6 ms·

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “

by gumby 4y ago

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development is now referred to as “deep tech”.

commandlinefan 4y ago
> There’s a very good chance that their new jobs The linked blog post reads like the other 43.3% don't seem to have found any new jobs at all (if I'm reading it right). ("There could of course still be many that have found new jobs, which they might not yet update their profiles - a common practice on LinkedIn").
- gumby 4y ago
  Zero of my friends laid off from google are even looking for a new job. My wife was always asking me to retire, but after a year or so she’d say “it would be good for you to have a job”. Then repeat. Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s. So I suspect a bunch of them will be back in the job market eventually.
  - than3 4y ago
    Its actually not that unexpected, a big contributor is inflation. If you've any experience with Argentina, or other hyper-inflationary events, there comes a point where your labor is more valuable to you than what others are willing to pay you for. When the store of value is degrading rapidly, and wages in general always lag, those with options will do something else. Most companies I know simply are unwilling to adjust their wages for inflation. When we were in a 2% inflationary environment, and that 2% could be counted on year after year as being stable, it was more reasonable. With inflation in the double digits, with real inflation according to previous more accurate methods showing roughly a ~33% loss in value YOY, and the corresponding increase in taxes (as inflation increases your taxes increase as you enter higher tax brackets for the same value), it makes a lot more sense to use your efforts for yourself instead of being on the open market. Factor markets and producers decide what they are willing to accept, and with a moving goal post in terms of a currency store, it makes more sense to wait in sheltered assets and produce goods you'll use. People in general won't accept doing $1,000 in work and by the time they can spend it only having $700, or worse for example $1. Do you think they will continue doing that work moving forward if they have no expectation of getting anything comparable in value in return?
    - QLazuli 4y ago
      This is the best little nugget of wisdom I've come across in a while, thank you for sharing it. It was well written and concise, and I feel like I understand the world a little better
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      We are talking about people making above >150k/year here right ? At no point does 10-20% inflation mean they are better off growing their own food or some shit like that. Your point is probably applicable in less developed economies/low paid positions. For highly specialized well paid positions if this was the case you'd probably have a societal collapse.
      - makerdiety 4y ago
        Actually, increasing rates of inflation do mean people are better off sustaining themselves and leaving the credit based economy that has a rising inflation rate with its credit based currency. The weak buying power of an individual currency unit, like a United States dollar, indicates a geopolitical state and economy that is beginning to lack the ability to sustain further revenue increases in a generalized shareholder account of wealth. And middle class or bourgeois laborers are those general shareholders in the hypothetical credit based economy and state I'm talking about here. Basically, a credit bubble is naturally popping to combat real overpopulation and making a lot of money (like a billion dollars, actually) here might actually be a fool's game. So investing in outside assets, relative to the indicated failing state and the credit based assets its domestic production offers its domestic shareholders, is the rational move to make in this theoretical game. So the question now is: what can we do and invest in as part of our survival motivated escape from the failing society?
      - than3 4y ago
        Lets do some basic math, and then afterwards I think it will be clear how it might be better to grow your own food. Also, not everyone makes that much, and you seem to think that's a lot but its really not, especially if inflation is eating away at your stores regularly (over a greater time period than a year). So, here comes the basic math available from looking up some publicly available figures. I only say this because some people have past trauma associated with math in general, but its really critical to make any kind of rational comparison. The Federal tax rate above 89K is $15,213.50 in taxes plus 24% of the amount over $89,075 for Federal up to ~170k, and then you also have State taxes which may be as high as 13.3%; more if you own property (% based on fixed value), plus its counted as ordinary income so social security and medicare take off another 15.3%. Anything you buy has sales tax so another ~7%, and fuel/vehicle taxes. Overall, at 89K ordinary income, 15213 = ~17% +15.3%+13.3% = ~45.6%, nearly half of what you get paid on goes to the government. Now comes along 20% inflation, and this is a tax because they printed too much money and couldn't balance a budget. So 65.6%, assuming inflation is at 20% and not much higher, then there's taxes on various goods you have to purchase such as fuel and general sales tax, property taxes, it varies, but we'll say 7% or more on any dollar you spend, and depending how much you have to drive, that could be about 3% (to make it round), since vehicle costs and taxes are non-deductible. So factoring in all taxes on that income you receive, somewhere between 65 and 75.6% with 20% inflation goes to government. If you are self employed, you have more options to make certain costs deductible, and if you are not its about half of that 15.3% less so there's some leeway. So, you can work 80 hour weeks, stressful job, making that 89K/year or more, and only take home ballpark around 30,616 after factoring in inflation, and taxes. If you don't reinvest in an asset that sheltered from inflation you lose that much or more of your surplus/stores the following year and each subsequent year thereafter whereas business simply passes it through to you in higher costs. Alternatively, you can grow your own food, produce your own products, work less, and keep 100% of what you produce and use, and if you have surplus sell some of it if the price is right and they'll tax you on that small amount. Should you trade 4160 hours of your life for 89K, when, by the time you get it and can spend it, you only take home about 30K and the prices may have risen just as quickly during that time to net 0 or negative. That's part of the horror of hyper-inflation, and while it hasn't by definition hit 50%/month yet, nothing fundamentally has changed to stop inflation despite what the news may be saying. Those that have lived through similar situations know they have to invest their efforts in producing their own goods such as raising chickens, goats, milk and cheese. Without food security and having people who have specialized labor that can help out, you are at the mercy of creditors and the producers you depend on for daily necessities and they will pass inflation costs on.
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    > Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s I would kill to retire. All I want to do is make art, music, cook, hike, kayak, and travel on the cheap. I have about.... 1/20th of the savings needed.
    - Zetice 4y ago
      I get the impulse, but why isn't this viewed as profoundly selfish?
      - lazyasciiart 4y ago
        People tend not to spend too much time analyzing impossible dreams. Most "if I won the lottery" plans are also profoundly selfish.
      - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
        Selfish how? Like not contributing to society? Do we really want to have an introspective philosophical debate about the societal impact of working for a tech company?
      - drakonka 4y ago
        Not sure it's any more selfish than working for giant corporations for a fat paycheck. Both are selfish in their own ways, and both can also help people in their own ways. I wouldn't say there's something inherently wrong with being selfish on its own.
      - throwbadubadu 4y ago
        > I get the impulse, but why isn't this viewed as profoundly selfish? I get that impulse, but that is like saying that most of our current jobs are reasonable and for the greater good cause? Most of the real value providing and necessary jobs are currently underpaid, while on the other spectrums end few people can reap automations fruits that actually should be shared by society, or somehow like that.. ( I know, opinionated can derail into endless discussion topic and other's may express better). Also, why isn't seen making music and art as a contribution to society while some of the current jobs are hurting society?
  - mupuff1234 4y ago
    A large chunk got >6 months severance, probably not a bad time to take a few months off and recharge.
- hadlock 4y ago
  Not everyone needs to go get a job immediately after being laid off. Most people I know that when laid off from a tech company, take a minimum of 60 days off before starting a new job. If you're 22, saddled with student debt, just signed a lease on an apartment and just bought a fancy new car you might be in a different situation but there's a lot of engineers in their 30s and 40s where a 3-6 month break from employment ("sabbatical") is something they've been planning for, for a few years now anyways.
Teever 4y ago
Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  Stripe. They are a payment processor and work in Finance. What significant contributions to tech have they produced? I'm not being snarky, I'm just not familiar with any off the top of my head like I know React came from FB/Meta, Google & Amazon produce all sorts of cloud computing stuff, Apple produces lots of libraries/frameworks (most likely for their own hardware/ecosystem), Bootstrap came out of Twitter, etc.
  - ecshafer 4y ago
    Stripe made Sorbet for Ruby.
  - quelltext 4y ago
    Providing an API abstracting over the complexity of payment processing is the technology. Google's search engine is technology but you would probably say "isn't that just a researching documents"? A bit weird how you only deem companies technological if they have released popular OSS or Apple because they produce libraries/frameworks they use internally. Pretty sure all software companies use internal libraries.
    - roundandround 4y ago
      That just seems to feed the point to me. Google was competing with organizations particularly created for a new tech market that didn't exist before them. NYC library was maybe the largest player available to consumers? (Before the emergent search tech like alta vista and yahoo that Google disrupted.) Stripe is a payment processor with the most disruptive automation, competing with other payment processors older than the web. Every industry will be shrinking in people per net work, few industries are new things (at least for the public) enabled by automation. If we want to call all disruptors tech companies, why not also call the old companies that transform to compete with them tech companies too? Then every industry is tech. But really it is the opposite, tech as it ages becomes regular business that is more dependent on trademarks, relationships, etc, so some things we consider tech from recent decades are less so now and companies that stay primarily in them are more like old industry than tech companies that compete for the newly emerging fields.
stathibus 4y ago
In my head, "tech" refers to the segment of the labor market, not the product that the company produces. We can race to the bottom on the true definition of "tech" as far as actually producing new technology but in this context it doesn't matter.
- prerok 4y ago
  Ok, but what is "tech" in this context? I can imagine those people being hired for infra stuff in other segments but the percentage seems high for programmer-level stuff.
  - notJim 4y ago
    Simple metric: if the office had a kombucha tap in 2021, it's a tech company.
bena 4y ago
The problem is that everything is technology. The wheel is technology. But since there wasn't any good words to use to describe the practical application of computer science and other skills related to computers, we just used the term "information technology". Because, it's relatively descriptive. Computers are technology to leverage information. Everything related to getting computers to exchange information would be considered technology related to that. But then it gets shortened to "IT" and just "tech". Networking is "tech", software is "tech", hardware is "tech". I've come to disregard anything that bills itself as simply "tech". It's smoke and mirrors. You're looking to gussy up something that would otherwise be banal.
RajT88 4y ago
> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Reminds me of this: https://www.satellitetoday.com/innovation/2019/02/26/microsoft-ceo-every-company-is-now-a-software-company/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/innovation/2019/02/26/microso...
jjav 4y ago
> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Indeed. Nearly every so-called "tech" company is not actually in the business of selling technology products, so they aren't really tech companies. Of course they create technology (sometimes very nice ones) internally in support of their actual business, but tech isn't the business the company board cares about. Netflix is a movie production and distribution company. Google and Facebook are advertising companies. At least Apple is an actual tech company.
- paulddraper 4y ago
  Google and Facebook are Ad Tech. I can sort of see your point with Netflix moving into content creation, but only sort of.
  - matt-attack 4y ago
    Wrong. Google and Facebook would be Ad Tech companies if they sold the ad tech. Instead they use the ad tech to sell ads. So I think it’s more accurate to call them ad companies.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  Google has Android (and produces Pixel phones), Chrome OS, it actually sells technology products

by gumby 4y ago

commandlinefan 4y ago

> There’s a very good chance that their new jobs The linked blog post reads like the other 43.3% don't seem to have found any new jobs at all (if I'm reading it right). ("There could of course still be many that have found new jobs, which they might not yet update their profiles - a common practice on LinkedIn").

gumby 4y ago
Zero of my friends laid off from google are even looking for a new job. My wife was always asking me to retire, but after a year or so she’d say “it would be good for you to have a job”. Then repeat. Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s. So I suspect a bunch of them will be back in the job market eventually.
- than3 4y ago
  Its actually not that unexpected, a big contributor is inflation. If you've any experience with Argentina, or other hyper-inflationary events, there comes a point where your labor is more valuable to you than what others are willing to pay you for. When the store of value is degrading rapidly, and wages in general always lag, those with options will do something else. Most companies I know simply are unwilling to adjust their wages for inflation. When we were in a 2% inflationary environment, and that 2% could be counted on year after year as being stable, it was more reasonable. With inflation in the double digits, with real inflation according to previous more accurate methods showing roughly a ~33% loss in value YOY, and the corresponding increase in taxes (as inflation increases your taxes increase as you enter higher tax brackets for the same value), it makes a lot more sense to use your efforts for yourself instead of being on the open market. Factor markets and producers decide what they are willing to accept, and with a moving goal post in terms of a currency store, it makes more sense to wait in sheltered assets and produce goods you'll use. People in general won't accept doing $1,000 in work and by the time they can spend it only having $700, or worse for example $1. Do you think they will continue doing that work moving forward if they have no expectation of getting anything comparable in value in return?
  - QLazuli 4y ago
    This is the best little nugget of wisdom I've come across in a while, thank you for sharing it. It was well written and concise, and I feel like I understand the world a little better
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    We are talking about people making above >150k/year here right ? At no point does 10-20% inflation mean they are better off growing their own food or some shit like that. Your point is probably applicable in less developed economies/low paid positions. For highly specialized well paid positions if this was the case you'd probably have a societal collapse.
    - makerdiety 4y ago
      Actually, increasing rates of inflation do mean people are better off sustaining themselves and leaving the credit based economy that has a rising inflation rate with its credit based currency. The weak buying power of an individual currency unit, like a United States dollar, indicates a geopolitical state and economy that is beginning to lack the ability to sustain further revenue increases in a generalized shareholder account of wealth. And middle class or bourgeois laborers are those general shareholders in the hypothetical credit based economy and state I'm talking about here. Basically, a credit bubble is naturally popping to combat real overpopulation and making a lot of money (like a billion dollars, actually) here might actually be a fool's game. So investing in outside assets, relative to the indicated failing state and the credit based assets its domestic production offers its domestic shareholders, is the rational move to make in this theoretical game. So the question now is: what can we do and invest in as part of our survival motivated escape from the failing society?
    - than3 4y ago
      Lets do some basic math, and then afterwards I think it will be clear how it might be better to grow your own food. Also, not everyone makes that much, and you seem to think that's a lot but its really not, especially if inflation is eating away at your stores regularly (over a greater time period than a year). So, here comes the basic math available from looking up some publicly available figures. I only say this because some people have past trauma associated with math in general, but its really critical to make any kind of rational comparison. The Federal tax rate above 89K is $15,213.50 in taxes plus 24% of the amount over $89,075 for Federal up to ~170k, and then you also have State taxes which may be as high as 13.3%; more if you own property (% based on fixed value), plus its counted as ordinary income so social security and medicare take off another 15.3%. Anything you buy has sales tax so another ~7%, and fuel/vehicle taxes. Overall, at 89K ordinary income, 15213 = ~17% +15.3%+13.3% = ~45.6%, nearly half of what you get paid on goes to the government. Now comes along 20% inflation, and this is a tax because they printed too much money and couldn't balance a budget. So 65.6%, assuming inflation is at 20% and not much higher, then there's taxes on various goods you have to purchase such as fuel and general sales tax, property taxes, it varies, but we'll say 7% or more on any dollar you spend, and depending how much you have to drive, that could be about 3% (to make it round), since vehicle costs and taxes are non-deductible. So factoring in all taxes on that income you receive, somewhere between 65 and 75.6% with 20% inflation goes to government. If you are self employed, you have more options to make certain costs deductible, and if you are not its about half of that 15.3% less so there's some leeway. So, you can work 80 hour weeks, stressful job, making that 89K/year or more, and only take home ballpark around 30,616 after factoring in inflation, and taxes. If you don't reinvest in an asset that sheltered from inflation you lose that much or more of your surplus/stores the following year and each subsequent year thereafter whereas business simply passes it through to you in higher costs. Alternatively, you can grow your own food, produce your own products, work less, and keep 100% of what you produce and use, and if you have surplus sell some of it if the price is right and they'll tax you on that small amount. Should you trade 4160 hours of your life for 89K, when, by the time you get it and can spend it, you only take home about 30K and the prices may have risen just as quickly during that time to net 0 or negative. That's part of the horror of hyper-inflation, and while it hasn't by definition hit 50%/month yet, nothing fundamentally has changed to stop inflation despite what the news may be saying. Those that have lived through similar situations know they have to invest their efforts in producing their own goods such as raising chickens, goats, milk and cheese. Without food security and having people who have specialized labor that can help out, you are at the mercy of creditors and the producers you depend on for daily necessities and they will pass inflation costs on.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  > Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s I would kill to retire. All I want to do is make art, music, cook, hike, kayak, and travel on the cheap. I have about.... 1/20th of the savings needed.
  - Zetice 4y ago
    I get the impulse, but why isn't this viewed as profoundly selfish?
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      People tend not to spend too much time analyzing impossible dreams. Most "if I won the lottery" plans are also profoundly selfish.
    - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      Selfish how? Like not contributing to society? Do we really want to have an introspective philosophical debate about the societal impact of working for a tech company?
    - drakonka 4y ago
      Not sure it's any more selfish than working for giant corporations for a fat paycheck. Both are selfish in their own ways, and both can also help people in their own ways. I wouldn't say there's something inherently wrong with being selfish on its own.
    - throwbadubadu 4y ago
      > I get the impulse, but why isn't this viewed as profoundly selfish? I get that impulse, but that is like saying that most of our current jobs are reasonable and for the greater good cause? Most of the real value providing and necessary jobs are currently underpaid, while on the other spectrums end few people can reap automations fruits that actually should be shared by society, or somehow like that.. ( I know, opinionated can derail into endless discussion topic and other's may express better). Also, why isn't seen making music and art as a contribution to society while some of the current jobs are hurting society?
- mupuff1234 4y ago
  A large chunk got >6 months severance, probably not a bad time to take a few months off and recharge.
hadlock 4y ago
Not everyone needs to go get a job immediately after being laid off. Most people I know that when laid off from a tech company, take a minimum of 60 days off before starting a new job. If you're 22, saddled with student debt, just signed a lease on an apartment and just bought a fancy new car you might be in a different situation but there's a lot of engineers in their 30s and 40s where a 3-6 month break from employment ("sabbatical") is something they've been planning for, for a few years now anyways.

Teever 4y ago

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
Stripe. They are a payment processor and work in Finance. What significant contributions to tech have they produced? I'm not being snarky, I'm just not familiar with any off the top of my head like I know React came from FB/Meta, Google & Amazon produce all sorts of cloud computing stuff, Apple produces lots of libraries/frameworks (most likely for their own hardware/ecosystem), Bootstrap came out of Twitter, etc.
- ecshafer 4y ago
  Stripe made Sorbet for Ruby.
- quelltext 4y ago
  Providing an API abstracting over the complexity of payment processing is the technology. Google's search engine is technology but you would probably say "isn't that just a researching documents"? A bit weird how you only deem companies technological if they have released popular OSS or Apple because they produce libraries/frameworks they use internally. Pretty sure all software companies use internal libraries.
  - roundandround 4y ago
    That just seems to feed the point to me. Google was competing with organizations particularly created for a new tech market that didn't exist before them. NYC library was maybe the largest player available to consumers? (Before the emergent search tech like alta vista and yahoo that Google disrupted.) Stripe is a payment processor with the most disruptive automation, competing with other payment processors older than the web. Every industry will be shrinking in people per net work, few industries are new things (at least for the public) enabled by automation. If we want to call all disruptors tech companies, why not also call the old companies that transform to compete with them tech companies too? Then every industry is tech. But really it is the opposite, tech as it ages becomes regular business that is more dependent on trademarks, relationships, etc, so some things we consider tech from recent decades are less so now and companies that stay primarily in them are more like old industry than tech companies that compete for the newly emerging fields.

stathibus 4y ago

In my head, "tech" refers to the segment of the labor market, not the product that the company produces. We can race to the bottom on the true definition of "tech" as far as actually producing new technology but in this context it doesn't matter.

prerok 4y ago
Ok, but what is "tech" in this context? I can imagine those people being hired for infra stuff in other segments but the percentage seems high for programmer-level stuff.
- notJim 4y ago
  Simple metric: if the office had a kombucha tap in 2021, it's a tech company.

bena 4y ago

The problem is that everything is technology. The wheel is technology. But since there wasn't any good words to use to describe the practical application of computer science and other skills related to computers, we just used the term "information technology". Because, it's relatively descriptive. Computers are technology to leverage information. Everything related to getting computers to exchange information would be considered technology related to that. But then it gets shortened to "IT" and just "tech". Networking is "tech", software is "tech", hardware is "tech". I've come to disregard anything that bills itself as simply "tech". It's smoke and mirrors. You're looking to gussy up something that would otherwise be banal.

RajT88 4y ago

> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Reminds me of this: https://www.satellitetoday.com/innovation/2019/02/26/microsoft-ceo-every-company-is-now-a-software-company/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/innovation/2019/02/26/microso...

jjav 4y ago

> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Indeed. Nearly every so-called "tech" company is not actually in the business of selling technology products, so they aren't really tech companies. Of course they create technology (sometimes very nice ones) internally in support of their actual business, but tech isn't the business the company board cares about. Netflix is a movie production and distribution company. Google and Facebook are advertising companies. At least Apple is an actual tech company.

paulddraper 4y ago
Google and Facebook are Ad Tech. I can sort of see your point with Netflix moving into content creation, but only sort of.
- matt-attack 4y ago
  Wrong. Google and Facebook would be Ad Tech companies if they sold the ad tech. Instead they use the ad tech to sell ads. So I think it’s more accurate to call them ad companies.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nextaccountic 4y ago
Google has Android (and produces Pixel phones), Chrome OS, it actually sells technology products