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Tech Workers' Values
- sweis 9y agoSee also https://techsolidarity.org/ https://techsolidarity.org/
- maxxxxx 9y ago"Tech companies are very receptive to their employees' influence. We believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they'd like to see their companies uphold." Maybe he should replace "employee" with "investor" and start working on that? In the end it's the investors that force companies to make money at any cost.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoEngineers like money too. And demand it from their employers. If you are not doing that, you should.
- EduardoBautista 9y agoYes. I don't understand the people who say "I'd rather work in a company with a good working environment" as if you have to work for peanuts to have a good job. If you are convinced to work for a low salary in the name of "culture" your employer is laughing all the way to the bank.
- cortesoft 9y agoI don't know... most of those places that pay a low salary in the name of 'culture' are startups, and most of those don't ever make any money... so there isn't really anyone laughing all the way to the bank.
- sidlls 9y agoReplace "culture" with some other buzzword or phrase, e.g. "work on hard problems," "intellectually challenging/stimulating," "positive work/life balance," "work on important problems," "be disruptive," etc. This sort of "anything but financial compensation" compensation is ubiquitous in this industry.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoAnd you're laughing all the way to having an excellent life. Like, this is the market behaving appropriately. If companies can get better talent at better prices by providing better working environments, well, we're effectively buying nicer work environments. Whether it's worth the cost or not is a separate issue, and really depends on the price. Personally, I've priced working in SF instead of Mountain View at roughly $20k/year when evaluating job offers.
- EduardoBautista 9y agoYou don't seem to understand what I am saying. You are making the argument that you either have an excellent life or make 20k more. I am saying that you can find both.
- maxxxxx 9y agoSure. But in the end it's the investors a company is listing to, not the employees.
- leggomylibro 9y agoGive us creative freedom and ownership of our IP. When you claim all of our thoughts on and off the clock, you encourage us to avoid creatively-fulfilling ventures, burn out, and leave for greener pastures.
- iamacynic 9y ago> Give us creative freedom and ownership of our IP. you can't be serious. why would a company even exist if all the work it paid for would be owned by someone else? i mean sure, you can live in that world, it's just nobody would pay for anything to happen.
- ihsw2 9y agoYou pay for your business to continue operating, not for a lucrative exit strategy.
- iamacynic 9y agoyeah sure. the open source services business model has some legs but they aren't that long. in other words, yes it works, but not that great.
- leggomylibro 9y agoObviously an employer should own the work that their employees do for them as part of their job description. But we really need to stop accepting employment contracts that claim ownership of any unrelated works that you produce. If I'm a web programmer, don't give me a contract that claims my paintings, music, consumer electronics designs, video games, etc, and then claim that it is unalterable "boilerplate." I don't care that you're a big company which has its fingers in many areas of business. That shit won't fly.
- geofft 9y agoThe company exists to sell a product or provide a service, not to own intellectual property. Sometimes the most effective means is to own the IP, but it's a means, not an end. Very few companies tend to market IP directly. For instance, in a sufficiently broad view, 99% of AWS is other people's IP - the PC platform, hardware virtualization, Xen, Linux and userspace tools, Perl, etc. etc. And they seem to be doing a fine job commercializing it. They could build their own computing architecture, write their own hypervisor, design their own OS, etc., but that would probably be a less profitable approach. There's an existence proof in Microsoft's Azure and IBM's z/whatever-they're-calling-it-these-days, which are significantly less popular.
- zorpner 9y agoThis is a pretty bizarre and direct ripoff of pinboard's Tech Solidarity, except run by The Man and they'll "select" who's allowed to attend. Classless and tone-deaf would be charitable interpretation.
- ryanisnan 9y agoAs someone who knows little about Tech Solidarity, other than what's shown on their site, it seems like they're a bit different. Sam's group is a little more pointed in the direction of promoting the broader tech community's values into a company, and Tech Solidarity seems to be more about connecting developers to their community and supporting that interaction. Perhaps you can expound?
- idlewords 9y agoI've been talking about organizing labor in tech companies around an ethical agenda since December. For example: https://sfbay.techsolidarity.org/2017/01/05/meeting_notes.htm https://sfbay.techsolidarity.org/2017/01/05/meeting_notes.ht... That said, I'm happy to hear YC preaching from the same Bible. I would encourage Sam to coordinate with the many groups already working to what is apparently a shared goal.
- ryanisnan 9y agoI didn't mean to understate or downplay what Tech Solidarity was (I am just learning about it now), so I hope you don't take offence to my my questioning. I am sympathetic to your cause.
- idlewords 9y agoNo offense taken at all! Tech Solidarity is about in-person meetings, so I get that it's not easy to get a sense of the agenda from the outside.
- geofft 9y agoI have gotten the sense that Tech Solidarity has shifted a bit from "what can we as tech workers do directly to support the political change we want to see" to "how do we build for ourselves the society we want to see reflected in the world at large", which is closer to what Sam seems to be proposing here. (I think this makes sense in a lot of ways, because there are already good people doing the former work, and usually when tech-focused groups try to help out we just get in the way.)
- closeparen 9y agoIt's pretty much the nature of tech hiring to select the most elite candidates from around the world. Distributing the offices through Rust Belt exurbs does not mean tech jobs for laid-off steelworkers in Rust Belt exurbs.
- j1z0 9y agoWhile it may not mean jobs for laid off rust belt workers if there were a number of tech workers living in the rust belt they would spend most of their salary in the rust belt which could very well lead to jobs in other sectors in the region.
- j1z0 9y agoWhile it may not mean jobs for laid off rust belt workers if there were a number of tech workers living in the rust belt they would spend most of their salary in the rust belt which could very well lead to jobs in other sectors in the region.
- j1z0 9y agoWhile it may not mean jobs for laid off rust belt workers if there were a number of tech workers living in the rust belt they would spend most of their salary in the rust belt which could very well lead to jobs in other sectors in the region.
- moonka 9y agoThis is an interesting initiative, I look forward to seeing where it goes. Kudos to Sam, Debra & Matt for taking a lead on this.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoWe believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they'd like to see their companies uphold. A tech union isn't the perfect metaphor for this, but it's not far off. If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is. I've argued for a while that tech workers need a union, but the chorus on HN and other places is "we're too special for a union." Which is bogus on it's face - otherwise SAG for example wouldn't exist. If this moves the needle on a union then great, but I'm wary of the source being a pure power move (which all unions are - rightfully). I think whomever leads this needs to be above reproach in every sense as an advocate for the tiny introverted developer. edit: I should note that the reason SAG worked is because some of the highest profile actors joined in the early days and arranged to collectively bargain for the rest of the group. It will probably work best if you get the top 50 most high profile developers (Eg. Carmack) to join and then advocate for the small guy. Sadly, in reality, a union is only as good as it's most high profile members.
- djsumdog 9y agoIt's interesting because it would need to have the teeth of a union yes, but unlike unions of the past that lobbied for better wages and working conditions, what is being proposed is a union to ensure their company does what the workers feel is morally right for the world (not necessarily their customers, but the greater community of people affected by each companies goals and purposes).
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoI understand that's the thrust of the post, but practically those things aren't really that much different if done effectively. You make a good point though and if the intention is that it will result in some kind of engineering code of conduct or Hippocratic oath - then my guess is that it will have too many hurdles. The military code of conduct is immensely difficult to arbitrate and the Hippocratic oath isn't anything without governing boards for certification and licensure. So there needs to be a power structure somewhere that holds the power of the members if it's going to be worthwhile and that would have to be linked to the other tangibles like pay and time. It comes down to how and what is measured. Time and Pay are easy to measure, if your MongoDB is being implemented "morally" or not is much muddier.
- curiousfiddler 9y agoSorry for digressing from the main intent of the post, but I find it a little odd when in 2017, someone uses the term "worker" to describe me. I try to be definitely more than just that to my team and my organization. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but it just feels weird.
- alphonsegaston 9y agoThere's already a solution for this - worker ownership of companies with corresponding democratic rights. We've just emerged from an era where benevolent tech companies were supposed to stand up for us and reflect our values. Instead, they put on a polite face, said the right words to us, and then did whatever served their interests irrespective of our concerns. Repeating this scenario is foolish and only going to worsen the situation.
- throwaway29292 9y agoIf the root cause of this problem is that -companies violate privacy rights to gather more big data -more data translates to more investment (I'm seeing this happen at my current company right now) -VCs, who are the top of the food chain, are the ones pushing for higher returns (like any rational actor would do) -then shouldn't the government step in and regulate this area? Define standards that would limit the amount of funding/valuation based on 'user as product'?
- alphonsegaston 9y agoThe root of the problem is the authoritarian structure of modern enterprise. I know many good people who work at bad companies, who, were they given the chance to have their say, would change things wildly for the better.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoYou'd rather say that at-will employment and especially the tight labour market outside tech enables the authoritarian structure of the modern workplace.
- alphonsegaston 9y agoNo, I meant expressly what I said. A democracy cannot function when it harbors inside itself a system in which the survival of most people is determined by something organized like a dictatorship. The poor conditions in the modern labor market have been engineered by these authoritarian systems in collusion with the governments they corrupt with their outsized wealth and power. It's intended to disenfranchise people politically and economically to ensure a small class of oligarchs maintains control of both systems.
- rfrank 9y agoFrom the earlier sama post, What I Heard From Trump Supporters: > Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting “targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him”. One person in Silicon Valley even asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement before she would talk to me, as she worried she’d lose her job if people at her company knew she was a strong Trump supporter. .. > We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create. Are tech employees the correct population to attempt to bridge a political divide? I'm not convinced that's the case.
- EduardoBautista 9y agoSilicon Valley (especially SF) is all for diversity...as long as you think exactly like they do.
- st3v3r 9y agoWrong. There's little tolerance for bigotry. There's nothing wrong with that. Having the opinion that a class of people do not deserve the same rights as others is not "diversity" or "having a different opinion". It's bigotry, plain and simple. What you want is for no one to call you out for espousing terrible views. You want freedom from consequences of speech, not freedom of speech.
- rfrank 9y agoNo, it's not wrong. Which part of his comment is the bigotry you feel like projecting? Is approval for stronger border protection bigotry? Is thinking the EO on immigration is fine bigotry? Is making assumptions about every single political opinion someone has based on a single statement bigotry? Do you think that liberals or tech employees are somehow above bigotry and treating people poorly? Remember Talia Jane and her letter, and the extreme criticism she faced from HN members? Do you think the attitude you commented with will help bridge a political divide? Because your words are exactly why I think it's laughable to expect tech employees to do anything about polarization other than make it much worse.
- throwawaymaroon 9y agoYou can fuck right off, Sam Altman.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoIt'd be appreciated if YC would record and or livestream the meeting mentioned near the end of the blog post for those who can't be in the Bay Area.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThis, please.
- rhizome 9y agoWho is the "we" he's speaking to here? I know that Twitter and HN, i.e. the generic internet, are the only places Sam and I typically might cross paths, so who is the community he's speaking for? Gavin de Becker and "forced teaming" comes to mind. Is this YC trying to stay on top of the tech activism bubbling in various corners these days? He doesn't say, the entire post is expressed as self-evident, which makes me think his (et al) motivation is competitively strategic, and specifically political. Vagueness is construed against the writer, especially when it's intentional. If he is indeed speaking to the DSA and ersatz-unionization ideas floating around, why not join forces with people who are already working on this? Fragmentation? Disruption? Narratology? We’d also like to discuss how tech companies can heal the divide in our country Evergreen take, but you still can't solve a people problem with technology.
- coldtea 9y ago>Who is the "we" he's speaking to here? "Sam Altman, Debra Cleaver, Matt Krisiloff". They sign the post. >I know that Twitter and HN, i.e. the generic internet, are the only places Sam and I typically might cross paths, so who is the community he's speaking for? The tech community.
- jerf 9y agoThe tech community, or the portion of the tech community that is Silicon Valley Liberal? (Bear in mind that even if you feel inclined to write off non-liberals, there is a such thing as a non-Silicon Valley liberal.) I can't help but feel this organization is going to have a built in equivocation fallacy where whenever it is suitable they'll claim to be a "tech worker union" but whenever it comes time to decide what the union is actually going to do it'll be the "Silicon Valley Liberals" deciding what to do.
- coldtea 9y ago>The tech community, or the portion of the tech community that is Silicon Valley Liberal? When they write "For good and bad, technology has become a central force in all our lives. As members of the community, ..." they obviously mean the tech community. And they ARE members of the tech community (regardless of if they are also members of a subset, like SV-liberal tech community or anything similar).
- ABCLAW 9y agoI would love participate in this event and I believe this effort may be an important step in moving us towards ethical software. Unfortunately, despite having a fairly unique and well-suited pedigree to contribute, I live a good thousand miles away. Would there be an opportunity for individuals not located in the Bay Area to attend, provide commentary on meeting notes, or somehow participate without being present locally?
- nthitz 9y agoReminder: TechSolidarity, a very similar initiative is open to everyone and is meeting next Wednesday in SF https://techsolidarity.org/events/sf_april_5.html https://techsolidarity.org/events/sf_april_5.html
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoThe same forces that have killed unions in the US will kill this. As long as labor can be shipped to areas of the world with a lower quality of life, they will do so. Lower level tech positions like tech support have already been shipped overseas, and once countries like India and China develop the infrastructure to take higher level tech jobs, they will go there too. If we want to protect our workers, our labor laws, and our standard of living, we have to stop globalization.
- geofft 9y ago1. "Overseas" is a curious definition. Linux was written in Finland, after all. Would blocking US workers from aiding Finnish technology have been productive? 2. Can it be stopped? If US companies refuse to work with Indian or Chinese employees, what is preventing India or China from out-competing the US company in the international market? If the US places tariffs on technology products and services from other countries, what is preventing those other countries from outpacing our standard of living?
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago1. It depends on where the work is shipped. Global trade between countries with similar minimum wages and labor laws is a net positive because it takes advantage of the varying resources of other countries without exploiting labor. Yet when a country has a vastly different economy, it can be not fair at all. For example, minimum wage in Mexico is $0.48/hr, and their quality of life is very low. How is it fair to the world when a richer country facilitates the poorer country's poor labor laws by shipping all its work to the poor country, all while gutting the richer country's middle class? It just leads to a race to the bottom to see which country can offer the cheapest labor. 2. It can be stopped. The US was an economic powerhouse before globalization, and had an incredibly powerful middle class with a high quality of life. What China has done is use the money from outsourcing into creating its own internal industries, which is why their economy is rising all across the board, while in the US we've been outsourcing our industries to the point where only the capital owners who exploit globalization are seeing an increase in quality of life. If we stop that, the globalists will suffer but our middle class will rise. As far as competition goes, what does it matter if we have the "strongest market" or whatever if the majority of people don't benefit from it?
- jaequery 9y agoWhat are your guys thoughts on moving or starting a new tech community in a remote city that are not too expensive, such as Alaska even?
- idlewords 9y agoAlaska is a very expensive place; you have to ship everything in.
- dredmorbius 9y agoOn a positive, though, hipsters have low tarrifs and pack flat.
- theparanoid 9y agoThere used to be tech in interior California which is an inexpensive area. Sierra Online/Sierra Entertainment was a notable example. The Grass Valley Group was another. Paul Graham's "How To a Silicon Valley" [0] has the best recommendations I've seen. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
- dredmorbius 9y ago@pg's guide is good, but misses a few points. There's the role of the defense industry and Silicon Valley. See Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley": https://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-valley/ https://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-va... That said, there's a bunch of strength to @pg's points and conclusions. Portland and Boulder as potential tech hubs sounds about right. It might be possible to build out elsewhere -- Rochester and Buffalo in New York were technology centers, once, and though it's small, Burlington, VT, has much of the right vibe (though possibly too harsh winters) for tech. I don't see the sweat-and-mildew belt -- the midwest -- really doing much. There's too much about getting outside and actually clearing your head, which the vast expanses of overhumidified prarie (or frozen tundra) don't offer. Though the land is cheap, and a few college towns (University of Illinois, University of Iowa, Notre Dame) might manage to create some centres around. I'm also not entirely sure Chicago ought be written off, though I suspect it would take a tremendous amount to turn it around. On the one hand, it's lower-cost land, nearer East Coast centres, with good natural transport (air, rail, ship, truck) for various industry. On the other hand, the weather's little different from Ithaca or Pittsburgh, and the politics are interminable. The flexability of pretty much doing what you wanted in California in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s is hard to beat, and that's continued to pay off. Though I'd argue those benefits are now largely gone. The role of a cheap housing stock and/or the ability to pick up and create a long-term plan with a large set of land, say, in Chicago or Detroit, seems interesting though.
- pizzetta 9y agoI both like the idea of unions on the one hand (have greater group self-determination) but on the other hand it can lead to ossification and ultimately our own demise (through complacency, irrelevancy, protectionism, etc.) I do like the idea of spreading the wealth to other parts of the country, especially those that are hit hardest by the changing characteristics of the economy --people we often forget, hollowed out industrial cities, forgotten rural areas, etc.
- lackbeard 9y agoI can't articulate why exactly... but I have a very bad feeling about this. > We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create. I'm pretty sure this kind of thing is just going to make the polarization worse.
- Banthum 9y agoBecause it means de-emphasizing individuals by merging them into a group with one unified set of values. This necessarily means erasing the voices of people who hold minority positions in that group. It has every potential to be another place where those with the most time to burn, the most anger, and the most refined ideological weaponry grab power over those with minority viewpoints or healthy self-doubt. Unions are supposed to fight for the thing the workers definitely have in common - their direct economic interests. Lashing that union structure to entirely different political fights invites the above kinds of problems.
- r_smart 9y ago'Having purged half the population, we've measured a marked downturn in polarization in Q3 of this year.'
- xienze 9y ago> We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create. I guarantee this is code for "we think Trump wouldn't have been elected if he couldn't use Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook. Let's figure out how to make that possible."
- tptacek 9y agoI don't think you have the authority to offer such a guarantee.
- tropo 9y agoOh yeah. "We’d also like to discuss how tech companies can heal the divide in our country. [...] We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create." Easy as could be: switch to the other side "We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans" Probably step #1 is to hire Americans. "by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measures. [...] We are planning to hold a meeting on the evening of April 9th in the Bay Area." Oops. To fix, move the meeting to one of the following: Wyoming, Oklahoma, northern Texas excluding Dallas, Alabama excluding Huntsville, Georgia excluding Atlanta, West Virginia, Tennessee, Montana...
- yanilkr 9y agoTech workers have something so much better than that. Freedom. If you do not like the values of the current company find a new one or start one. Mob rule knows no fairness. When your ideas are vague, people fill them up with their version of fairness. Employees who are just starting out do not know anything about making sacrifices to build something bigger than themselves. If they collectively form a gang and override the will of the founders and investors who made more sacrifices, it drains the spirit of the individual to risk their time and savings to start something new. People are free to organize their efforts but it takes founders and their sacrifices to make things happen. This collective power should embrace ideas of fairness and voluntarism instead of laws and force to get their way.
- cyphar 9y agoYou could make the same argument about most engineering disciplines. Yet other engineers have unions, because historically they've had unions and they've worked out well. The only reason that software engineering unions aren't common is because we didn't adopt them at the beginning. Quick reminder that unions are the reason that many of the benefits you have in the workplace today are standardised across the workforce -- a union that has teeth can actually make a difference to your employer's actions.
- yanilkr 9y agoThat probably explains why "other engineering disciplines" do not have as many startups as software. If you do not like the current place and its values why do you hold others and its owners hostage to your ideals? Why not start a new one and attract better talent with your better values. Tech companies are trying to do something better than what previous generations could do.
- Apocryphon 9y agoAnd maybe tech unions- call them guilds or free associations or hacker collectives if you can't stomach the term- can do labor relations better than what previous unions could do, as well.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Uhhrrr 9y agoOne way to start "spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country" would be to advocate for distributing H1-B jobs via auction, rather than lottery. Perhaps the union could work on this!
- dredmorbius 9y agoThat creates several modes of imbalance / abuse, potentially. E.g., a large and cash-rich firm could bid on more visas than it needs, starving other firms. It also fails to address the leverage that the visa sponsor has over the visa holder -- lose your job, and you lose your right to remain in-country.
- Uhhrrr 9y agoPerhaps there could be penalties for non-use. But in general, the total market is so much larger than any given firm and its competitors that it shouldn't be an issue.
- pgodzin 9y ago> We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measure While an obvious positive, this completely ignores the fact that these higher salaries are precisely because we write software that increases efficiency over what a handful of humans can do. So while there is an increase in high paying jobs, there is inevitably a decrease in many more low paying jobs (short-term at least, likely long-term unless we learn how to re-train people better)
- csneeky 9y agoTech workers are as disparate and varied as non-tech workers... There is a hierarchy and I think it is unlikely we will see common ground emerge. Survival of the fittest and the best will still win the day. Just like the labor unions of the industrial era, efforts like this are doomed to be spikes of ideology rife with the same contradictions of those it proposes to keep in check. Some tech workers run multimillion dollar businesses and some push bits around for them in the wee hours of the morning for much less. Some have PhDs in category theory and write Haskell on a multiple 6 figure salary in finance and some maintain dated ruby on rails systems they didn't write for much less. Some roll around on scooters in data centers putting out real fires in environments that need high availability. Others spend their days upgrading old versions of windows in small town school districts. The same divides that existed before the internet will follow us. Nothing new here. Work hard, strive to get to the top, and hang on. Unions are not the answer. Darwin always wins the day.
- Danihan 9y agoExactly. This post is founded on so many bad assumptions.. We'd also like to discuss how tech companies can heal the divide in our country. Why _shouldn't_ there be divides in our country? Which divide is being referred to? Religious? Political? Net worth? Productivity? Persuasion? Why assume differences need "healed?" Why this constant, desperate push for homogeneity? Why can't people simply be different, and have conflicting opinions and worldviews? Why can't these disagreements, alongside of passionate debate, be lauded and encouraged instead of shamed? Why can't people simply not like one another sometimes, without needing "healed"?
- dionidium 9y agoA lot of the push for healing is really about a belief that the other side would agree with you if they just had all the facts. That what's holding back agreement is educational in nature. I don't think this is true, to state it mildly, but a lot of modern politics (and nearly every smart-aleck tweet ever written) makes a lot more sense when viewed through this lens.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
- nsxwolf 9y ago"Rule of law" as a tech worker's value? Uber... Air BnB... ... illegal immigration.... does not compute.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThe irony given YC's involvement in those is ... interesting, to say the least.
- clumsysmurf 9y ago"We’d also like to discuss how tech companies can heal the divide in our country. We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measures." Isn't the elephant in the room extreme capitalism? Tech is just accelerating it. Perhaps the alternative is workers managing their own workplaces: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/1608462471 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/...
- Apocryphon 9y agoEvery time the idea of a tech workers' union is brought up, the same tired criticisms of organized labor are brought up again and again. Do people forget that this industry is built upon the ideal of innovation? Why can't we build a new type of union that fixes the bugs that prior unions suffered? Why can't we experiment and find new solutions? Why can't we disrupt the relationship between capital and labor? The notion that unions are somehow inherently unworkable flies in the face of everything that the tech industry stands for.
- callmeed 9y ago> We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country ... From what I can tell, this doesn't really line up with the location and remote-friendliness of YC companies. Most seem to be in the Bay Area and few that I can tell allow remote engineers, managers, or execs. Sorry, but being an Instacart delivery person in Dallas isn't a high-paying technology job. Prove me wrong with real numbers please.
- Clanan 9y agoShould this have some sort of warning attached? I'm not sure every company will like having their (unauthorized) employees defining their policies and values. A common controversy with unions, especially when they're forming, is employer discrimination against participants.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoThe employees already instantiate a company's actual values. They just don't get to decide what the company says its values are.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- khazhou 9y agoA Tech Union is a great idea, starting with Bay Area employees banding together for higher equity at startups. If VC-funded startups suddenly couldn't hire their first employees for 1% equity (against the founders' 50-70%) then we'd see fairer payouts for successful startups.
- intrasight 9y agoThe great thing about "values" is that everyone can have their own (play on same phrase with "standards") To have "rights", they must be encoded in the legal code.
- zanzibarwutwut 9y agoThis: As members of the community, we're interested in ways in which tech companies can use their collective power to protect privacy, rule of law, freedom of expression, and other fundamental American rights And this: We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create. are not really compatible. People from Red America already aren't welcome in tech (I am from Red America). This makes polarization worse by creating yet another filter bubble. Making tech companies into even more explicit vehicles for progressive activism might be a good thing on balance, but it won't help with polarization. Pick one.
- tropo 9y agoAt least the words are compatible, though the intent is probably not. Red America is perfectly happy to "protect privacy, rule of law, freedom of expression, and other fundamental American rights", and would love to "reduce the polarization". Let's start with the easy one, polarization: that gets reduced if the tech industry accepts Red America values. Well? It works. It is a solution to polarization. Problem solved. Red America is fond of privacy. FYI, the recent ISP thing isn't going over well with non-politicians. When gun registrations were published in a newspaper, that didn't go over too well. Opposition to stuff like home/family/schooling inspections (kid-related government agencies) is intense in Red America. Red America loves the rule of law. You can tell that Trump has disappointed them on this when they chant "LOCK HER UP" and he evades the issue. Red America prefers that the constitution be interpreted very literally, using the actual text, with the meanings of words as they were in the English language at the time they were written. Red America accepts freedom of expression even when they don't like it very much. It wasn't Red America that violently shut down Milo's speech. That was all blue. Red America is obviously fond of other fundamental American rights. When the ACLU counts to ten, they do this: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (skipping the amendment they don't like)
- warlox 9y agoYour idea of "compromise" is to demand capitulation. There is no reason for anyone to comply with your demands because you bring nothing to the table. In the end, it was conservatives who shot Milo down by exposing his advocacy of Catholic priest molestation. His remaining supporters are fascist and reactionary pedophiles.
- metaphorm 9y ago> We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to reduce the polarization we've helped create. Liquidate Twitter?
- jdhopeunique 9y agoOne value I'd like to see enforced is better separation of employees' work and private life. Examples would include: Not having to support politics I disagree with during or outside of work hours. Not having my photo and about me on the company webpage. No one wants to know the truth that my hobbies are not rock climbing and playing the guitar. Not being forced to go to conferences, hackathons, and other company sponsored events. It would be nice if these values included lobbying for tech workers to not be exempt from overtime pay and reforms of the h1b visa program.
- nemild 9y agoA few weeks back, I wrote a piece about assessing and setting your values as an engineer: https://www.nemil.com/musings/software-engineers-and-ethics.html https://www.nemil.com/musings/software-engineers-and-ethics.... I was surprised we didn't discuss this more and I wanted to help someone early in their career think through it. (I also got some good feedback from YC's Paul Buchheit who helped coin "Don't be evil" in the early days of Google)
- pcmaffey 9y agoLots of focus in the comments here, on the Unions aspect of this post, but Sam leads with how it's "tech companies" who have the power and responsibility to change things. And then follows up saying that unions might be a good way to make companies beholden to popular belief. This is mostly bullshit. Instead of putting the honus on the executives and VC's who define the growth-first business models, it's somehow the responsibility of their employees to wield the power of a tech company responsibly? To shape the direction of a company? Maybe in a round-about way, Sam is saying that unions are the only way to responsibly limit the power of tech companies' leadership. But make no mistake, the responsibility for the power of technology falls directly in the laps of a company's leaders.
- drawkbox 9y agoWe believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measures I believe this is key. Technology does not have to be binded to one or a few locations. If tech could once again try to be spread across other cities and states that will be good for everyone. It will be good for remote work, cost of living, people will support tech growth more nationwide, there will be new ideas that might not emerge in a tech hotspot and not everyone will have to move to one place which is really a single point of failure.
- tptacek 9y agoIt's good that Altman recognizes that something needs to be done here. Something does need to happen. However: Altman is a business owner and an executive. I don't think he can coordinate the solution. The kernel of the issue here is the disengagement rank-and-file employees have from the public policy implications of their work. Employees don't need permission from owners and managers to be accountable for those implications. The widespread, implicit belief among the rank-and-file that they do need permission is the first obstacle that we need to address. Rather than staging meetings and attempting to help shape the outcome, Altman and other executives should encourage their employees to work amongst themselves. Getting directly involved, however, is problematic, and I think owners and executives should probably avoid doing that.
- angersock 9y agoI'd suggest that, if your net worth exceeds a million dollars and your entire income/value is derived from the current startup trends embodied by YC, you are uniquely unqualified to start talking about helping workers. sama is a leader in the class of the exploiters, and crowdwashing like this won't change anything. EDIT: The "general you", not "you, tptacek". :)
- alexandercrohde 9y agoI have no clue what he's talking about, and what it sounds like he's saying makes me a little angry. - Unions are a force to protect the 99% from the corruption of the 1%. They are not a force to drive a liberal agenda, though by protecting the little guy they may indirectly align. - Increasing competition by getting more people into coding (be them from outside the country or from outside of cities) is the exact opposite of what a union would do. It would drive down wages for the skilled workers that investors are getting rich off of. - Technology making peoples lives worse is the fault of a combination of capitalism and the fact that CEOs and investors are more motivated by adding 0s to their bank account than anything as nebulous as "good." Why should tech workers risk their jobs to force the hand of the companies they work at? - Is he talking about automation taking jobs? Because the profit from the concentration of wealth again is at the hands of the 1% and .1%. Unless he's saying tech workers need to pass the buffet rule, or tech workers need to refuse to work at companies that don't give enough equity then I don't see how the average tech worker is the solution to the wealth being drawn away from the average citizen (who can't afford $500 in an emergency) into an investor's portfolio....
- erik_seaberg 9y agoOut of the whole agenda, privacy is the only item for which it matters at all that we're in tech. Everything else seems to be things he hopes wealthy people in any booming industry care about.
- thora 9y agoThese recent interviews with Alan Kay [1][2] cover this topic from a perspective I find valuable. In addition, there are many other relevant presentations he has made and in which he presents his own perspectives and points to the ideas of others like Douglas Englebart, Neil Postman, Seymor Papert, Marshall McLuhan, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Paine [3] [1] Alan Kay - Inventing the Future Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVUGkuUj28o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVUGkuUj28o [2] Alan Kay - Inventing the Future Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZHxUwqPVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZHxUwqPVw [3] Alan Kay's Reading List http://www.squeakland.org/resources/books/readingList.jsp http://www.squeakland.org/resources/books/readingList.jsp
- dredmorbius 9y ago"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. "It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate. "We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the necessity superior steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders." -- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776. Book I, Chapter VIII, "On the Wages of Labour". https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_8 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...