reason people start families? Having kids and people and things to take care of gives life a lot of meaning to many people. So much so that the vapid trivialities of the everyday modern life are mere amusements we gratefully accept rather than the daily struggle most people that ever lived before us had to endure.
closeparen 5y ago
I think some zero-autonomy zero-respect enterprise IT drudgery is more likely than the space program, if we didn’t have access to these “absurd” wages. Which are, coincidentally, just about enough to own homes for our families within range of our offices.
alexashka 5y ago
Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around - Vanilla Sky (the movie) :)
adventured 5y ago
> Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue from advertisement or... how to create as many "phone-addicts" as possible... could be quantified as producing tons and tons of negative value. And where is that happening? It's not happening in the US, China or Europe. The ad tech segment would be lucky to rank at the median on talent in the tech industry, much less the wider economy. What you're referring to is a myth, a slander that gets thrown around HN freely because it makes for a great, vicious soundbite to stab (primarily) the US with. It always goes entirely unsupported, nobody dares to even try to support the claim (because it's obviously false and won't stand up to even light scrutiny). The majority of the top US talent is working on ad tech? No, that's not actually happening. Not remotely close. The claim is off by far more than an order of magnitude. The best talent at Google are not even working on ad tech. Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Regeneron, Moderna, Biogen, Gilead, AbbVie, Abbott, Bristol-Myers, Eli Lilly, Illumina, Intuitive Surgical, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Cisco, Qualcomm, Micron, LAM, KLA, Applied Materials, SpaceX, Tesla, Caterpillar, Honeywell, DuPont, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, 3M, Boston Scientific, Stryker, Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Monsanto. That's a super short list that instantly destroys the claim and doesn't include the vast brilliance at work in US universities (which also outweighs the entire US ad tech industry all by itself). It also excludes the huge number of foreign industrial firms in the US filled full of brilliant persons that are also not concerned with ad tech. NASA has more elite minds in its employment than all of the US ad tech industry combined. There are probably more top minds working on just CRISPR right now in the US than in the entire ad tech field. Which is to say, the position of the ad tech field is drastically overstated. IBM is a debased giant, that has languished badly. And yet they have a top shelf quantum computing division. You think the best talent at IBM is working on ad tech? No. TI or Cisco's best talent is all dedicated to ad tech? No. The best engineering minds at Illinois Tool Works or John Deere, they're all working on ad tech? No. All the smartest minds at LAM, KLA and Applied Materials are working on ad tech? No. The great engineers at Nvidia, AMD, SpaceX or Caterpillar, they're all working on ad tech? Uh, no. The insurance industry has more top talent than the ad tech industry. The property/casualty segment all by itself is dramatically larger than the entire ad tech field, including all dollars spent on digital advertising in the US. Compensation != top talent. Otherwise all the smartest people in the world would be hedge fund managers and absolutely nobody would ever work for NASA or NSA. That's not actually how things work in reality.
jorblumesea 5y ago
It might actually have the opposite effect. Working for a highly bureaucratic government run firm might not appeal to many entrepreneurs and engineers. The CCP is not exactly known for ideological flexibility or just outsider thinking in general. Imagine working for the government, and that's the main engineering opportunities you have. Imagine your only opportunities being huge multi year hard engineering projects. There are many people who enjoy working in fast paced environments or building cutting edge experiences and products. You could see the US brain drain top Chinese technical talent because the US has diversity of opportunity. There's Space X and Tesla, but also Uber and Google.
nbardy 5y ago
Stop being a coward today. 10 years at a FAANG take your money, quit Study rocket science, photovoltaic cells. Do something and do it now.

f00zz 5y ago

> "That's just from EU consumers, never mind the rest of the world - spending so much on mobile netlink that companies can clear more than thirty billion in profit, in profit alone, over two years. Think of the gross! So you tell me - is that the best way of spending humanity's money, webbing friends, playing games on the bus? A fraction of a single percent of that money, we could have bases on Mars in five years. Destiny - possibility - glorious - but, no, we'll keep frittering our money on games, on cosmetics, on flim-flam, and we'll turn round in five hundred years and still be right here where we are now." - from Adam Roberts' sci-fi novel "Gradisil"

dematz 5y ago
I mean, I can see the point. Maybe facebook is getting money but not actually creating value for people. ...but if we get Mars bases, so what? I'd rather play video games on earth than farm potatoes on Mars. Call it a lack of imagination but yeah.

atom_arranger 5y ago

I have a similar experience. I grew up wanting to work in robotics but found pure software work to be as enjoyable (maybe not as "meaningful", but as enjoyable), and much more lucrative. Not sure why coding CRUD pays so much more than what robotics tends to. I guess there's more material costs, costs to get a company started and profitable could be higher.

fksadfji12 5y ago

Even if you get rid of FAANG companies, it's not like NASA is going to pay you more. You just lose the choice to work at a FAANG company for 10x the salary...

jszymborski 5y ago

Another comment mentioned this, but I think Tencent and Alibaba are poor stand-ins for the sort of companies that aim to make phone-addicts.

nemo44x 5y ago

> 10 years later I am starting to wonder what my legacy is going to be. Isn't this a major reason people start families? Having kids and people and things to take care of gives life a lot of meaning to many people. So much so that the vapid trivialities of the everyday modern life are mere amusements we gratefully accept rather than the daily struggle most people that ever lived before us had to endure.

closeparen 5y ago

I think some zero-autonomy zero-respect enterprise IT drudgery is more likely than the space program, if we didn’t have access to these “absurd” wages. Which are, coincidentally, just about enough to own homes for our families within range of our offices.

alexashka 5y ago

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around - Vanilla Sky (the movie) :)

adventured 5y ago

> Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue from advertisement or... how to create as many "phone-addicts" as possible... could be quantified as producing tons and tons of negative value. And where is that happening? It's not happening in the US, China or Europe. The ad tech segment would be lucky to rank at the median on talent in the tech industry, much less the wider economy. What you're referring to is a myth, a slander that gets thrown around HN freely because it makes for a great, vicious soundbite to stab (primarily) the US with. It always goes entirely unsupported, nobody dares to even try to support the claim (because it's obviously false and won't stand up to even light scrutiny). The majority of the top US talent is working on ad tech? No, that's not actually happening. Not remotely close. The claim is off by far more than an order of magnitude. The best talent at Google are not even working on ad tech. Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Regeneron, Moderna, Biogen, Gilead, AbbVie, Abbott, Bristol-Myers, Eli Lilly, Illumina, Intuitive Surgical, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Cisco, Qualcomm, Micron, LAM, KLA, Applied Materials, SpaceX, Tesla, Caterpillar, Honeywell, DuPont, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, 3M, Boston Scientific, Stryker, Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Monsanto. That's a super short list that instantly destroys the claim and doesn't include the vast brilliance at work in US universities (which also outweighs the entire US ad tech industry all by itself). It also excludes the huge number of foreign industrial firms in the US filled full of brilliant persons that are also not concerned with ad tech. NASA has more elite minds in its employment than all of the US ad tech industry combined. There are probably more top minds working on just CRISPR right now in the US than in the entire ad tech field. Which is to say, the position of the ad tech field is drastically overstated. IBM is a debased giant, that has languished badly. And yet they have a top shelf quantum computing division. You think the best talent at IBM is working on ad tech? No. TI or Cisco's best talent is all dedicated to ad tech? No. The best engineering minds at Illinois Tool Works or John Deere, they're all working on ad tech? No. All the smartest minds at LAM, KLA and Applied Materials are working on ad tech? No. The great engineers at Nvidia, AMD, SpaceX or Caterpillar, they're all working on ad tech? Uh, no. The insurance industry has more top talent than the ad tech industry. The property/casualty segment all by itself is dramatically larger than the entire ad tech field, including all dollars spent on digital advertising in the US. Compensation != top talent. Otherwise all the smartest people in the world would be hedge fund managers and absolutely nobody would ever work for NASA or NSA. That's not actually how things work in reality.

jorblumesea 5y ago

It might actually have the opposite effect. Working for a highly bureaucratic government run firm might not appeal to many entrepreneurs and engineers. The CCP is not exactly known for ideological flexibility or just outsider thinking in general. Imagine working for the government, and that's the main engineering opportunities you have. Imagine your only opportunities being huge multi year hard engineering projects. There are many people who enjoy working in fast paced environments or building cutting edge experiences and products. You could see the US brain drain top Chinese technical talent because the US has diversity of opportunity. There's Space X and Tesla, but also Uber and Google.

nbardy 5y ago

Stop being a coward today. 10 years at a FAANG take your money, quit Study rocket science, photovoltaic cells. Do something and do it now.