6 ms·

> so that prices for labor will go down. I don't think that's the reason (it is a side effect though). What makes you think that?

strikelaserclaw 2y ago
because most of these companies are (run by?) sociopaths - as soon as low interest rates dried up DEI initiatives got slashed even though these companies are still making record profits.
- cutemonster 2y ago
  Also depends on who's perspective you have in mind: the Girls in Tech founder's, or (most of) the (big) donors'
jimbokun 2y ago
Human nature.
randomdata 2y ago
Why else would a buyer invest heavily in increasing the supply?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- RIMR 2y ago
  I like that we're not beating around the bush and admitting that businesses only donate money to causes they think will financially benefit them. That there are no altruistic actions by a business entity, everything is either an operational expense or an investment. This is 100% true in practice, so you're absolutely correct here. I just hope that we're in agreement that this is a bad state of affairs if businesses have completely written off doing the right thing in favor of profit 100% of the time. As a community of entrepreneurs, we should aim higher. If this is the only reason that tech companies invest in gender equality, then we need to find better advocates, or at least come prepared to counter the exploitation the current advocates have in mind.
  - klyrs 2y ago
    Counterpoint: a cynical take posted deep in a comment thread in a random corner of the internet may not accurately reflect the values of an entire industry.
    - cutemonster 2y ago
      Yes, GP is exaggerating or a bit clueless about humans > > That there are no altruistic actions by a business [...] This is 100% true
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >I just hope that we're in agreement that this is a bad state of affairs if businesses have completely written off doing the right thing in favor of profit 100% of the time. Maybe 99% of the time. But sure, the altruistic businesses are usually the first to shutter. Reality is cruel and very few entrepreneurs are so well off they can bleed money for their cause. Those kinds of people lobby policy instead of being customer facing. >As a community of entrepreneurs, we should aim higher. If this is the only reason that tech companies invest in gender equality, then we need to find better advocates, best of luck. The mix of having the massive funds for scale, incentive and/or empathy for interest, and altruism to keep the company honest for such an initiative seems to be a unicorn these days.
    - RIMR 2y ago
      The next 4 years of Trump will be an interesting time then, because we're going to discover which businesses will trade our lives for profit. If doing the right thing comes second to doing what's profitable, businesses with the mindset you describe are the kinds of businesses that will assist in genocide. If things play out the way I expect, I hope these businesses learn the hard way that doing the wrong thing isn't always profitable, or survivable if you side with Nazis.
      - _t9ow 2y ago
        > The next 4 years of Trump If he gets re-elected, it might not be only 4 years.
- jrockway 2y ago
  I think that companies think they can make $X with 10 engineers, but > $2X with 20 engineers. Thus, allowing more people to be comfortable as a software engineer increases the amount of money they can make. Right now, with 6% interest rates? Nobody wants to make money that badly. But it won't be that way forever.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    c. 2000's, the reason was much more insidious. It wasn;t about making all the money, it was also about making sure no one else becomes the next facebook to their myspace. Only thing better than 2x engineers making more than 2x dollars, is depriving market value of competition by over 70%. The anti-poaching lawsuits of the early 2010's more or less confirms this intent. c. 2010's, there's many reasons but the relevant one here is the DEI initaitves. You get tax breaks for diversity, you will hire the right people even if they just sit there. very dishonest, but at least they compensate well. Same logic, if 2x engineers only operate at 0.8x capacity but you save almost half your revenue from not paying taxes, the decision is obvious. But as you said, we're in the 20's, market is captured, and free money is gone. That era of hoarding technical talent like trading cards is over
  - randomdata 2y ago
    That is a fair thought, but, of course, depends on a constant (approximately) per-unit labour cost. After all, businesses could poach those 10 additional engineers from the company beside them with a $2Y compensation offer, without the need for any more engineers. But if you need to pay 2x more for each labourer to achieve $2X gross return then the appeal is quickly lost. However, if you can create 10 new engineers that didn't exist before, then they will be incentivized to fall in line with $Y as well, lowering the unit cost of labour and making adding 10 more engineers to achieve $2X in return much more appealing. The keeping of the price of labour down is exactly why businesses were willing to make such investments.
    - jrockway 2y ago
      Everyone wants to lower the cost of labor, but you can only get so much blood from a stone. People will do something else if software engineering isn't profitable. That's how things are going in the post-0% interest rates world. Software engineers aren't individually getting paid less, but less speculative software is being written. In 2021, everyone thought that the way to get rich was by throwing 200 software engineers at a shopping cart app. In 2024, the way is to have 10 people making a shopping cart, 10 people making a database, 10 people running HR reports, ... I don't think this makes the size of the industry smaller, but makes "I am sure I will find something interesting to do at this super company" less likely. There are no super companies anymore. (Except Nvidia.) Anyway, the way we increase efficiency is by automating more things. 50 years ago, you had to have a person come to your house to collect letters from you, then they would be mailed across the country, and another person would deliver it to the recipient. Now we have email, and you can just send someone a letter with no other humans in the loop. That's the efficiency increase that engineering brings, and even if we can't envision what we're going to do tomorrow, it will continue. What that means is that we will always need more engineers, and the scope of our role will increase faster than we make more humans to be engineers.

strikelaserclaw 2y ago

because most of these companies are (run by?) sociopaths - as soon as low interest rates dried up DEI initiatives got slashed even though these companies are still making record profits.

cutemonster 2y ago
Also depends on who's perspective you have in mind: the Girls in Tech founder's, or (most of) the (big) donors'

jimbokun 2y ago

Human nature.

randomdata 2y ago

Why else would a buyer invest heavily in increasing the supply?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
RIMR 2y ago
I like that we're not beating around the bush and admitting that businesses only donate money to causes they think will financially benefit them. That there are no altruistic actions by a business entity, everything is either an operational expense or an investment. This is 100% true in practice, so you're absolutely correct here. I just hope that we're in agreement that this is a bad state of affairs if businesses have completely written off doing the right thing in favor of profit 100% of the time. As a community of entrepreneurs, we should aim higher. If this is the only reason that tech companies invest in gender equality, then we need to find better advocates, or at least come prepared to counter the exploitation the current advocates have in mind.
- klyrs 2y ago
  Counterpoint: a cynical take posted deep in a comment thread in a random corner of the internet may not accurately reflect the values of an entire industry.
  - cutemonster 2y ago
    Yes, GP is exaggerating or a bit clueless about humans > > That there are no altruistic actions by a business [...] This is 100% true
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >I just hope that we're in agreement that this is a bad state of affairs if businesses have completely written off doing the right thing in favor of profit 100% of the time. Maybe 99% of the time. But sure, the altruistic businesses are usually the first to shutter. Reality is cruel and very few entrepreneurs are so well off they can bleed money for their cause. Those kinds of people lobby policy instead of being customer facing. >As a community of entrepreneurs, we should aim higher. If this is the only reason that tech companies invest in gender equality, then we need to find better advocates, best of luck. The mix of having the massive funds for scale, incentive and/or empathy for interest, and altruism to keep the company honest for such an initiative seems to be a unicorn these days.
  - RIMR 2y ago
    The next 4 years of Trump will be an interesting time then, because we're going to discover which businesses will trade our lives for profit. If doing the right thing comes second to doing what's profitable, businesses with the mindset you describe are the kinds of businesses that will assist in genocide. If things play out the way I expect, I hope these businesses learn the hard way that doing the wrong thing isn't always profitable, or survivable if you side with Nazis.
    - _t9ow 2y ago
      > The next 4 years of Trump If he gets re-elected, it might not be only 4 years.
jrockway 2y ago
I think that companies think they can make $X with 10 engineers, but > $2X with 20 engineers. Thus, allowing more people to be comfortable as a software engineer increases the amount of money they can make. Right now, with 6% interest rates? Nobody wants to make money that badly. But it won't be that way forever.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  c. 2000's, the reason was much more insidious. It wasn;t about making all the money, it was also about making sure no one else becomes the next facebook to their myspace. Only thing better than 2x engineers making more than 2x dollars, is depriving market value of competition by over 70%. The anti-poaching lawsuits of the early 2010's more or less confirms this intent. c. 2010's, there's many reasons but the relevant one here is the DEI initaitves. You get tax breaks for diversity, you will hire the right people even if they just sit there. very dishonest, but at least they compensate well. Same logic, if 2x engineers only operate at 0.8x capacity but you save almost half your revenue from not paying taxes, the decision is obvious. But as you said, we're in the 20's, market is captured, and free money is gone. That era of hoarding technical talent like trading cards is over
- randomdata 2y ago
  That is a fair thought, but, of course, depends on a constant (approximately) per-unit labour cost. After all, businesses could poach those 10 additional engineers from the company beside them with a $2Y compensation offer, without the need for any more engineers. But if you need to pay 2x more for each labourer to achieve $2X gross return then the appeal is quickly lost. However, if you can create 10 new engineers that didn't exist before, then they will be incentivized to fall in line with $Y as well, lowering the unit cost of labour and making adding 10 more engineers to achieve $2X in return much more appealing. The keeping of the price of labour down is exactly why businesses were willing to make such investments.
  - jrockway 2y ago
    Everyone wants to lower the cost of labor, but you can only get so much blood from a stone. People will do something else if software engineering isn't profitable. That's how things are going in the post-0% interest rates world. Software engineers aren't individually getting paid less, but less speculative software is being written. In 2021, everyone thought that the way to get rich was by throwing 200 software engineers at a shopping cart app. In 2024, the way is to have 10 people making a shopping cart, 10 people making a database, 10 people running HR reports, ... I don't think this makes the size of the industry smaller, but makes "I am sure I will find something interesting to do at this super company" less likely. There are no super companies anymore. (Except Nvidia.) Anyway, the way we increase efficiency is by automating more things. 50 years ago, you had to have a person come to your house to collect letters from you, then they would be mailed across the country, and another person would deliver it to the recipient. Now we have email, and you can just send someone a letter with no other humans in the loop. That's the efficiency increase that engineering brings, and even if we can't envision what we're going to do tomorrow, it will continue. What that means is that we will always need more engineers, and the scope of our role will increase faster than we make more humans to be engineers.