4 ms·

Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people ar

by muzz 14y ago

Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people are free to switch jobs. If Stripe offered competitive-enough compensation, they should be able to attract them.

pepr 14y ago
But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.
- muzz 14y ago
  No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.
pc 14y ago
We're not short of people who want to work at Stripe, we're short of the bandwidth to identify the best ones. And so we focus on those we know to be good. Some of them live outside the US; some grew up outside the US and now live here; some are US natural-born US citizens. We're performing a BFS of our personal networks. Sometimes, visas get in the way.
- basiceconomics 14y ago
  "As foreigners, we have many foreigners in our personal networks who we'd prefer to employ rather than going to the inconvenience of seeking out qualified Americans to work at our US company" is a rather different argument from "the best technical talent can only be found outside the US". It's also probably not an argument that will elicit much sympathy from American workers.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- muzz 14y ago
  So your problem is not immigration, but rather talent-identification at your compensation level. Increase your compensation level and the talent will find you.
  - btilly 14y ago
    Increasing compensation will increase how many people want to work for you. However it does not help you identify which of those people are any good. There is a lot of research demonstrating that interviews - even the best - are pretty bad filters. Ditto standardized tests. What does work well? As a lot of organizations have found, personal referrals from people you trust. Which is what Stripe sounds like it is trying to do. Which returns us to the grandfather's point that they are identifying people that they want, and then are unable to hire them.
    - muzz 14y ago
      Wow. So we must change our immigration policies because of Stripe's chosen solution to their talent identification problem? What other profession would that work for? e.g., s/engineer/day-care-provider . I need to hire a good day care provider, and can't find one. But I know a good one in another country. Laws get in the way of my hiring them. Let's change the law!
      - btilly 14y ago
        I was arguing that someone else's argument was wrong. That is not the same as arguing a position on this immigration bill. See https://plus.google.com/114613808538621741268/posts/bNrjdAWpvTT https://plus.google.com/114613808538621741268/posts/bNrjdAWp... for my actual opinion on what I'd like to see happen. (It never will.)
        muzz 14y ago
        I think I see your point. The second half of my original comment may have claimed more than it needed to.
  - 14y ago
Symmetry 14y ago
Yes, stripe can get more workers by stealing them from their competitors, but then their competitors will be short workers. We aren't considering these reforms for the benefit of stripe in particular but technology companies in general, and one company luring away employees from another isn't going to help that. A general rise in wages would help somewhat with the number of new programmers being trained, but that only explains the number of people entering STEM versus non-STEM majors. But we'd be totally ok if everybody who enrolled in college in engineering graduated with a degree in engineering. A big problem is that engineering degrees suffer from high attrition, and I suspect that's because teaching undergraduates is a profit center for the English department but a cost center for the engineering department (it distracts grad students from bringing in research grants).
- jquery 14y ago
  So you are saying that VCs are entitled to tech workers at a price that can make them a profit? Am I entitled to affordable housekeeping?
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    Well, generally I tend to think that liberty should be the default in most cases, and rather than asking whether or not something has enough justification to be allowed we should be asking if there is sufficient justification to prohibit it. So I'd tend to be all for only the minimum restrictions on immigration necessary to not be swamped, rather than just allowing STEM grad students in. Still, Congress generally feels that the US's technology related industries are more important than other industries, and so are privileging it. I'm not going to complain about someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, so I'll just applaud and hope that they do even better next time.
    - jquery 14y ago
      Liberty sounds great. I can't wait to be liberated from my mortgage when I lose the earning power to pay for it.

by muzz 14y ago

pepr 14y ago

But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.

muzz 14y ago
No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.

pc 14y ago

We're not short of people who want to work at Stripe, we're short of the bandwidth to identify the best ones. And so we focus on those we know to be good. Some of them live outside the US; some grew up outside the US and now live here; some are US natural-born US citizens. We're performing a BFS of our personal networks. Sometimes, visas get in the way.

basiceconomics 14y ago
"As foreigners, we have many foreigners in our personal networks who we'd prefer to employ rather than going to the inconvenience of seeking out qualified Americans to work at our US company" is a rather different argument from "the best technical talent can only be found outside the US". It's also probably not an argument that will elicit much sympathy from American workers.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
muzz 14y ago
So your problem is not immigration, but rather talent-identification at your compensation level. Increase your compensation level and the talent will find you.
- btilly 14y ago
  Increasing compensation will increase how many people want to work for you. However it does not help you identify which of those people are any good. There is a lot of research demonstrating that interviews - even the best - are pretty bad filters. Ditto standardized tests. What does work well? As a lot of organizations have found, personal referrals from people you trust. Which is what Stripe sounds like it is trying to do. Which returns us to the grandfather's point that they are identifying people that they want, and then are unable to hire them.
  - muzz 14y ago
    Wow. So we must change our immigration policies because of Stripe's chosen solution to their talent identification problem? What other profession would that work for? e.g., s/engineer/day-care-provider . I need to hire a good day care provider, and can't find one. But I know a good one in another country. Laws get in the way of my hiring them. Let's change the law!
    - btilly 14y ago
      I was arguing that someone else's argument was wrong. That is not the same as arguing a position on this immigration bill. See https://plus.google.com/114613808538621741268/posts/bNrjdAWpvTT https://plus.google.com/114613808538621741268/posts/bNrjdAWp... for my actual opinion on what I'd like to see happen. (It never will.)
      - muzz 14y ago
        I think I see your point. The second half of my original comment may have claimed more than it needed to.
- 14y ago

Symmetry 14y ago

Yes, stripe can get more workers by stealing them from their competitors, but then their competitors will be short workers. We aren't considering these reforms for the benefit of stripe in particular but technology companies in general, and one company luring away employees from another isn't going to help that. A general rise in wages would help somewhat with the number of new programmers being trained, but that only explains the number of people entering STEM versus non-STEM majors. But we'd be totally ok if everybody who enrolled in college in engineering graduated with a degree in engineering. A big problem is that engineering degrees suffer from high attrition, and I suspect that's because teaching undergraduates is a profit center for the English department but a cost center for the engineering department (it distracts grad students from bringing in research grants).

jquery 14y ago
So you are saying that VCs are entitled to tech workers at a price that can make them a profit? Am I entitled to affordable housekeeping?
- Symmetry 14y ago
  Well, generally I tend to think that liberty should be the default in most cases, and rather than asking whether or not something has enough justification to be allowed we should be asking if there is sufficient justification to prohibit it. So I'd tend to be all for only the minimum restrictions on immigration necessary to not be swamped, rather than just allowing STEM grad students in. Still, Congress generally feels that the US's technology related industries are more important than other industries, and so are privileging it. I'm not going to complain about someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, so I'll just applaud and hope that they do even better next time.
  - jquery 14y ago
    Liberty sounds great. I can't wait to be liberated from my mortgage when I lose the earning power to pay for it.