[potatofrenzy]

The sucky reality is that employees at big tech companies have little interest in running a sustainable and resilient business. We want constant team growth, never-ending promotions, ever-growing salaries. If another company is growing more aggressively and paying even less sustainable salaries, we tend to jump ship. It's not necessarily wrong, but we really shouldn't act surprised when that backfires every now and then.

Tech leadership bears blame for nourishing that "there's no tomorrow" / "growth will continue forever" culture, but it's such an unhelpful take to portray this as some sort of a class struggle with shareholders. Especially since for a good number of big tech companies, shareholders don't actually have much say and founders hold controlling interests.

[coldtea]

Yes, it's the employees fault. They were "asking for it", dressing their LinkedIn profile too provocatively /s

Employees in tech wanted, and were fine with, and even cherished "a sustainable and resilient business". That's the golden age IBM, Intel, AT&T, and so on employee for example.

Then companies started being about the stock market, and short term profit, throwing them under the bus whenever they had a chance, while still paying nice bonuses to the C-level and middle managers even when they run the companies to the ground.

So, yes, they felt little loyalty not to "jump ship" to a company didn't give a shit abotu them. Hell, the C-level execs that are paid 10-100x better than the employees would not think twice to jump ship at any chance they got, and somehow the employees are at fault for doing the same?

[rodgerd]

> Yes, it's the employees fault.

I mean I half agree. There's been factions in side the tech industry for years trying to get people to think about what would happen in this sort of scenario, to understand that "tech workers" have more in common with working-class factory workers in the 50s and 60s that with Peter Thiel and Sam Altman. That faction has pointed how IBM or HP acted when they were on a downward slope. To think about collective action, solidarity, other measures that might help ensure that good jobs don't become bad jobs become no jobs to further enrich a handful of factory owners.

But the braying voices places like here have always shouted those down. Always.

[bambataa]

I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that the large majority of big tech workers would be perfectly happy with a few promotions over a career and annual inflation-matching pay rises.

Except you rarely get inflation-matching pay rises, so the only way to prevent the annual erosion of your situation is the constant team growth and never-ending promotions.

[hashtag-til]

True. Those who never complain about salary and are perceived as “happy” are in the bottom of salary increase priorities.

I learned that the hard way a few years back, then got my act together and made sure I’m always perceived unhappy with salary - to pull that off, you need to be backed by delivering stuff and being seen. Do your homework, and ask for the recognition, that’s my tip.

[Spivak]

I just got told by my company this year that they can’t afford to keep up with inflation. I really don’t see how they expect this to go.

[jzb]

Wow. This is the most amazing take I have seen. It is truly boggling to see somebody trying to lay this at the feet of the employees.

It’s not that activist billionaire, shareholders are demanding layoffs. It’s the workers fault for wanting a share of the pie and not just taking what they’re given quietly and meekly.

You’re right, it’s not a class struggle. For it to be a struggle both parties have to recognize that it’s actually a struggle.

This argument would make sense if the companies doing the layoffs were largely unprofitable, and not spending huge sums of money on stock buybacks and inflated executive salaries.

[jzb]

To further elaborate, a big part of running a sustainable business is the leadership.

I keep seeing this idea that people need to work harder and you’ve got the Mark Zuckerberg‘s of the world pushing this idea that the Meta employees aren’t working hard enough and that’s why they are flailing. Not that the actual core strategy and shit like the Metaverse are bullshit. Or Google that has had some thing like 3 to 5 different chat systems over the past 10 years and utterly baffling product strategies along with a reputation of killing products or neglecting them.

But it’s clearly the employees fault and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with completely bullshit leadership.

[voidfunc]

You're not wrong - The real problem is I don't give a shit about the product. I'm here to make money and retire. It's the companies job to either figure out to how to eliminate needing me or make the job compelling enough that I give a shit (which is extremely difficult).

[flyinglizard]

I always tell our candidates that the only thread connecting all our employees — some as young as 20, other 50+, some are mechanical engineers, some technicians, others are algorithm researchers etc - is that all of them personally care about doing a good job, just like a craftsman of old who is proud of their work. It makes for an awesome work environment, even if slightly emotionally elevated.

[throwaway292939]

As an aside: I wonder what you say at interviews

[maxlamb]

“employees at big tech companies have little interest in running a sustainable and resilient business”

By “employees” in your first sentence I assume you mean the C-suite?

[hashtag-til]

As a regular “individual contributor” it is very hard to fight ill thought plans coming “from above”.

Those who complain are usually cast as “negative thinking folks” and get subtle punishments.

If you are on a mid career senior salary range, are you going to pick a fight and risk being punished or carry on getting your good salary, bonus, stocks, insurance, retirement plan and perks - in exchange for slighly useless work?

[the_gipsy]

We don't want constant team growth. It's the managers, the psychopaths, the ladder-climbers that do. And they are rewarded for any growth, as that's the only measure the higher-ups know, and the one they used to get where they are so it can't be so bad.

For startups, it's the investors who know only to measure growth because there is no expected profit until the bing bang happens.

[fzeroracer]

Whose fault is it exactly when staying at a company results in my salary going down over time?

No one is asking for endless growth on the employee side. But growth should match responsibilities, and if I gain more responsibility over time then pay should match. And if my salary can't match inflation at minimum then you're telling me I should be paid less for my current work.

Companies prefer to funnel that money to investors and as a result this is where we're at. Note that privately owned companies or worker owned companies avoid this issue more often.

[seanmcdirmid]

Inflation has a made it that FAANG salaries aren’t really excessive, just slightly better than middle class. Salaries are really just messed up related to costs ATM.

We need to get a handle on inflation and the housing bubble first before we can figure out what reasonable salaries are again, and that’s going to hurt all around.

[rnk]

I disagree with that. First, Faang salaries are way over middle class. If inflation reduced your salary by a bit, think about how much more ia reduction impacted the salary of an average middle class person. As you make more money you have more disposable income so the impact of little bit less money when you make more is smaller.

[fdgsdfogijq]

Agreed and its a shame you are getting downvoted