

Killing the Competition: How the New Monopolies Are Destroying Open Markets - ahi
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/01/hbc-90008429

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yummyfajitas
Um, the only problem is that the "new monopolies" aren't monopolies. I'll
ignore the fact that the writer doesn't seem to know the difference between a
monopoly and a monopsony.

But even so, somehow in this monopsonistic market, finding talent is
difficult. Salaries are moving ever upwards, and you hear nothing but
complaints from participants outside the alleged monopsony about how hard it
is to find people. (I'm one of them.)

That doesn't sound like a monopsony. That sounds like a competitive market
where demand outstrips supply.

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orijing
Demand is only outstripping supply because they aren't paying sufficiently.
That's the essence of the market. If they would only pay more, then demand
would certainly not outstrip supply.

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tikhonj
The problem is that just paying higher salaries would not necessarily
correlate to increasing the supply of _good_ developers. The sort of
developers who only come in because you're paying 200k rather than 150k are
usually not the sort Google wants to hire.

So the supply _will_ increase, just of lesser developers. Additionally, I
think it is possible to pay developers _too much_ : I recall some study about
how a salary beyond a certain point can actually make developers _less_
productive. (I could very well be mistaken on this--I'm too lazy to go look
right now.)

Basically, trying to hire great developers is complicated and just having more
random people go into software is not the answer. Software is already one of
the best paying "hacker" jobs around anyhow; you're not likely to attract true
hackers based on more money.

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paganel
> The sort of developers who only come in because you're paying 200k rather
> than 150k are usually not the sort Google wants to hire.

A listed-company with a market capitalization of USD 100+ billion cannot count
only on its employees' passion anymore. If it pretends like it's doing so is
disingenuous.

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tsotha
This excerpt is pretty poorly written. He makes a bunch of assertions without
adding much in the way of facts. I dunno, there may be a case to make there.
But he certainly hasn't made it.

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wheremiah
This article just doesn't ring true to me at all. I am a developer in the Bay
Area. I have helped recruit other developers from Google and other dominant
Bay Area companies. I have not yet encountered the idea that developers ever
feared career reprisals when leaving Facebook, Google, etc. Could be selection
bias, I guess.

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dimitar
The reason why this article is hardly comprehensible is that author is
reaching out to a libertarian crowd while noting a problem generally noticed
by the left - labor rights.

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dasil003
What a lot of hot air. Silicon valley is one of the best places to work, and
engineers are one of the privileged professions that are doing great even in
the down economy. Even if big companies are colluding on non-poach agreements,
why would that have any effect on startups? I'll poach Google/Facebook/Apple
employees all day long.

Also, get a load of this:

> _One team, he recounts, worked for 110 hours per week for nine months
> straight. But “everyone believed they were making something important.”_

Bull-fucking-shit. Bullshit. You and your team did not work 15.7 hours every
single day for 9 months. That's bullshit and the guy has no credibility.

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jsnk
Monopolies? Seriously, tech industry in general is probably one of the most
dynamic market right now. Most big players secure dominance for barely 10
years, and only a select few will continue its legacy for any time longer than
that. New players pop up providing new goods and services pop up all the time
as well. If companies in tech industry are referred to as monopolies, there is
no tangible meaning left in the term "monopoly".

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femto
The article asks a valid question: "Why aren't the employees of the cartel
members baying for blood?" Presumably it is because any compensation from
their employer will be more than cancelled by damage to their career, by the
same employer?

There is a monopoly at work though. Since prospective employers engage data
mining companies to build profiles from any and all Internet content, and
there is only one Internet, the Internet has a monopoly over employee's
reputations. If your reputation is tarnished on the Internet, for example, by
being named as a plaintiff against your employer, it will be tarnished with
every employer.

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iamgilesbowkett
the TechCrunch link posted today shows very strong evidence of collusion and
criminal conspiracy, but I'd agree that this Harpers thing builds up a whole
tower of empty, meaningless nada on top of that very solid foundation.

