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Damn everyone here is a capitalist when wages are spiraling and employers are handing out RSUs and IPOs pop, but when the first recession comes suddenly we're a

by rr888 4y ago

Damn everyone here is a capitalist when wages are spiraling and employers are handing out RSUs and IPOs pop, but when the first recession comes suddenly we're all the proletariat.

yamtaddle 4y ago
I've spent the whole boom thinking big-tech workers were nuts for not organizing while times were good.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Everyone takes the weekend for granted because they were not the ones fighting for it to be available to them. They don't know how it was when you were forced to work every day of the week (maybe you got lucky and got Sundays off, maybe also Monday if you were very lucky but uncommon), without the weekend, so then you're bound to repeat history. Thank god for the modern invention of the weekend thanks to unions, labor movements and all the campaigns, I'm sure most people cannot imagine life without it. But it is a relatively recent invention.
leet_thow 4y ago
Seriously, I've read so many comments from 'comrades' here lately.
- bitsavers 4y ago
  Sure, blame those nasty communists any time things appear in HN left of what is best for Fortune and the WSJ.
atomicnumber3 4y ago
You see though, if workers received the full value of their labor as wages instead of having it taken as profit, we would eat our cake and have it too.
- rr888 4y ago
  Probably not a great example when most tech companies are failing. Should workers pay to work in an unprofitable startup?
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    People love to say they want full value of their work. They just don't want to take any of the risk. So, they let someone else build the multi billion dollar company first before making demands. Very few people put their labor where their mouth is.
hallqv 4y ago
Haha, had the exact same reaction when reading the top comments here.. Google, along with rest of FAANG are massively over staffed, which they could get away with in a zero-interest rate economy when money was super-cheap, but not anymore. They could all cut 70%+ without significantly hurting their revenue growth, which makes all the economic sense in the world in the current environment.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > They could all cut 70%+ without significantly hurting their revenue growth Short-term, maybe. But as things start to fall apart, their revenue would surely stop to grow at the same rate.
  - hallqv 4y ago
    I doubt it. Having too many employees is a huge drag on an organizations rate of innovation. Company politics start to run the show.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Agree, having too many employees is a huge downside, overhead gets incredibly high very quickly. But having too few is also a downside. Trick is to balance it for what you need, something many companies seems to adjust for right now :)
- candiodari 4y ago
  Look at government finances for 5 seconds. We will be back to 0% interest rates in less than 2 years. For the same reason as explained in margin call: "Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different ..." Because if we aren't back to 0% in ~2 years the government will be doing its job without money, proverbially killing people just to get something to eat. So I guess, given your comment as that being the cause of huge wages, that's great news for most people here!
tshaddox 4y ago
I think there’s a lot of wiggle room in so-called “capitalism” for things like workers’ rights. Capitalism doesn’t just mean “literally any action of an owner of means of production is okay” (or if you insist it does mean that, then you’ll indeed find a lot of people won’t identify with that definition of capitalism).
Ekaros 4y ago
And still read comments against setting minimum wage at some liveable levels. These are likely different people, but still it is somewhat weird to read either of the comments.
caeril 4y ago
It's much worse than that. Not only were these downtrodden developers earning $400k+ in total compensation, but they were doing it writing literal panopticon surveillance apparatus adtech platforms, or addiction-inducing heuristics for social media platforms, or optimizing packet delivery for mindless streaming video consumption. And not a single one of these people will ever look in the mirror and ask "are we the baddies?" No self-awareness whatsoever.

by rr888 4y ago

Damn everyone here is a capitalist when wages are spiraling and employers are handing out RSUs and IPOs pop, but when the first recession comes suddenly we're all the proletariat.

yamtaddle 4y ago

I've spent the whole boom thinking big-tech workers were nuts for not organizing while times were good.

capableweb 4y ago
Everyone takes the weekend for granted because they were not the ones fighting for it to be available to them. They don't know how it was when you were forced to work every day of the week (maybe you got lucky and got Sundays off, maybe also Monday if you were very lucky but uncommon), without the weekend, so then you're bound to repeat history. Thank god for the modern invention of the weekend thanks to unions, labor movements and all the campaigns, I'm sure most people cannot imagine life without it. But it is a relatively recent invention.

leet_thow 4y ago

Seriously, I've read so many comments from 'comrades' here lately.

bitsavers 4y ago
Sure, blame those nasty communists any time things appear in HN left of what is best for Fortune and the WSJ.

atomicnumber3 4y ago

You see though, if workers received the full value of their labor as wages instead of having it taken as profit, we would eat our cake and have it too.

rr888 4y ago
Probably not a great example when most tech companies are failing. Should workers pay to work in an unprofitable startup?
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  People love to say they want full value of their work. They just don't want to take any of the risk. So, they let someone else build the multi billion dollar company first before making demands. Very few people put their labor where their mouth is.

hallqv 4y ago

Haha, had the exact same reaction when reading the top comments here.. Google, along with rest of FAANG are massively over staffed, which they could get away with in a zero-interest rate economy when money was super-cheap, but not anymore. They could all cut 70%+ without significantly hurting their revenue growth, which makes all the economic sense in the world in the current environment.

capableweb 4y ago
> They could all cut 70%+ without significantly hurting their revenue growth Short-term, maybe. But as things start to fall apart, their revenue would surely stop to grow at the same rate.
- hallqv 4y ago
  I doubt it. Having too many employees is a huge drag on an organizations rate of innovation. Company politics start to run the show.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Agree, having too many employees is a huge downside, overhead gets incredibly high very quickly. But having too few is also a downside. Trick is to balance it for what you need, something many companies seems to adjust for right now :)
candiodari 4y ago
Look at government finances for 5 seconds. We will be back to 0% interest rates in less than 2 years. For the same reason as explained in margin call: "Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different ..." Because if we aren't back to 0% in ~2 years the government will be doing its job without money, proverbially killing people just to get something to eat. So I guess, given your comment as that being the cause of huge wages, that's great news for most people here!

tshaddox 4y ago

I think there’s a lot of wiggle room in so-called “capitalism” for things like workers’ rights. Capitalism doesn’t just mean “literally any action of an owner of means of production is okay” (or if you insist it does mean that, then you’ll indeed find a lot of people won’t identify with that definition of capitalism).

Ekaros 4y ago

And still read comments against setting minimum wage at some liveable levels. These are likely different people, but still it is somewhat weird to read either of the comments.

caeril 4y ago

It's much worse than that. Not only were these downtrodden developers earning $400k+ in total compensation, but they were doing it writing literal panopticon surveillance apparatus adtech platforms, or addiction-inducing heuristics for social media platforms, or optimizing packet delivery for mindless streaming video consumption. And not a single one of these people will ever look in the mirror and ask "are we the baddies?" No self-awareness whatsoever.