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Paul Graham is fighting for his side. I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs. He's arguing that the same companies who colluded illeg

by ta75757 12y ago

Paul Graham is fighting for his side. I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs. He's arguing that the same companies who colluded illegally to drive down the wages of the "best" programmers, now have no interest in lowering their wages when they're arguing for increased immigration. LOL.

OmarIsmail 12y ago
Paul Graham is representing the startups that he's invested in - not Apple, Google and FB. The BigCos are already big enough to have international offices to mitigate these immigration issues. A 20 person startup doesn't.
- pastProlog 12y ago
  > From the essay: But it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives. An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the last thing they'd want; it would destroy them. Eric Schmidt not only illegally colluded in a conspiracy to drive down programmer salaries, his e-mails say things like "this may be illegal so delete this e-mail". I guess I'm one of those "dishonest" wealth-creating worker bees who read these subpoenaed e-mails where I spin the "dishonest" narrative that I actually believe what Eric Schmidt said about his attempts to secretly and illegally drive down his programmer's salaries.
  - OmarIsmail 12y ago
    Trying to keep the wages low of people you know are good is a different issue than trying to hire people from other countries. Now, BigCos may still want good people they bring from the outside to have low wages, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want to (and can't) bring in good people from the outside.
    - cottonseed 12y ago
      It's simple supply and demand. You bring in more people, wages drop. Collusion and immigration policy are two tools to achieve the same goal.
cottonseed 12y ago
This. How is this not the top comment? The story that it is about talent and not about wages is terribly convenient for an industry that has shown it is willing to flagrantly violate the law to drive down engineer wages.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  Because it's incorrect. Maybe it is about wages for companies that don't understand there's huge variance in productivity of programmers. But it is about talent and not wages for companies that do. You do have a valid argument that when you increase supply prices drop. But they drop in proportion to the supply. It would be nice if one could estimate the total number of those great programmers, and then calculate what % of the total programmers they are. If they are 50% that would be a problem. But if they are 0.5% (1/100th that), is it still a problem?
  - cottonseed 12y ago
    It can only be about wages. That's supply and demand. If more people are fighting over fewer programmers, that means they just have to pay more to get them. If pay is not an issue, then you'll get them. If some companies don't appreciate the variance in programmers, either they have no excellent ones (because they wouldn't be willing to pay the price premium for a trait they can't see), or, more likely, they are lots of undervalued programmers out there you can hire if you can find them and you're willing to pay them more. I don't see what you're getting at about the number of great programmers.
    - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
      It's not only about wages. It's also about total wealth generated, which is driven by growth. The issue is you hit a limit. Any startup eventually hits the limits of the market it operates in. But the point is startups don't get the chance to hit those market limits. The limit they hit first is they can't get great programmers. Their growth is stiffled early on. Here's an example. Assume a startup is working on only one project and doesn't have a great programmer. Result: they don't get to make some breakthrough that would have increased the wealth of the startup by 100x-1000x. Without generating that wealth, demand decreases. You are still looking for just one great programmer to work on the project and can't start other new projects before you finish the existing one. But if you didn't limit that growth (if you had a great programmer) there would be increased demand, because then you'd have 100x-1000x more wealth and could start new projects hiring more great programmers. It comes down to growth. So having great programmers increases demand, not decrease it. The more you have, the more you end up needing. Until you hit a limit. Once all great programmers who are in the US are snatched up, at any price, then you reached a limit to the amount of wealth that can be generated in the US by great programmers.
davidw 12y ago
> I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs. I'm confused. I'm a developer, originally from the US, who lives in Europe. Is an Indian guy who works as a developer on my side? How about a German woman? Is a guy in Alabama willing to work for cheap on my side? Is someone like PG, whose actions have created a shitload (that's the metric shitload, not the American version) of companies completely on the wrong side? Don't some of those companies create jobs? Coming back to whose side I should be on, should I be on the side of Europeans wanting to move to the US, since I have a bunch of friends here, and they seem like pretty good people who are bright, and hard workers? Or are they on the other side? Or am I, an American taking European jobs, on the wrong side?
- aortega 12y ago
  Labor can be seen as a scarce resource. If a US developer want to maximize profit he needs to be as scarce as possible. PG and startup employers are in the reverse situation: they need to commoditize labor as much as possible to maximize their profit (labor can be 80% of the fixed expenses in a IT business). A developer residing outside US needs to support PG at first so he has access to bigger profit, but once he's in US, he's in the same position as the US developer (he needs to become scarce). This is basic economic theory.
  - davidw 12y ago
    > Labor can be seen as a scarce resource. You could, but that's a really limited version of economics that misses the fact that it's not a zero-sum game.
    - aortega 12y ago
      Makes sense, but can you think of an example about how a software developer would benefit for being a commodity worker?
      - davidw 12y ago
        Do you really see that as a risk? If it happens, do you think it's realistic that it would happen in some countries but not others?
killedbydeath 12y ago
Is "your" side US-born developers? I was born outside and was able to immigrate to the US on H1B. For the last few years it is very hard for my friends to do the same. I wish they were given the opportunity. In no way they are inferior to Americans. US became what it is because of openness to immigration. But these days it's easier for engineers to immigrate to Europe or Asia than the US. It may have long-term competitive consequences for the US companies as there is definitely a lot of programming talent outside the US. However if you view this as a zero-sum game with a "they came for our jobs" xenophobic vision, you of course would not care about that.
- zanny 12y ago
  Why didn't you and your friends found companies in your home country? You do realize many h1b visa programmers, and the ones they want in the future, are just being taken advantage of to drive wages down? What is wrong with immigrating to Europe / Asia? As an American, if I had many foreign associates that wanted to work for / with me, I would not hesitate to relocate with them to some country that lets us, that would the be US's loss. But to open the proverbial floodgates is to let entrenched interests win and all the potential startups and growth elsewhere wither and die. It is not like you are going to be founding the next big thing while bound to employment at one of the big three to stay in the country.
  - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
    > What is wrong with immigrating to Europe / Asia? You may be right here. I used to think it's better to immigrate to the US, because that's where everyone was immigrating to. I thought I wouldn't find good people elsewhere. But your comment just made me realize I'm not so sure. > and all the potential startups and growth elsewhere wither and die All of them, really? Every single one? There's no middle-ground? > It is not like you are going to be founding the next big thing while bound to employment at one of the big three to stay in the country. Why did you exclude that as a possibility?
argonaut 12y ago
The problem with this argument is that Facebook very clearly refused to join the wage fixing scheme, and in fact it was Facebook that was responsible for the collapse of the scheme (by aggressively bidding up wages and poaching Google employees). And Facebook is in favor of looser immigration. And you can't claim that Facebook now wants to bid down wages - your assertions rely on using a company's past actions as evidence for their future choices.

by ta75757 12y ago

OmarIsmail 12y ago

Paul Graham is representing the startups that he's invested in - not Apple, Google and FB. The BigCos are already big enough to have international offices to mitigate these immigration issues. A 20 person startup doesn't.

pastProlog 12y ago
> From the essay: But it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives. An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the last thing they'd want; it would destroy them. Eric Schmidt not only illegally colluded in a conspiracy to drive down programmer salaries, his e-mails say things like "this may be illegal so delete this e-mail". I guess I'm one of those "dishonest" wealth-creating worker bees who read these subpoenaed e-mails where I spin the "dishonest" narrative that I actually believe what Eric Schmidt said about his attempts to secretly and illegally drive down his programmer's salaries.
- OmarIsmail 12y ago
  Trying to keep the wages low of people you know are good is a different issue than trying to hire people from other countries. Now, BigCos may still want good people they bring from the outside to have low wages, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want to (and can't) bring in good people from the outside.
  - cottonseed 12y ago
    It's simple supply and demand. You bring in more people, wages drop. Collusion and immigration policy are two tools to achieve the same goal.

cottonseed 12y ago

This. How is this not the top comment? The story that it is about talent and not about wages is terribly convenient for an industry that has shown it is willing to flagrantly violate the law to drive down engineer wages.

yellow_and_gray 12y ago
Because it's incorrect. Maybe it is about wages for companies that don't understand there's huge variance in productivity of programmers. But it is about talent and not wages for companies that do. You do have a valid argument that when you increase supply prices drop. But they drop in proportion to the supply. It would be nice if one could estimate the total number of those great programmers, and then calculate what % of the total programmers they are. If they are 50% that would be a problem. But if they are 0.5% (1/100th that), is it still a problem?
- cottonseed 12y ago
  It can only be about wages. That's supply and demand. If more people are fighting over fewer programmers, that means they just have to pay more to get them. If pay is not an issue, then you'll get them. If some companies don't appreciate the variance in programmers, either they have no excellent ones (because they wouldn't be willing to pay the price premium for a trait they can't see), or, more likely, they are lots of undervalued programmers out there you can hire if you can find them and you're willing to pay them more. I don't see what you're getting at about the number of great programmers.
  - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
    It's not only about wages. It's also about total wealth generated, which is driven by growth. The issue is you hit a limit. Any startup eventually hits the limits of the market it operates in. But the point is startups don't get the chance to hit those market limits. The limit they hit first is they can't get great programmers. Their growth is stiffled early on. Here's an example. Assume a startup is working on only one project and doesn't have a great programmer. Result: they don't get to make some breakthrough that would have increased the wealth of the startup by 100x-1000x. Without generating that wealth, demand decreases. You are still looking for just one great programmer to work on the project and can't start other new projects before you finish the existing one. But if you didn't limit that growth (if you had a great programmer) there would be increased demand, because then you'd have 100x-1000x more wealth and could start new projects hiring more great programmers. It comes down to growth. So having great programmers increases demand, not decrease it. The more you have, the more you end up needing. Until you hit a limit. Once all great programmers who are in the US are snatched up, at any price, then you reached a limit to the amount of wealth that can be generated in the US by great programmers.

davidw 12y ago

> I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs. I'm confused. I'm a developer, originally from the US, who lives in Europe. Is an Indian guy who works as a developer on my side? How about a German woman? Is a guy in Alabama willing to work for cheap on my side? Is someone like PG, whose actions have created a shitload (that's the metric shitload, not the American version) of companies completely on the wrong side? Don't some of those companies create jobs? Coming back to whose side I should be on, should I be on the side of Europeans wanting to move to the US, since I have a bunch of friends here, and they seem like pretty good people who are bright, and hard workers? Or are they on the other side? Or am I, an American taking European jobs, on the wrong side?

aortega 12y ago
Labor can be seen as a scarce resource. If a US developer want to maximize profit he needs to be as scarce as possible. PG and startup employers are in the reverse situation: they need to commoditize labor as much as possible to maximize their profit (labor can be 80% of the fixed expenses in a IT business). A developer residing outside US needs to support PG at first so he has access to bigger profit, but once he's in US, he's in the same position as the US developer (he needs to become scarce). This is basic economic theory.
- davidw 12y ago
  > Labor can be seen as a scarce resource. You could, but that's a really limited version of economics that misses the fact that it's not a zero-sum game.
  - aortega 12y ago
    Makes sense, but can you think of an example about how a software developer would benefit for being a commodity worker?
    - davidw 12y ago
      Do you really see that as a risk? If it happens, do you think it's realistic that it would happen in some countries but not others?

killedbydeath 12y ago

Is "your" side US-born developers? I was born outside and was able to immigrate to the US on H1B. For the last few years it is very hard for my friends to do the same. I wish they were given the opportunity. In no way they are inferior to Americans. US became what it is because of openness to immigration. But these days it's easier for engineers to immigrate to Europe or Asia than the US. It may have long-term competitive consequences for the US companies as there is definitely a lot of programming talent outside the US. However if you view this as a zero-sum game with a "they came for our jobs" xenophobic vision, you of course would not care about that.

zanny 12y ago
Why didn't you and your friends found companies in your home country? You do realize many h1b visa programmers, and the ones they want in the future, are just being taken advantage of to drive wages down? What is wrong with immigrating to Europe / Asia? As an American, if I had many foreign associates that wanted to work for / with me, I would not hesitate to relocate with them to some country that lets us, that would the be US's loss. But to open the proverbial floodgates is to let entrenched interests win and all the potential startups and growth elsewhere wither and die. It is not like you are going to be founding the next big thing while bound to employment at one of the big three to stay in the country.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  > What is wrong with immigrating to Europe / Asia? You may be right here. I used to think it's better to immigrate to the US, because that's where everyone was immigrating to. I thought I wouldn't find good people elsewhere. But your comment just made me realize I'm not so sure. > and all the potential startups and growth elsewhere wither and die All of them, really? Every single one? There's no middle-ground? > It is not like you are going to be founding the next big thing while bound to employment at one of the big three to stay in the country. Why did you exclude that as a possibility?

argonaut 12y ago

The problem with this argument is that Facebook very clearly refused to join the wage fixing scheme, and in fact it was Facebook that was responsible for the collapse of the scheme (by aggressively bidding up wages and poaching Google employees). And Facebook is in favor of looser immigration. And you can't claim that Facebook now wants to bid down wages - your assertions rely on using a company's past actions as evidence for their future choices.