
Tech Workers' Values - rloomba
http://blog.samaltman.com/tech-workers-values
======
AndrewKemendo
_We 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.

~~~
civilian
My main objection to unions is that, once they're in a company, employees lose
the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my
union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a
union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of
coworkers, and have us negotiate separately.

This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of unions
as a whole. But yeah.

I think that tech workers are in a special place because we have a lot of
disposable income. I've gotten over my college-era "can't pay for anything"
attitude, and I'm willing to pay for content that could be gotten for free.
Entertainment was the first one, but now I'm also supporting some people on
patreon and donating to causes. We don't need a union to drive that-- we can
just remind tech workers that if we all donate a little, we can make big
changes.

~~~
bosie
> employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation.

I have never heard of that. Why would that be?

~~~
carlosdp
Because they would need to join the union and the union negotiates
compensation for everyone, that's one of the main purposes of a union.

~~~
stale2002
And that's exactly why I will never join a union. As soon as that happens at
any job I have, I will hand in my resignation the next day.

I can negotiate very well on my own, as opposed to being stuck into seniority
"levels", thank you very much.

------
rhizome
Who 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
> _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
The 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
> _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).

~~~
jerf
And if they were setting out to be a union in the conventional sense, that
would be fine. But as a weird undefined vaguely amorphous "We're a union
that's going to do political things", it matters whether the Silicon Valley
liberals are going to be making all the decisions.

I said this on another thing that got lost on /new recently, but either form a
PAC or form a union, but don't try to do both.

I very much expect this to be structurally non-viable. Once the union has to
make positive decisions about what to push for even the apparent political
unity in Silicon Valley will be revealed to be less strong than it seems when
you're merely looking at the fact that "I don't know anyone who voted for
Trump", let alone what happens if you try to extend it out of Silicon Valley.
(And if this is supposed to be unionesque, you'll have to almost immediately
as plenty of SV companies have major non-SV offices.) There are unions that
were politically active, but they always combined it with a _very_ strong
message to their members that their primary task was watching out for their
members. Starting right out of the gate with "Our first priority is political
activism" means that you can pretty much guarantee the leadership will end up
detached from the membership in a small number of years. Something may emerge
from that process, but it won't be a group of people that has anything like a
quorum of the "tech community"... it'll just be a PAC.

------
alphonsegaston
There'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.

~~~
djsumdog
I like the fictional future on Mars in the Kim Stanley Robinson novels where
there are no companies, but co-ops. Your time goes into the co-op and everyone
owns a portion of that for life.

This is a greater dramatic shift and I'm not sure if we'll see it in our
lifetimes, but it would be nice that, even that first high school job at a
cinema would earn you shares in that company equal to the time you put in, for
life. In some ways, that would make more sense than basic minimum income.

~~~
erikpukinskis
It will happen. The limiting factor is we need to get the friction for forking
an existing co-op down close to zero. Unfortunately most people who work for a
co-op still think of it as proprietary ("this is my co-op, and we don't have
any openings right now. If you want yours you have to start your own").

Intellectual resistance from co-opers isn't the main bottleneck though.
Management infrastructure needs to be all digital and open source, and forking
needs to be technically easy. That means the accounting, staffing, and
operations procedures all written out in code, rather than in QuickBooks on
some computer in the stock room. On github, with one-touch deployment to
Heroku, or some equivalent. Ethereum maybe.

Once we're there I think it will be fairly easy to sell the employees on the
"you should spend some time training people who are forking your business"
concept, since they are (mostly) already amenable to anarchist (you don't
really own anything) values. At that point it will be viral and anyone who is
providing ops and logistical support for that ecosystem will get very rich.

~~~
throwaway71958
>> It will happen.

As someone who was born and raised in the Soviet Union and spent the last 20
years in the US, I hope to dear god this doesn't ever happen. I don't know
where else I'd have to emigrate if it does. To Mars maybe?

What you're describing is essentially "collective enterprise" or "kolkhoz",
where nominally you own a share in a venture, but in practice you don't own
shit, and as a result you don't consider it "your own", and as a direct
consequence of not actually owning property, you just can't bring yourself to
care. This gives rise to a lot of unsavory and damaging behaviors: from not
actually working all that hard, to outright stealing. They had a saying in the
USSR: "Everything belongs to the kolkhoz, so everything belongs to me." So
who's to judge you if you e.g. steal a couple of tons of kerosene to heat your
hothouse in winter?

Communists had to _shoot people_ who had even a modicum of entrepreneurial
skill ("kulaks"), and take away their property in order to get the rest to
join after the October Revolution of 1917. I suspect that's how things looked
to the revolutionaries back in late 19th century. They've never experienced
their proposed ideology on their own hide and therefore did not see its rough
edges and downsides. All of this collectivism in the US can exist only as a
part of a broader staunchly capitalist economy, and then only during the "good
times" when people's needs are more or less met and they can spare some energy
on pursuing ideological purity.

All of this discussion about communist ideals from people who have never
experienced anything anywhere close to what it's like is like a bad nightmare
to any Eastern European who actually has a first hand experience living under
a communist regime. Truly, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat
it.

I, for one, will sacrifice everything I've got to prevent any even remotely
communist development of events here in the US. Yes, that does include not
considering Bernie "Money grows on trees" Sanders seriously. Communism does
not work. It never did work. It never will work. I'm 100% certain of it.

Cue people explaining to me that the "USSR never actually had communism" and
"you're holding it wrong". You're missing the point.

~~~
igk
I model you a bit like my father, who grew up in a Soviet satelite state, if
he had ended up in the US instead of a country with strong socialist history:
he will argue for free education, basic income, national healthcare,
nationalization of infrastructure and resources (all of which are pretty
socialist ideas), but will immediately revert to referring to kolkhoz and
aparatschiks if any politician or activist openly endorses socialist views.

The main point where I will agree with you is that USSR and FORCED anything is
wrong. But what would be so wrong in expanding and evolving the cooperative
model and letting workers owning their companies become the norm? To me it is
all about making that the more efficient way to run a company, so people do it
voluntarily. This could be accomplished by changing some of the laws regarding
liability, taxation etc to reflect their intended purpose (or by going full
way to corporate personhood and making something like a transnational
impossible, i.e. if you want to do business in that country, you need to get a
"corporate passport"). The current US system is broken. USSR was broken. Let's
try to mix and match and add new things. Marx was probably right in his
diagnosis of the fatal tendency of capital to consolidate and turn free market
capitalism into crony capitalism. The efficient solution to this seems to be
the german, scandinavian, canadian mixture of the two. Heck, even china on the
more dystopian side "works" because they combine the two

------
csneeky
Tech 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
Exactly. 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
A 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.

------
yanilkr
Tech 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
You 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
That 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
And 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.

------
zorpner
This 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
As 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
I'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.ht...](https://sfbay.techsolidarity.org/2017/01/05/meeting_notes.htm)

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
I 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
No 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.

------
lackbeard
I 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.

~~~
xienze
> 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
I don't think you have the authority to offer such a guarantee.

------
leggomylibro
Give 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
> _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
You pay for your business to continue operating, not for a lucrative exit
strategy.

~~~
iamacynic
yeah 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.

------
tptacek
It'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
I'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". :)

------
rfrank
From 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
Silicon Valley (especially SF) is all for diversity...as long as you think
exactly like they do.

~~~
st3v3r
Wrong. 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.

~~~
ignoramceisblis
And you're attacking someone simply for stating that they think "Silicon
Valley (especially SF) is all for diversity...as long as you think exactly
like they do." From left field, you're bringing up and arguing against "having
the opinion that a class of people do not deserve the same rights as others".
And declaring that you know what EduardoBautista "wants": "no one to call you
out for espousing terrible views. You want freedom from consequences of
speech, not freedom from speech." How you come to these conclusions based on
that one statement, and then bring up your contrived ideas in a seemingly
vitriolic attack against another person, I don't know.

Perhaps people wouldn't call what you're exhibiting "bigotry", but I would:
based on a single statement, you jump to conclusions and attack someone based
on those conclusions. I think such behavior is one of the biggest problems in
(a part of) American culture, and I would wager I'm not alone in thinking
this.

~~~
warlox
> How you come to these conclusions based on that one statement

Because that one statement is from Stormfront.

~~~
ignoramceisblis
Simply for the sake of meaningful discourse, I'd like to believe there's more
to this thought. But you offer little.

1\. Is there proof you have of this? Or is your statement just one of "This is
something I think /they/ would say."?

2\. More importantly: If a statement comes from the mouth of someone you feel
is unsavory, does that make the statement invalid? Is everyone who then utters
that statement unsavory, and so on? Do you think you can come to that
conclusion? Particularly with EduardoBautista's thought: do you think you
could come to that conclusion?

Attempting to associate EduardoBautista with Stormfront (with a comment like
yours) would be considered a damning accusation to many, though such tactics
have become painfully commonplace. That is not what you intend, is it?

~~~
warlox
I'm saying that the sentiment expressed (vacuous complaints about "wrongthink"
when the "wrongthink" in question is complaints about people choosing not to
associate with fascists) originates from Stormfront and their ideological
brothers-in-arms. Whether he's an actual white supremacist or someone who got
suckered into repeating their propaganda is immaterial.

------
maxxxxx
"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
Engineers like money too. And demand it from their employers.

If you are not doing that, you should.

~~~
EduardoBautista
Yes. 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
I 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
Replace "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.

------
callmeed
_> 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.

------
alexandercrohde
I 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....

------
TheAdamAndChe
The 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
1\. "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
1\. 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?

------
nthitz
Reminder: 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)

~~~
nsxwolf
In what way is it similar? I thought TechSolidarity was explicitly an anti-
Trump thing. Didn't exactly get that vibe from this post.

------
sweis
See also [https://techsolidarity.org/](https://techsolidarity.org/)

------
zanzibarwutwut
This:

    
    
      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
At 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
Your 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.

------
jdhopeunique
One 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.

------
thora
These 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)

------
pcmaffey
Lots 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.

------
metaphorm
> We also believe tech companies have an opportunity and an obligation to
> reduce the polarization we've helped create.

Liquidate Twitter?

------
clumsysmurf
"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/...](https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-
Capitalism/dp/1608462471)

------
Apocryphon
Every 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.

------
toomuchtodo
It'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
This, please.

------
khazhou
A 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.

------
drawkbox
_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_

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.

------
pgodzin
> 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)

------
nemild
A 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....](https://www.nemil.com/musings/software-engineers-and-ethics.html)

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)

------
pizzetta
I 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.

------
ABCLAW
I 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?

------
jaequery
What 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?

~~~
theparanoid
There 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
@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-
va...](https://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-valley/)

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.

------
nsxwolf
"Rule of law" as a tech worker's value? Uber... Air BnB... ... illegal
immigration.... does not compute.

~~~
dredmorbius
The irony given YC's involvement in those is ... interesting, to say the
least.

------
Clanan
Should 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
The employees already instantiate a company's actual values. They just don't
get to decide what the company says its values are.

------
closeparen
It'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
While 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.

------
Uhhrrr
One 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
That 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
Perhaps 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.

------
erik_seaberg
Out 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.

------
intrasight
The 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.

------
moonka
This is an interesting initiative, I look forward to seeing where it goes.
Kudos to Sam, Debra & Matt for taking a lead on this.

------
dredmorbius
"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_...](https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_8)

------
curiousfiddler
Sorry 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.

