4 ms·

After doing this about as long as Rachel has been, it seems to me that your choice for employer is usually (a) evil (for varying definitions of evil); (b) incom

After doing this about as long as Rachel has been, it seems to me that your choice for employer is usually (a) evil (for varying definitions of evil); (b) incompetent; or (c) an organization of competent paladins that also happen to hate money. There are a very, very few organizations that don't fall into one of those categories. Those that refuse to sell their soul will make ever so much less money than their colleagues. I've kept my soul, but I bet Rachel can keep the lights on. Evil pays really well.

dontbenebby 4y ago
>Evil pays really well You’ve obviously never worked for a nonprofit :-)
- smitty1e 4y ago
  Those running the non-profits may do better than the workers.
  - jlokier 4y ago
    It depends a lot on the non-profit. As someone who co-ran a non-profit with a mission full time, I ended up deeply in personal debt as a result (of not being paid for years but still having living costs). Those running the non-profit ended up significantly worse off than other people working there. I'm still paying it off years later. At mine, management were required to be volunteers (even full time), but other full time staff were paid salary and benefits. Most people working there were also volunteers, but part time or occasional as they felt like it. They had time for day jobs. The reason for this arrangement was because most members who co-owned it did not believe anyone should be paid, but we had a grant for premises and hired staff. Nobody wanted the hired staff to be in charge overall, as their incentives, skills and competencies were far more aligned with the premises owner and business angle, and not with the non-profit's mission. So it had to be run by motivated volunteers, and that included developing a type of non-profit business and manufacturing service, managing staff, as well as organising a large number of volunteers, events, teaching, safety, purchases, accounting, etc. Boy did that combination take a lot of work for a long time. Like regular startups, we had a big idea and hoped it would grow to something we wanted to see in the world. It actually did really well for what it was. The model broke for different reasons than the obvious one with sustainability, involving assholes and a commercial opportunist who offered the premises owner something better (which they then promptly failed to execute, destroying everything for everyone), just as ours was starting to flourish at a sustainable level and we were getting better at distributing the work and knowledge effectively.
    - smitty1e 4y ago
      People scale poorly. Once the group exceeds a clan, the relationships weaken.
      - dontbenebby 4y ago
        On the other hand, if you establish basic norms, you shouldn't have issues like "X won't let me cheat on my expense report" or "Y won't let be a literal agent of foreign power" regardless of the size of the organization.
        smitty1e 4y ago
        "Should" is working hard in that sentence, and history seems to argue the opposite.
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    > Those running the non-profits may do better than the workers. I know. I was nearly violently assaulted by the CEO of my NGO when I pointed out they justified our patltry salaries by the fact we’d make approximately the same on the GS scale while the higher ups made multiples of what POTUS did (which iirc is towards the far end of the bell curve for government salaries). (Hacker protip: Don’t stand in a doorway, raise your voice, then police the response.)
- sshine 4y ago
  I’m sure there are evil non-profits that neither make money nor contribute to society. ;-)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
prohobo 4y ago
To me it seems like these people are more interested in power, and the prestige of being an "insider" than anything else. The moral dilemmas are secondary, like fun anecdotes and conversation topics they can interrupt with "well, actually..." It's a culture of complacency and pretentious bragging that allows evil companies to keep going. This is the case for every bad company from Google, to Blizzard, to FTX. Back when Blizzard was making great games, did they have a culture of "I work for Blizzard therefore I am a true insider"? No. That's their current culture though. I've seen plenty of people saying they got hired by their "dream company" and now they're in "silicon valley" and all that, and invariably they're joining some predatory company that rides on a legacy from pre-2015, or some hype train like most crypto projects. You want to work for a non-evil company? Just don't work primarily for bragging rights, it's not that hard. Of course, some companies are not necessarily evil but have the prestige. I think what differentiates those from others is that people want to join those companies to be part of a mission rather than simply make money and gain bragging rights.
VieEnCode 4y ago
Can you give some examples of category (C)? I'm not quite sure of the type of organisation you're referring to there.
- Shish2k 4y ago
  I worked for a few startups like that - we had a great team, we had great technology, we were making the world a better place without harming anyone… and we ran out of money while negotiating sales contracts. In one case I continued working there without pay for 9 months, just because everything-except-the-money was amazing (and the CEO chose to sell all of her personal assets in order to keep the employees being paid as long as possible). But predictably, that wasn’t sustainable, and now I’m a generic FAANG engineer
- lucky_cloud 4y ago
  I work for an educational multimedia nonprofit. My job involves creating and maintaining educational websites. The organization is not 100% 'not evil' by any means. There are a lot of issues, e.g. we take donations from unquestionably evil sources and prominently mention them (and/or run ads for them). But the mission is to educate, and I know for a fact that my work helps teachers and students every day, so all things considered I feel good about working here. Many people who work here have taken salary/benefits cuts to do so. I'd say most of us are less motivated by money than we are by contributing to society. I was ludicrously underpaid for years, and only recently I got a raise that falls within the lower boundaries of what is average for my position and skills. I get recruiter emails almost daily offering tens of thousands of dollars more than I make now, but I'm not interested in contributing to spyware or optimizing landfill-junk production or any of the other evils that the vast majority of for-profit companies are rewarded for doing. If I think about what it would take for me to work for a company like Facebook, it ends up being "enough to donate whatever it would take to negate the harm they do" - i.e. everything they have, and complete control over the direction of the company. I would turn down millions of dollars if taking it meant working for Facebook.
eschneider 4y ago
I'd suggest that (d) exists: Companies that make a reasonable product, that solves a problem, and that people are willing to pay for. Those companies are out there, and can be good to work for. But yeah, you still have to keep an eye out because even these can turn slowly evil over time.
- hgsgm 4y ago

dontbenebby 4y ago

>Evil pays really well You’ve obviously never worked for a nonprofit :-)

smitty1e 4y ago
Those running the non-profits may do better than the workers.
- jlokier 4y ago
  It depends a lot on the non-profit. As someone who co-ran a non-profit with a mission full time, I ended up deeply in personal debt as a result (of not being paid for years but still having living costs). Those running the non-profit ended up significantly worse off than other people working there. I'm still paying it off years later. At mine, management were required to be volunteers (even full time), but other full time staff were paid salary and benefits. Most people working there were also volunteers, but part time or occasional as they felt like it. They had time for day jobs. The reason for this arrangement was because most members who co-owned it did not believe anyone should be paid, but we had a grant for premises and hired staff. Nobody wanted the hired staff to be in charge overall, as their incentives, skills and competencies were far more aligned with the premises owner and business angle, and not with the non-profit's mission. So it had to be run by motivated volunteers, and that included developing a type of non-profit business and manufacturing service, managing staff, as well as organising a large number of volunteers, events, teaching, safety, purchases, accounting, etc. Boy did that combination take a lot of work for a long time. Like regular startups, we had a big idea and hoped it would grow to something we wanted to see in the world. It actually did really well for what it was. The model broke for different reasons than the obvious one with sustainability, involving assholes and a commercial opportunist who offered the premises owner something better (which they then promptly failed to execute, destroying everything for everyone), just as ours was starting to flourish at a sustainable level and we were getting better at distributing the work and knowledge effectively.
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    People scale poorly. Once the group exceeds a clan, the relationships weaken.
    - dontbenebby 4y ago
      On the other hand, if you establish basic norms, you shouldn't have issues like "X won't let me cheat on my expense report" or "Y won't let be a literal agent of foreign power" regardless of the size of the organization.
      - smitty1e 4y ago
        "Should" is working hard in that sentence, and history seems to argue the opposite.
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  > Those running the non-profits may do better than the workers. I know. I was nearly violently assaulted by the CEO of my NGO when I pointed out they justified our patltry salaries by the fact we’d make approximately the same on the GS scale while the higher ups made multiples of what POTUS did (which iirc is towards the far end of the bell curve for government salaries). (Hacker protip: Don’t stand in a doorway, raise your voice, then police the response.)
sshine 4y ago
I’m sure there are evil non-profits that neither make money nor contribute to society. ;-)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

prohobo 4y ago

To me it seems like these people are more interested in power, and the prestige of being an "insider" than anything else. The moral dilemmas are secondary, like fun anecdotes and conversation topics they can interrupt with "well, actually..." It's a culture of complacency and pretentious bragging that allows evil companies to keep going. This is the case for every bad company from Google, to Blizzard, to FTX. Back when Blizzard was making great games, did they have a culture of "I work for Blizzard therefore I am a true insider"? No. That's their current culture though. I've seen plenty of people saying they got hired by their "dream company" and now they're in "silicon valley" and all that, and invariably they're joining some predatory company that rides on a legacy from pre-2015, or some hype train like most crypto projects. You want to work for a non-evil company? Just don't work primarily for bragging rights, it's not that hard. Of course, some companies are not necessarily evil but have the prestige. I think what differentiates those from others is that people want to join those companies to be part of a mission rather than simply make money and gain bragging rights.

VieEnCode 4y ago

Can you give some examples of category (C)? I'm not quite sure of the type of organisation you're referring to there.

Shish2k 4y ago
I worked for a few startups like that - we had a great team, we had great technology, we were making the world a better place without harming anyone… and we ran out of money while negotiating sales contracts. In one case I continued working there without pay for 9 months, just because everything-except-the-money was amazing (and the CEO chose to sell all of her personal assets in order to keep the employees being paid as long as possible). But predictably, that wasn’t sustainable, and now I’m a generic FAANG engineer
lucky_cloud 4y ago
I work for an educational multimedia nonprofit. My job involves creating and maintaining educational websites. The organization is not 100% 'not evil' by any means. There are a lot of issues, e.g. we take donations from unquestionably evil sources and prominently mention them (and/or run ads for them). But the mission is to educate, and I know for a fact that my work helps teachers and students every day, so all things considered I feel good about working here. Many people who work here have taken salary/benefits cuts to do so. I'd say most of us are less motivated by money than we are by contributing to society. I was ludicrously underpaid for years, and only recently I got a raise that falls within the lower boundaries of what is average for my position and skills. I get recruiter emails almost daily offering tens of thousands of dollars more than I make now, but I'm not interested in contributing to spyware or optimizing landfill-junk production or any of the other evils that the vast majority of for-profit companies are rewarded for doing. If I think about what it would take for me to work for a company like Facebook, it ends up being "enough to donate whatever it would take to negate the harm they do" - i.e. everything they have, and complete control over the direction of the company. I would turn down millions of dollars if taking it meant working for Facebook.

eschneider 4y ago

I'd suggest that (d) exists: Companies that make a reasonable product, that solves a problem, and that people are willing to pay for. Those companies are out there, and can be good to work for. But yeah, you still have to keep an eye out because even these can turn slowly evil over time.

hgsgm 4y ago