You work for google because you make insane money and have cachet you can take anywhere and get hired instantly. Hell, you can pull in 10 million funding for your startup idea if you like. Or just retire, get a boat, go sailing.
Of course all of this had to go bad. Come on now. Stop whining already.
I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work. I'm filthy and I smell bad, but I'm doing fine, and no, I don't sit around wringing my hands and thinking, but what will become of our beloved and sacred google? I could not possibly give a shit about google. But maybe someday I'll get a fucking boat.
Mate these people aren't your enemy no matter how much you think they make compared to you. You think it was only blue haired 300k social media managers that got layed off or something? There's sand pounding IT guys there that got layed off too, I know for a fact cause some are my friends. Yeah it was a Google job so it was lux but they were running fiber and getting called in at 2am cause some clueless executive's email broke again.
I don't know why people are buying into cult of Google either, I think that's silly, what matters here isn't just that a bunch of people got laid off, but also that now all their former co-workers still at Google have to pick up all their jobs without any more compensation for it. All the saves money from reduction of cost is going to nobody but shareholders - which employees might be a little bit if they're vested, but not to the degree of larger shareholders who contribute nothing.
If they have real skills they can find employment else where.
They are whining because they know they were being over compensated at Google and that they are unlikely to be able to find another job that pays so much money with so little effort.
They're not my enemies but they're not my friends. I don't feel sympathy for them. If anything, they should feel sympathy for me and give me some of that extra cash they've been getting. Why do they deserve it more than I do? I can do "nothing at all" just as well as they did.
Maybe they do, have you talked to some? Also, why should they feel sympathy for you, if you're not interested in feeling sympathy for others?
> give me some of that extra cash they've been getting. Why do they deserve it more than I do?
They don't. Is it their fault that they get paid more and you get paid less for the same or different jobs? Are you pointing your finger at the right people, here?
> I can do "nothing at all" just as well as they did.
You seem to not like when people aren't paid per their labor output. You and I are probably quite aligned in our values, if that's the case. You and I both, for example, surely both find it insane that there are people, hardworking or otherwise, who now command orders of magnitude more capital than anyone on earth, or even in history.
Compared to a billionaire, you at whatever you make, let's say 50k, working harder than a googler making 200k for the same or easier job, are basically siblings in capital. I'd even go so far as to call you class allies.
Perhaps the direction of your anger being pointed distinctly away from the people who are actually causing this injustice is helping same? So why are you mad at random people who make a little bit more than you, rather than at someone that makes several tens of millions a year by simply existing?
I think your frustration is better directed at capitalism in general instead of your fellow workers. Also if you can do their job as well as them, go spend time studying how to interview at Google and get a job there too.
Google is an outlier in that the employees (in some departments) can begin to approach the wealth of the large investors. In most companies, the shareholders are rewarded far and away beyond what employees are rewarded with, even though their opportunity costs are generally lower (even if they theoretically risked large nominal amounts in their investments). The assertion is that investors generally tend to be rewarded disproportionately to their value contributed.
When an investor buys shares of a company, the company doesn’t get that money, the other seller investor does. No investment capital is “contributed” to the company (unless the seller is actually the company itself).
These investors aren’t contributing capital to the company—they are betting on one square on a roulette wheel.
Theoretically, being a shareholder exposes you to the risk of the company failing or the shares otherwise becoming worthless. The previous owner is selling their investment to you, and it is now as if you are the original investor, for whatever price the shares were originally sold by the company. So there's a kernel of substance in there at least.
How many Robinhood users have made more than pocket change without losing it all in a subsequent gamble? And of those who did, how many are not already at an upper income bracket?
Obviously you realize that investing in stocks is risky. Risk is the flip side of making investment gains. Anyone who invests in stocks takes a risk that it tanks.
You asserted that Robinhood is evidence that "labor" in general has access to "rich-get-richer" mechanisms. My assertion is that this assertion is not valid.
The rich-get-richer mechanism in question is investing pre-existing large amounts of money in investments that are more or less zero risk, specifically from the perspective of the investor's personal livelihood and well-being. This is simply not available to most people, even if they do have access to zero-commission fractional-share trading on Robinhood.
Also, "labor" covers a large amount of people, of whom a very small subset are Robinhood users, and of whom an even smaller subset are legitimately successful traders, as opposed to one-off financial market lottery winners (who are themselves a small subset of all users).
But what labor did they contribute? Follow the chain and at most what they did was buy someone else's labor and attach it to the Google brand (through having more cash for hiring), there's other ways to do that though, like loans, or structuring as a co-op so all employees are simply the only shareholders.
What actual risk does an investor take? Loss of capital? Compared to an employee who, in the situation where capital is lost, loses the means by which they feed and house themselves, and in the USA, provide healthcare for themselves?
On top of which, right now, investors aren't really taking much loss. This action by Google is done for shareholder value. So not only is the loss for an employee higher in a situation that "harms" a shareholder, it's also more pervasive: the employee might get fired anyway through no fault of their own, even if it's not because the company is going bankrupt and everyone's losing their money.
And while all this is happening the investor has invested in other ventures, potentially even competitors. If google goes bankrupt they lose their initial investment, which by most financial advisories I see should not account for a significant portion of their investment, retirement, or even just savings, so by material measures, they'll be fine.
Meanwhile the employee has put in their time, energy effort. They haven't been able to explore other means of making money, do research into potential investments for themselves. They've been building social capital, specific domain knowledge, client relationships, things that hold some value after a Google collapse, but not all.
At the end of the day I just don't see why what an investor does has any value at all compared to an employee. Can you help me understand better what you mean?
The assumption that price paid == utility is only valid in the economic equivalent of "assume no friction" from intro-level physics. The equivalence isn't guaranteed to hold once you bring individuals' budget sets and various market distortions into play (information problems, sticky prices, et alia). You see the same thing on the supply side, with the assumption that price sold == marginal cost breaking down in general, except under very specific conditions.
Bottom line: you're still only valuing something by what you are willing to pay for it. That is its value to you. (Others assign a different value, but that's how the market works.)
Right but notice utility is mentioned nowhere. Demand is totally irrational, because it's human. See toilet paper, fujifilm x100v, tesla stock, NFTs. Supply can be arbitrarily subject to the irrational whims of humanity as well - see oil, diamonds.
"Supply + demand" seems an oversimplification of a huge chain of irrational human links.
There is a dangerous path in this rationalization that will lead you to Marxism. The theory is cute and some people in Europe thought it would work. It didn't and that's how we ended up with capitalism. Humans are capitalist traders by instinct. Marxism makes logical sense, however.
Humans are Feudal creatures by instict - thats why feudalism lasted thousands of yeats.
Democracy and freedom are fragile and unnatural, they must be cherished.
> There is a dangerous path in this rationalization that will lead you to Marxism.
This is the brain disease of American politics, anyone pointing out injustice of any kind is accused of Marxism.
The only acceptable way for society to evolve is ever-increasing privilidges for the wealthy untill average man can never hope to afford real estate and can't afford a layer.
> There is a dangerous path in this rationalization that will lead you to Marxism.
Too late, I'm already a communist. A very capitalistically successful one, mind you.
Further along this thread is way off topic, I don't want to kick off a flame war of communism vs capitalism, I wanted to see what people have in mind about how companies like Google, that exist in a capitalist system, can be forced to care for the needs of their employees over the needs of their shareholders. Whether or not the system should / can be changed is, well, another thread or something lol, not for here.
That said your comment has some interesting ideas that I'm seeing as misconceptions ("some people in Europe that thought it would work" are arguably some of the most important philosophers in the western tradition) but maybe you're thinking along some lines I'm not aware of, so if you want to chat about this I'd love to do so in email, my address is on my profile page here.
I'm trying hard to feel sorry for SV FAANG workers getting laid off but I can't[1].
I'm also struggling to see how their self-esteem will take years to recover from this.
Those cosseted 'engineers' earn probably 2 to 4 times a year more than me, and get meals etc. Their severance package is probably my annual wage. Plenty of time to find another gig with their FAANG resumes that suits their expectations.
Perhaps if they spent a few years in the less rarified development jobs a lot of us deal with they might better understand their position in the world.
If you're upset that you spend your days fighting rats and not making insane money, I think you should target your anger at your boss who keeps you in that situation, rather than at other workers who have it better than you.
Hey what's your job? You don't need to tell me. But I'm gonna go ahead and say you're privileged compared to a rural chinese farmer that has never held a phone.
Given how many of them leave their kids with the grandparents and move to Guangdong, etc. to work in the factories and live in bunk houses and send money back home, only seeing their kids once a year during Spring Festival, I think they might not be content. (On the other hand, I guess the ones still farming would be happier, by virtue of self-selection.)
By that logic everyone in the world is privileged compared to those earning 5% less than them, including every person here complaining about a Google employee's privilege. So what does that word mean exactly?
Regardless of the number, getting paid for your labor & skills is not "privilege". Employees at Google are getting fleeced by the corporation and its shareholders just like the rest of us are by ours. Remember the big tech poaching scandal from a decade ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...)?
Earning $200k/yr without doing anything special is a privilige very few people in the world get to enjoy.
I have no sympathy for these people.
Learn a real skill and do something useful.
Before you jump and say they do have a skill: why are they whining then? People who have skills don't whine when they are laid off. They just go and find another place to work.
The fact that they need to whine so loudly about it tells you everything you need to know: they have nothing of value to contribute, or they were getting paid many times more than their skill is actually worth.
And I bet you think your $50K/$100K/$150K or whatever else salary is perfectly justified and you are adding great value to the world. Why is that? Or will you admit that you are privileged as well?
I have admitted multiple times on HN and elsewhere that I don't think anything I've done in my career has been particularly valueable or useful to society.
I totally own it. I not only don't complain about being "laid off". I often quit jobs myself and spend some "gap" time doing nothing before I find the next job.
Currently I'm not working for anyone because I'm sick of all tech jobs.
> Often quit jobs myself and spend some "gap" time doing nothing
That is a privilege that not many people can afford, especially lower income workers. You're speaking from an enviable position of privilege while complaining about others having privilege. Perspective.
Typically when you use "quotes" it means you're using the same exact words that someone stated. I didn't say you were "whining", I said you were complaining. And you were.
Okay then I guess everyone on the planet with a steady job is privileged. What about the business/corporate class? Do you think they have more or less privilege than their workers?
If you ask the people who were gentrified out of the mission when FAANGers decideed the Peninsula wasn't cool and would move into the Mission, if FAANGers are privileged or just a regular joes and janes, I'm pretty sure I can predict their answer.
Relative to COL, it depends. I mean sure, If they moved to King City, maybe? But then why all the complaints about SF affordability if the answer is "move to a locale where your income allows you to afford rent without rent control" --if you can find a job"
Privileged or not they're all workers, as any other person who depends on a salary. They earn more but it doesn't make them less workers than others, solidarity among workers is the bare minimum we should have...
And below you in the IT sewer are the poor and forsaken, who look upon your work and statements and call you equally privileged while you post on a startup forum started by some of the wealthiest individuals around. You are equally out of touch and yet unable to see this as you look upwards and claim no, it is them that are out of touch.
None of that really disagrees with the commenters point though. They might indeed be privileged and out of touch (nearly guaranteed in fact), but that does not mean Googlers aren’t even more so.
Not that I particularly mind either way: we are all a privileged lot in the tech world. Myself absolutely included!
What is with this thread? Why is a job being called a privilege? Are we completely discounting hard work and merit. Its not like people are inheriting jobs at Google.
If working at Google such a privilege and is the goal, work towards it. Like so many other people did, take up a student loans and put yourself through school, build your resume, take up projects, internships, work experience etc. Prep for interviews, what ever it takes. Then you can take the job and enjoy the "spoils", what ever those are.
One can't just decide not to put in the work and then look at the guy who did and say... privileged.
It's not a useful/interesting to just say "you're privileged, stop having thoughts/opinions".
We'd quickly just shut down all conversation ever because none of us are 8 year old british chimney sweeps covered in soot. In which case, how is the world a better place?
We can acknowledge that there's a lens where some people have privileges ("privileged isn't a binary state") and then still have a discussion about what happened.
I love how all the W2s be fighting against themselves as though they aren't all in the same position. Yes, there's a big difference between $300k and $30k. It doesn't feel quite so big, though, when one medical bill can bankrupt you, regardless. Or you're living paycheck to paycheck because school cost you $150k (plus interest). We all have a lot more in common than not. Hard is hard and people matter. Those laid off got a bad deal, period, because it has less to do with actual "merit" and more to do with at-will is a bad deal.
> I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work.
So umm you are claiming that you are part of a class that will always have work and stability unlike the people who work at faang. (Debatable but lets take the claim at face value). You are literally saying that we should not care about the plight of googlers because they are in a different class, which is subject to drawbacks which people like you don't face because of your class. And that that makes them privliged. Did i get that right?
That is an interesting definition of privlidge you have there.
Of course all of this had to go bad. Come on now. Stop whining already.
I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work. I'm filthy and I smell bad, but I'm doing fine, and no, I don't sit around wringing my hands and thinking, but what will become of our beloved and sacred google? I could not possibly give a shit about google. But maybe someday I'll get a fucking boat.