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> Just a few hours later, Vox published an article titled These tech interns are probably making more than you are where they shared a tweet showcasing candid s

by selmnoo 12y ago

> Just a few hours later, Vox published an article titled These tech interns are probably making more than you are where they shared a tweet showcasing candid salaries at various tech companies, some larger, some smaller: That is a kind of a bullshit argument though isn't it, that "hey look, the interns (supposedly half-able, incompetent newbies) are getting paid so high!! We have such wonderful salaries in tech!" It's a lie, a total misrepresentation of the facts. The interns are usually super programmers themselves. I mean, for instance, when Alex Gaynor was "interning" at Quora he ported Quora to run on PyPy. He's a really big contributor to projects like Django and PyPy. When he's "interning" at your company he's probably more able than a lot of other folk you could find, and he should be getting very big bucks. So this argument is really just complete hogwash. A good amount of times I see the interns training employees rather than the other way around (as it should be). Secondly, they're interning in the valley, where "boarding" costs are about equal to costs of getting a mansion in a midwestern city in a reasonably safe and fun neighborhood. When you're "making 90k" in the valley you have the quality of life worth ~60k in a midwestern city. If anything, they are underpaid. edit: minor revision on figures for clarity of argument; though I do agree with moc down below when he says "If you're comparing suburbs (Silicon Valley) to suburbs, the discrepancy is much greater and I'd say that $90k/CA ~= $40k/Midwest"

yurisagalov 12y ago
actually, I am not claiming at all that interns are half-able, incompetent newbies. Some of our best work has been done by people interning with us, and I think our past interns will vouch for that. That being said, it is true that intern salaries are generally lower than full time salaries (although the gap is shrinking, IMO), and intern salaries are good indicators of full time salaries in tech.
- anthony_d 12y ago
  The thing is that a highly paid intern in no way refutes the argument that immigration is about cheap labor. The argument is that 1) because domestic labor is expensive companies want to increase H1B's as a way to decrease cost 2) if you didn't mind paying more you could find domestic labor. The highly paid intern is an point in favor of #1. Nothing in the article disputes the basic economics of #2. Sure there is competition for talent, there is competition in every facet of business. The trick is to find the ratio between how much value a business extracts from a resource and how much value the business provides to the resource; that ratio needs to stay above 1.
drivingmenuts 12y ago
Purely on the informative side: why are these people called "interns" when it looks more like they're straight-up "contractors" or "employees"? Is this just a convenient fiction?
- teacup50 12y ago
  Most of them are worthless; of any given intern class at a first tier technology company (e.g., Apple), only ~1-5% will actually be offered a full time job. Those 1% are worth every penny, but you simply don't know who they are until you give the entire intern class the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
  - pauleastlund 12y ago
    In my experience at Google, far, far more than 1-5% were offered full time jobs. Maybe my group just had above-average interns? But I don't think so. The intern hiring bar was fairly high.
    - potatoyogurt 12y ago
      Yeah, this is silly. The point of having interns is like 90% finding and vetting new employees. Certainly, not everyone will be offered a job, but if less than 5% of a company's interns are receiving offers, there is something seriously wrong with the company's intern selection process.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    > Most of them are worthless They are almost never worthless. Small startups who are not experienced with interviewing may get a few bad apples, but companies like Quora (and the others on the list in submission article) don't make those mistakes. Sure, they may not all be Alex "Im-a-core-dev-for-Pypy" Gaynor's, but generally they'll be worth every penny of that 90k and another 90k more.
    - teacup50 12y ago
dashboardfront 12y ago
> When you're "making 90k" in the valley you have the quality of life worth 30k in a midwestern city. Not true at all, yet this is constantly repeated like it's fact. Look up indifference curves and consumption bundles. You're ignoring microeconomics. For anyone that doesn't assign excessively high utility towards housing size, 90k in the valley is a much better quality of life than 30k in a midwestern city. This is where cost of living calculators fail as well. You can't compare the same basket of goods everywhere you go. People will adjust their basket of goods depending on relative prices; it doesn't mean that their utility has dropped. It's income effect vs substitution effect. Edit: The number above has been changed to 60k~. I'd say this is probably a more reasonable argument. As for the suburban argument, I don't really know the numbers and I can't argue there. As a person in my 20s who grew up in San Jose, the suburbs are like a bad dream that continuously haunts me.
- UK-AL 12y ago
  Surely most of you money is going on rent, so the money left will be the same as other cities.
  - dashboardfront 12y ago
    You can always adjust your consumption bundle. If I'm living in a high rent city, I'm more likely to find a friend to share an apartment with or settle for something not that great. This is a drop in utility (though I'd argue living with a friend is a positive for myself), but I also have a lot more money to use on other things, which increases my utility. Spending most of your money on rent when you're pulling something like 5,000 after tax a month is a choice, not a given, and is reflective on how much utility you perceive a better apartment to give you. In reality, we're probably terrible at accurately estimating utility of a good, but I personally have lived in a variety of places, and I was most happiest living in my tiny dorm room, so I personally don't care much about having a big place.
    - UK-AL 12y ago
      Your average friend is likely to want a close to market price for that room. Relying on friends is not a way to plan an economy. A lot of people won't have friends willing to let them stay.

by selmnoo 12y ago

yurisagalov 12y ago

actually, I am not claiming at all that interns are half-able, incompetent newbies. Some of our best work has been done by people interning with us, and I think our past interns will vouch for that. That being said, it is true that intern salaries are generally lower than full time salaries (although the gap is shrinking, IMO), and intern salaries are good indicators of full time salaries in tech.

anthony_d 12y ago
The thing is that a highly paid intern in no way refutes the argument that immigration is about cheap labor. The argument is that 1) because domestic labor is expensive companies want to increase H1B's as a way to decrease cost 2) if you didn't mind paying more you could find domestic labor. The highly paid intern is an point in favor of #1. Nothing in the article disputes the basic economics of #2. Sure there is competition for talent, there is competition in every facet of business. The trick is to find the ratio between how much value a business extracts from a resource and how much value the business provides to the resource; that ratio needs to stay above 1.

drivingmenuts 12y ago

Purely on the informative side: why are these people called "interns" when it looks more like they're straight-up "contractors" or "employees"? Is this just a convenient fiction?

teacup50 12y ago
Most of them are worthless; of any given intern class at a first tier technology company (e.g., Apple), only ~1-5% will actually be offered a full time job. Those 1% are worth every penny, but you simply don't know who they are until you give the entire intern class the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
- pauleastlund 12y ago
  In my experience at Google, far, far more than 1-5% were offered full time jobs. Maybe my group just had above-average interns? But I don't think so. The intern hiring bar was fairly high.
  - potatoyogurt 12y ago
    Yeah, this is silly. The point of having interns is like 90% finding and vetting new employees. Certainly, not everyone will be offered a job, but if less than 5% of a company's interns are receiving offers, there is something seriously wrong with the company's intern selection process.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  > Most of them are worthless They are almost never worthless. Small startups who are not experienced with interviewing may get a few bad apples, but companies like Quora (and the others on the list in submission article) don't make those mistakes. Sure, they may not all be Alex "Im-a-core-dev-for-Pypy" Gaynor's, but generally they'll be worth every penny of that 90k and another 90k more.
  - teacup50 12y ago

dashboardfront 12y ago

> When you're "making 90k" in the valley you have the quality of life worth 30k in a midwestern city. Not true at all, yet this is constantly repeated like it's fact. Look up indifference curves and consumption bundles. You're ignoring microeconomics. For anyone that doesn't assign excessively high utility towards housing size, 90k in the valley is a much better quality of life than 30k in a midwestern city. This is where cost of living calculators fail as well. You can't compare the same basket of goods everywhere you go. People will adjust their basket of goods depending on relative prices; it doesn't mean that their utility has dropped. It's income effect vs substitution effect. Edit: The number above has been changed to 60k~. I'd say this is probably a more reasonable argument. As for the suburban argument, I don't really know the numbers and I can't argue there. As a person in my 20s who grew up in San Jose, the suburbs are like a bad dream that continuously haunts me.

UK-AL 12y ago
Surely most of you money is going on rent, so the money left will be the same as other cities.
- dashboardfront 12y ago
  You can always adjust your consumption bundle. If I'm living in a high rent city, I'm more likely to find a friend to share an apartment with or settle for something not that great. This is a drop in utility (though I'd argue living with a friend is a positive for myself), but I also have a lot more money to use on other things, which increases my utility. Spending most of your money on rent when you're pulling something like 5,000 after tax a month is a choice, not a given, and is reflective on how much utility you perceive a better apartment to give you. In reality, we're probably terrible at accurately estimating utility of a good, but I personally have lived in a variety of places, and I was most happiest living in my tiny dorm room, so I personally don't care much about having a big place.
  - UK-AL 12y ago
    Your average friend is likely to want a close to market price for that room. Relying on friends is not a way to plan an economy. A lot of people won't have friends willing to let them stay.