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Exactly. Fundamentally, tech workers don’t seem to understand this point mainly because they are making more money than “everyone else.” The other reason is t

Exactly. Fundamentally, tech workers don’t seem to understand this point mainly because they are making more money than “everyone else.” The other reason is that we as humans don’t understand big numbers. Big ape brains can’t understand the gap between $1 million and $1 billion let alone 100 billion. If software engineers would have banded together a long time ago to get a larger piece of the pie like professional athletes, then…. - Senior engineers would make NFL wages - And quants would be making NBA/NFL wages

edanm 4y ago
> - Senior engineers would make NFL wages That is an absurd exaggeration, unless by "senior engineers" you are including people who do a lot more than "just" engineering, e.g. build companies, build products, etc. The reason NFL wages are so high is not just that they bring in a lot of money, it's that the players are to a large extent irreplaceable. If you take the, say, 500 most talented players in the US at a given time, you can't just replace them with the next 500 most talented players and get the same outcome. So each of them commands a very large salary - because the alternatives are worse, and will lead to worse outcomes, which will lead to less money for the team. And at the top end, the best players are a massive draw that makes teams tons of money. Compare that to engineers. We are, to a much larger extent, replaceable. If Amazon can't hire the 1000 "best" engineers, going to the next 1000 will probably not noticeably impact their product. I'm not denying that there are talent differentials between engineers - I think it's even more than the commonly cited 10x. But it's still not that big, definitely not bigger than the difference in NFL players (since engineering is not competitive.) Note that if you stretch the definition of software engineer to include people building and launching brand new products, building huge successful teams, etc, then you're getting into the realm of CTOs, CEOs, founders, etc, which are far less replaceable (I'm a good engineer, but I couldn't have built Stripe). But then we're talking about the people who are adequately compensated for their work.
- xmprt 4y ago
  > If you take the, say, 500 most talented players in the US at a given time, you can't just replace them with the next 500 most talented players and get the same outcome I genuinely believe that a league made of the 500-1000 rank players would be just as (or at least almost as) entertaining as one with the top 500 players. Relative rank is what matters and it's why NCAA March Madness is so popular despite being made up of relatively low ranked players.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    The AFL, WFL, USFL, XFL, AAFL, 2nd XFL and 2nd USFL would likely disagree. "March Madness" is an anomaly, a single-elimination tournament with 48 games in one weekend with a history of upsets and buzzer-beaters. Additionally, college basketball and football in the US benefit greatly from the local and alumni network affinity for the programs, that doesn't exist with, say, minor league baseball or the NBA D-League.
    - philwelch 4y ago
      We also have a third XFL coming soon! The AFL was actually relatively successful since it forced a merger with the NFL. Meanwhile, at least according to a 30 for 30 documentary, the original USFL had a potentially viable niche as a second-tier spring league for awhile until they made the bizarre decision to switch to the fall football season and try to force an NFL merger.
    - xmprt 4y ago
      I mean that if the NFL didn't exist then the AFL would be popular. A better example would be Japanese Baseball. A lot of those players are great but very few of them ended up transferring to the American leagues, yet the sport is still extremely popular in Japan.
  - France_is_bacon 4y ago
  - philwelch 4y ago
    > I genuinely believe that a league made of the 500-1000 rank players would be just as (or at least almost as) entertaining as one with the top 500 players. This is a popular enough theory that it's been tested multiple times. In the successful cases, the rival league still ended up trying to poach the top players and ended up merging with the other top league. In the less successful cases, the league went out of business.
  - edanm 4y ago
    Absolutely. I think it's worth thinking through the difference to software - because it's a competitive field, as you said, the relative rank matters, and therefore getting the best player is important for your team, unless they are for some reason no longer playing. E.g. Michael Jordan was a huge draw when he was playing, and made his team relatively better off (and the league as a whole). In software, that's not the way it works. Or at least, the competitive business aspect of it is largely out of engineer's hands. Few businesses ultimately succeed because they wrote better code, IMO. Though interestingly, a bunch of startups only get big in the first place by having great code that allows them great speed/flexibility/etc. Stripe itself got big originally because its API was really great, which I'd attribute more to product than to engineers, except in this case it's kind of a merger of the two.
- sumedh 4y ago
  > And at the top end, the best players are a massive draw that makes teams tons of money. What is so special about them?
- specialist 4y ago
  > The reason NFL wages are so high is... ...because they formed unions.
  - edanm 4y ago
    Doctors also have a union and for the most part aren't making nfl wages. I don't understand what makes people think that software engineers are so valuable that they'd get wages that are multiples of doctors.
    - specialist 4y ago
      Scarcity is not necessary for leverage. Preventing defectors from collective bargaining is. The Logic of Collective Action explains the mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action It's basically game theory, by another name.
      - philwelch 4y ago
        > Scarcity is not necessary for leverage. Preventing defectors from collective bargaining is. "Preventing defectors from collective bargaining" is also, more or less, the definition of what an economic cartel does.
        notfromhere 4y ago
        Companies are an economic cartel for capital, but we’ve don’t take their existence as a controversy
izgzhen 4y ago
While senior engineers don’t make NFL wages, the executives do (including some former senior engineers). Would it be fair to compare execs to NFL player instead? (While engineers are those work behind the scene to support the game)
thrixton 4y ago
I doubt this to be honest. If you could hire 2 or 5 of the next best engineers for the price of a top pick 'NFL' engineer, you'd be ahead in output in most situations. The same does not go for the NFL.

edanm 4y ago

> - Senior engineers would make NFL wages That is an absurd exaggeration, unless by "senior engineers" you are including people who do a lot more than "just" engineering, e.g. build companies, build products, etc. The reason NFL wages are so high is not just that they bring in a lot of money, it's that the players are to a large extent irreplaceable. If you take the, say, 500 most talented players in the US at a given time, you can't just replace them with the next 500 most talented players and get the same outcome. So each of them commands a very large salary - because the alternatives are worse, and will lead to worse outcomes, which will lead to less money for the team. And at the top end, the best players are a massive draw that makes teams tons of money. Compare that to engineers. We are, to a much larger extent, replaceable. If Amazon can't hire the 1000 "best" engineers, going to the next 1000 will probably not noticeably impact their product. I'm not denying that there are talent differentials between engineers - I think it's even more than the commonly cited 10x. But it's still not that big, definitely not bigger than the difference in NFL players (since engineering is not competitive.) Note that if you stretch the definition of software engineer to include people building and launching brand new products, building huge successful teams, etc, then you're getting into the realm of CTOs, CEOs, founders, etc, which are far less replaceable (I'm a good engineer, but I couldn't have built Stripe). But then we're talking about the people who are adequately compensated for their work.

xmprt 4y ago
> If you take the, say, 500 most talented players in the US at a given time, you can't just replace them with the next 500 most talented players and get the same outcome I genuinely believe that a league made of the 500-1000 rank players would be just as (or at least almost as) entertaining as one with the top 500 players. Relative rank is what matters and it's why NCAA March Madness is so popular despite being made up of relatively low ranked players.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  The AFL, WFL, USFL, XFL, AAFL, 2nd XFL and 2nd USFL would likely disagree. "March Madness" is an anomaly, a single-elimination tournament with 48 games in one weekend with a history of upsets and buzzer-beaters. Additionally, college basketball and football in the US benefit greatly from the local and alumni network affinity for the programs, that doesn't exist with, say, minor league baseball or the NBA D-League.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    We also have a third XFL coming soon! The AFL was actually relatively successful since it forced a merger with the NFL. Meanwhile, at least according to a 30 for 30 documentary, the original USFL had a potentially viable niche as a second-tier spring league for awhile until they made the bizarre decision to switch to the fall football season and try to force an NFL merger.
  - xmprt 4y ago
    I mean that if the NFL didn't exist then the AFL would be popular. A better example would be Japanese Baseball. A lot of those players are great but very few of them ended up transferring to the American leagues, yet the sport is still extremely popular in Japan.
- France_is_bacon 4y ago
- philwelch 4y ago
  > I genuinely believe that a league made of the 500-1000 rank players would be just as (or at least almost as) entertaining as one with the top 500 players. This is a popular enough theory that it's been tested multiple times. In the successful cases, the rival league still ended up trying to poach the top players and ended up merging with the other top league. In the less successful cases, the league went out of business.
- edanm 4y ago
  Absolutely. I think it's worth thinking through the difference to software - because it's a competitive field, as you said, the relative rank matters, and therefore getting the best player is important for your team, unless they are for some reason no longer playing. E.g. Michael Jordan was a huge draw when he was playing, and made his team relatively better off (and the league as a whole). In software, that's not the way it works. Or at least, the competitive business aspect of it is largely out of engineer's hands. Few businesses ultimately succeed because they wrote better code, IMO. Though interestingly, a bunch of startups only get big in the first place by having great code that allows them great speed/flexibility/etc. Stripe itself got big originally because its API was really great, which I'd attribute more to product than to engineers, except in this case it's kind of a merger of the two.
sumedh 4y ago
> And at the top end, the best players are a massive draw that makes teams tons of money. What is so special about them?
specialist 4y ago
> The reason NFL wages are so high is... ...because they formed unions.
- edanm 4y ago
  Doctors also have a union and for the most part aren't making nfl wages. I don't understand what makes people think that software engineers are so valuable that they'd get wages that are multiples of doctors.
  - specialist 4y ago
    Scarcity is not necessary for leverage. Preventing defectors from collective bargaining is. The Logic of Collective Action explains the mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action It's basically game theory, by another name.
    - philwelch 4y ago
      > Scarcity is not necessary for leverage. Preventing defectors from collective bargaining is. "Preventing defectors from collective bargaining" is also, more or less, the definition of what an economic cartel does.
      - notfromhere 4y ago
        Companies are an economic cartel for capital, but we’ve don’t take their existence as a controversy

izgzhen 4y ago

While senior engineers don’t make NFL wages, the executives do (including some former senior engineers). Would it be fair to compare execs to NFL player instead? (While engineers are those work behind the scene to support the game)

thrixton 4y ago

I doubt this to be honest. If you could hire 2 or 5 of the next best engineers for the price of a top pick 'NFL' engineer, you'd be ahead in output in most situations. The same does not go for the NFL.