I don't necessarily disagree, but fundamentally I think this will lead to "anyone who can find a higher-paying job will find a higher paying job."
Part of what's enticing about these "blue-chip" megatech corporations like Microsoft or Apple is that they pay good salaries. Most work at these companies is not interesting (at least it wasn't at Apple), but you stay because the pay is good.
If the pay is shit, I'll take interesting work at a startup, or I'll find a place that does pay well (like Wall Street).
A lot comes down to what life stage employees are in. Someone with fixed monthly costs and kids in school is not going to want to a) move and b) deal with the anxiety of working at a start up.
Yeah, that's fair, though I still think that's going to selection-bias towards employees who can't really find work elsewhere.
I don't know about Microsoft but certainly at Apple there were plenty of people who were pretty mediocre engineers...I certainly was the last 6-8 months I was there because I hated it so much and realized they probably wouldn't fire me.
My cynical hot-take is that big companies don't need great engineers, they need engineers who are good enough to complete the tickets their given and move on to the next one. The great engineers I've known came up with innovative ideas that were briefly admired and then quickly squashed. A few good architects can make a difference, but the army of SWEs are just there to keep the roads rolling.
Would you take a pay cut to save someone else's from being laid off in your company? It's a serious question, just curious, there is no right answer - I wouldn't, nor would I accept even a $1 cut in my pay - the day that happens is the day I give my notice. Not an option for everyone I know.
Do I get to choose who does and doesn't get laid off?
I'm being facetious but I honestly don't know. I've become a softy in my old age. I can imagine how deeply awful it would be for a breadwinner with a home and kids. Even for people I work with that I don't particularly like, I wouldn't want to put them in that situation.
Like a lot of Americans I've been experiencing a lot of envy for the more socialist European companies where maybe people have less to gain, but they also have less to lose. All I really want is a comfortable life for me and my family. I'd like the same for everyone else.
As someone who has lived in Europe and since returned. I can tell you people there are way way more happy and I’m also more frequently seeing the “saltiness” towards Europeans on here because of it.
I remember working in Europe, and going to the park during a week day and seeing all these parents, both Mum and Dad playing with their children in the sun with this kind of carelessness about them. I vividly remember being shocked at that scene. I’d never seen it before.
People would just go home from work and not “grind” away at their jobs.
I think given a few more years of “automation” and most Americans might think differently about free market capitalism. Maybe at that stage it’ll be too late to change to something better?
Europe is a kind or project too, it’s a work in progress. I think their systems will just improve over time.
So you wouldn't take a $1 pay cut per year so that a person might have enough to take care of his family? Is this who you really are? $1 that could save someone from starving and you wouldn't give it? It says a lot about you to make such a statement, I am not sure you realise this.
you really think a tech worker with any skills at all is going to starve? If their skills are so bad they can't get another job, then they don't deserve to be protected in the job they are currently in -
However, would I give someone a $1? sure and probably a lot more - but that is different than accepting a pay-cut for any reason from my employer who is booking billions of dollars a year in profits while letting people go.
