Comment by joe_mamba
1 month ago
Same feeling from me. I also disliked his framing of moving his FAANG wealth to outcompete EU workers on jobs and housing, then making it sound like he's doing Europeans a favor with this.
"Yeah guys, I got enough blood money now from ad targeting people in the US, so to clear my conscience I can come give you guys a hand to fight the evil guys I had no issue with when they were paying me big money, but only IF you pay me 50% of what they pay me."
How about thanks but no thanks. We don't need this kind of fake virtue signaling "help". Enjoy your money somewhere else.
Edit: sorry I sound so mean, but it's how I feel.
The fact that the US didn't take your attitude and allowed workers from all over the world to come to Silicon Valley and compete with Americans for jobs and housing ("compete for housing" being the most ridiculous concept I have ever heard of) is one of the many reasons why SV is in the US and not in Europe.
>"compete for housing" being the most ridiculous concept I have ever heard of
How can I have a productive discussion with someone who doesn't know or refuses to acknowledge the reality of housing supply/demand and resulting gentrification?
Gee, if only there was a city in the world that's a big tech hub and we could study the effects on its housing market and citizen who don't work in tech and how they're impacted.
>is one of t many reasons why SV is in the US and not in Europe
I've been to SF and I'm not sure I want the issues I saw there over here.
And to correct you, SV is what it is due to the WW2 and cold war military electronics industry rooted in government spending brewing there instead of being bombed to the ground like Europe, plus the financial engineering leavers of the US FED being able to print virtually gold and use that virtual gold to buy everything they ever need to win including foreign competitors and suppliers while offloading the resulting inflation burden onto the rest of the world, or use trade restrictions and military force as the second option to block any potential rising competitors that threaten the existing hegemony.
SV is in the US because of heavy government spending to further national interests. And US intelligence community was one of the first to realize that total domination of home computers / smartphones / social media allows them to exert a lot of power.
SV took workers from all over the world because these workers were extremely skilled and cheap. They didn't compete with Americans for jobs because there were simply not enough Americans with the needed skills.
Foreign tech workers need housing but they don't own land and can't vote in your elections, so the fact housing is bad is 100% on US citizens.
1. SV workers are anything but cheap
2. There are plenty of Americans with the skills. I know because I went from never having written any code or having any technical education to full time employment in SV in under a year.
3. Housing issues are 100% the fault of the local US citizens and their idiotic policies, but immigrant tech workers absolutely do own land and I know several who do. Plenty of them vote because they are now citizens.
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lol where are you getting all this from? first of all there are 3 letters in FAANG which don't do ads, second of all i didn't express anywhere that i felt i was doing anyone any favors, third of all are you aware that US citizens are double taxed no matter where they live, where they earn their money, fourth of all are you aware there's an exit tax on your total net worth if you renounce citizenship?
y'all are extra spicy on this topic seemingly.
EDIT:
> We don't need this kind of fake virtue signaling "help"
i wasn't virtue signalling anything - that's why i said money is still an important part of the calculus. i was literally just curious if there were such accelerated pathways for SWEs...
> there are 3 letters in FAANG which don't do ads,
FAANG is Facebook(Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google(Alphabet) right?
Facebook and Google are heavy on ads, Amazon has ads all over their shopping experience and in their video product; AWS isn't connected with ads though, Netflix has an ads tier in their video product too, I opted out of Apple so I don't know what ads look like on their products but I think they have a small ads product?
I'm not quite sure why the negative responses to your offer though. Sure, it's a bit mercenary, but it's an offer. Personally, I don't think it's really about personnel though, recruiting FAANG employees to Europe wouldn't generate European FAANGs; Europe needs to look at the business conditions that spawn these kinds of companies and see what they can change to encourage the kinds of companies they want. Why did Apple survive while early computer companies from Europe all folded and also where have all the European handset makers gone; where are the online megaretailers for Europe and why didn't they consider selling their surplus computing resources; why haven't Euro television companies developed a cross border streaming service; maybe something about search engines, maybe what stopped Europe from playing in the search engine wars before Google became dominant; bonus non faang question, why did Europay merge with Mastercard.
> recruiting FAANG employees to Europe wouldn't generate European FAANGs
Yep, this. We already have enough local FANG level talent, talent is not the problem in Europe.
What we don't have is:
Until you fix both these point, or at least point 2 and kick out the US military and companies from our continent, like China did, you can't have a domestic SV that challenges the one from the US no matter how much good talent you have.
And we can't do that since we can't even kick Russia's ass right now after 4 years, let alone stand up to the US hegemony and enforce our will over them, so we'll continue to be dependent on them.
> first of all there are 3 letters in FAANG which don't do ads
They all do ads. Apple is about to add them to their Maps.
https://advertising.amazon.com
https://ads.apple.com
https://advertising.netflix.com/en-us
https://business.google.com/us/google-ads/
https://business.meta.com
https://ads.microsoft.com
<rolls eyes> alright i'm totally responsible for the trumpocalypse because somewhere someone in my company is running some kind of ads service </rolls eyes>.
> then posturing like a anti-FANG freedom fighter for 50% cut, which might rub some people the wrong way as being a by hypocritica
The only place I was posturing was in your imagination. I guess you're salty about FAANG salaries in the US (and that's what has you tilted) but I was literally just asking about comparable salary and accelerated immigration pathways. The comment is very short - I don't know where you're getting all of this content from.
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I don't agree with these bitter Europeans at all, but offering to take a 50% pay cut does come off very much like you are trying to do someone a favor.
Calling people "bitter" doesn't win an argument. I think US tech workers get quite emotional once they feel the slightest headwind that threatens to burst their bubble.
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I think the point is more that 50% of senior FAANG total comp is still a lot more than you get at most European places.
100-120k net is considered quite a good salary and is unattainable even for most as a contracted employee. You do get benefits like healthcare and pensions which work differently. You can get higher rates if you are good at marketing, but then you need to insure your unemployment and pension yourself as well.
My latest info on Silicon Valley compensation (Google, Netflix, and Twitter) was that 400k/year gross before tax and RSU was typically achievable with even higher regular occurrences. 50% of that is still way over what you typically find here. (Switzerland excluded but all prices are inflated in Switzerland.)
In the US you have to privately pay for many things that you get for free in more developed nations.
For example safety is not guaranteed due to extreme homelessness and easy access to guns, so you have to pay more for gated communities and security/concierge. You need to privately pay for healthcare and also pay off debt from university tuition, both is much cheaper in EU. If you have kids, you have to pay for private schools.
Then all over the US the infrastructure is so extremely bad that you don't even have sidewalks and you need to take a car to get anywhere, with really bad public transport.
If you want to just emulate European lifestyle in the US you really need to spend a lot of money.
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