4 ms·

Salary has never been about the value you provide. It's about the cost to replace you. Companies will never pay you more than you cost to replace.

nonethewiser 3y ago
> Salary has never been about the value you provide. It's about the cost to replace you. Companies will never pay you more than you cost to replace. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. To some extent, the value you bring is whats behind the cost to replace you. And I dont mean in some proportional relationship to revenue or profit or something. I just mean software engineers create more value than someone who can juggle chairs, who is incredibly hard to replace. Of course if there were 4 billion software engineers tomorrow, wages would go down. We agree on that. But business value is a factor.
1270018080 3y ago
Which is why we need a union, despite what libertarians think they are above.
- w4termelon 3y ago
  > Which is why we need a union Development is global as opposed to, say, cab driving. So, tech companies from other parts of the world will applaud your decision. Keep pushing new regulations, we'll reap the benefits.
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    Cool, so you can be worked into the ground by abusive landlords who add no value. We'll pool our skills and create organizations of engineers who want better for themselves and the world.
- dang 3y ago
  > Which is why we need a union, despite what libertarian fetishist tech bros think they are above Please make your substantive points without snark or name-calling. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Edit: it's not good to stealth-edit your comments after the fact, especially when doing so deprives replies of their original meaning. If you're going to make an edit that affects conversation in this way, please do it append-only (as I've done here) with an "Edit:" prefix or similar.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 3y ago
      The comment was edited after I replied. I've quoted what it originally said in my reply now.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  This needs to happen as soon as possible. Not only to protect ourselves against the destructive race to the bottom and offshoring, but to put guard rails in place against these people who want to use technology to extract value at the expense of everything else. They're nothing without the engineers and product designers that actually create the value.
- yCombLinks 3y ago
  Lots of libertarians support unions, not sure where you get your info. The libertarian argument has the most subtlety about how and why to support or oppose certain unions. So yes, they do oppose some unions.
  - tomtheelder 3y ago
    Anyone sane should oppose _some_ unions. They don’t all make sense/provide positive value. Looking at you, public sector unions.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  To any immigrants reading, remember that unions were instrumental in foreigners finding it hard to move to the US. Here are some opinions on you from HN users: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36511005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36511005 > Artifactually (sic) increasing the supply of workers suppresses wages. Your existence will devalue their education https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505802 > Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in education. "Getting rid" of you will be considered a good idea https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506071 > I think US will benefit in the long run getting rid of these h1bs.
closeparen 3y ago
Cost of labor bounded above by the value of the activity. Businesses that are not FAANG scale cannot afford FAANG-level talent even if it would be necessary for something they want to do. They just can't do the thing. Or try to do the closest analogue they can with the people they can afford. Maybe hire heavy-hitting consultants for a short time to put them on the right track.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> Salary has never been about the value you provide. It's about the cost to replace you. Companies will never pay you more than you cost to replace. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. To some extent, the value you bring is whats behind the cost to replace you. And I dont mean in some proportional relationship to revenue or profit or something. I just mean software engineers create more value than someone who can juggle chairs, who is incredibly hard to replace. Of course if there were 4 billion software engineers tomorrow, wages would go down. We agree on that. But business value is a factor.

1270018080 3y ago

Which is why we need a union, despite what libertarians think they are above.

w4termelon 3y ago
> Which is why we need a union Development is global as opposed to, say, cab driving. So, tech companies from other parts of the world will applaud your decision. Keep pushing new regulations, we'll reap the benefits.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  Cool, so you can be worked into the ground by abusive landlords who add no value. We'll pool our skills and create organizations of engineers who want better for themselves and the world.
dang 3y ago
> Which is why we need a union, despite what libertarian fetishist tech bros think they are above Please make your substantive points without snark or name-calling. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Edit: it's not good to stealth-edit your comments after the fact, especially when doing so deprives replies of their original meaning. If you're going to make an edit that affects conversation in this way, please do it append-only (as I've done here) with an "Edit:" prefix or similar.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    The comment was edited after I replied. I've quoted what it originally said in my reply now.
mostlysimilar 3y ago
This needs to happen as soon as possible. Not only to protect ourselves against the destructive race to the bottom and offshoring, but to put guard rails in place against these people who want to use technology to extract value at the expense of everything else. They're nothing without the engineers and product designers that actually create the value.
yCombLinks 3y ago
Lots of libertarians support unions, not sure where you get your info. The libertarian argument has the most subtlety about how and why to support or oppose certain unions. So yes, they do oppose some unions.
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  Anyone sane should oppose _some_ unions. They don’t all make sense/provide positive value. Looking at you, public sector unions.
renewiltord 3y ago
To any immigrants reading, remember that unions were instrumental in foreigners finding it hard to move to the US. Here are some opinions on you from HN users: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36511005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36511005 > Artifactually (sic) increasing the supply of workers suppresses wages. Your existence will devalue their education https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505802 > Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in education. "Getting rid" of you will be considered a good idea https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506071 > I think US will benefit in the long run getting rid of these h1bs.

closeparen 3y ago

Cost of labor bounded above by the value of the activity. Businesses that are not FAANG scale cannot afford FAANG-level talent even if it would be necessary for something they want to do. They just can't do the thing. Or try to do the closest analogue they can with the people they can afford. Maybe hire heavy-hitting consultants for a short time to put them on the right track.