4 ms·

Often true but Facebook is not bleeding cash though. They are printing money. They are just very bloated.

by rapsey 4y ago

eastbound 4y ago
Isn’t Facebook the company of $300k-a-year developers? These jobs practically didn’t exist before Facebook-Google. Are we in a situation where we might see the previous normal come back, ie $150k when you’re a manager slaving away and that’s it?
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  It's actually really difficult to run a business that is hugely profitable and to keep wages under control. This is less of a "Facebook" thing and more of a "highly profitable company" thing. The reason wages at FAANG are high is because they make a shit tonne of money, and since they've got that much money they can just pay top engineers more than competitors. There's a limit to that - which is how much money are they making. But if Meta decide they're just going to pay everyone less, what happens? Everyone leaves and goes to Google. What happens if Google decides to pay less? They go off to Microsoft or Amazon. So they can all afford these high salaries - because the company makes a tonne of money, and they have a clear downside to not paying these salaries- they lose top talent. The cases where other companies are paying less are entirely down to actual hardnosed business, they pay less because they expect to hire less good people and that's a good trade off in a business that isn't reliant on engineering talent. Intel coasted for about a decade not competing for the best talent, why? Because their sales strategy was what dominated the profitability of the company. Eventually they lost their engineering edge and now the company is in the toilet, but that wasn't really a mistake, it was a deliberate choice by management to control costs rather than invest to innovate.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    “Everyone leaves and goes to Google. What happens if Google decides to pay less? They go off to Microsoft or Amazon.” Problem is that Google, Amazon and Microsoft aren’t hiring right now.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      They are if you are good enough.
      - cudgy 4y ago
        Of course, but why work for someone else, especially a huge corp, if your good enough?
    - SilverBirch 4y ago
      It's more difficult than it was, but it's not impossible, and the second you drop down into the second tier of pay - as the GP was suggesting, suddenly you've got thousands of companys that you could be going to.
izacus 4y ago
A company that multi-billion profit on top of multi billion stock buyback cannot be "bloated" by any definition of the word that's not uttered by a sociopath.
- lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
  https://drthad.substack.com/p/the-stupidity-of-stock-buyback-backlash https://drthad.substack.com/p/the-stupidity-of-stock-buyback...

Often true but Facebook is not bleeding cash though. They are printing money. They are just very bloated.

by rapsey 4y ago

Often true but Facebook is not bleeding cash though. They are printing money. They are just very bloated.

Isn’t Facebook the company of $300k-a-year developers? These jobs practically didn’t exist before Facebook-Google. Are we in a situation where we might see the previous normal come back, ie $150k when you’re a manager slaving away and that’s it?

SilverBirch 4y ago
It's actually really difficult to run a business that is hugely profitable and to keep wages under control. This is less of a "Facebook" thing and more of a "highly profitable company" thing. The reason wages at FAANG are high is because they make a shit tonne of money, and since they've got that much money they can just pay top engineers more than competitors. There's a limit to that - which is how much money are they making. But if Meta decide they're just going to pay everyone less, what happens? Everyone leaves and goes to Google. What happens if Google decides to pay less? They go off to Microsoft or Amazon. So they can all afford these high salaries - because the company makes a tonne of money, and they have a clear downside to not paying these salaries- they lose top talent. The cases where other companies are paying less are entirely down to actual hardnosed business, they pay less because they expect to hire less good people and that's a good trade off in a business that isn't reliant on engineering talent. Intel coasted for about a decade not competing for the best talent, why? Because their sales strategy was what dominated the profitability of the company. Eventually they lost their engineering edge and now the company is in the toilet, but that wasn't really a mistake, it was a deliberate choice by management to control costs rather than invest to innovate.
- cudgy 4y ago
  “Everyone leaves and goes to Google. What happens if Google decides to pay less? They go off to Microsoft or Amazon.” Problem is that Google, Amazon and Microsoft aren’t hiring right now.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    They are if you are good enough.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Of course, but why work for someone else, especially a huge corp, if your good enough?
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    It's more difficult than it was, but it's not impossible, and the second you drop down into the second tier of pay - as the GP was suggesting, suddenly you've got thousands of companys that you could be going to.

izacus 4y ago

A company that multi-billion profit on top of multi billion stock buyback cannot be "bloated" by any definition of the word that's not uttered by a sociopath.

lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
https://drthad.substack.com/p/the-stupidity-of-stock-buyback-backlash https://drthad.substack.com/p/the-stupidity-of-stock-buyback...