Why do companies expect “loyalty” beyond the employer gives the employee a paycheck and the employee works X number of hours per week, doesn’t try to compete with the employer while at the company, and doesn’t steal IP?

Does the employee have an ownership stake in the company? If not, the only “skin in the game” they have is will they get paid next week.

Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there.

Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people.

I’m not saying they wish their employees harm. But if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, your company is going to send flowers to your family and have an open req for your position before your body is buried. The company’s first priority is the well being of the company. Your first responsibility is what’s best for you. As long as those two things intersect, your company won’t let you go and you don’t have any reason to leave.

Everyone who works at a company has an emotional stake in the work, the product, and usually pride in what they do. That matters.

Yes, I take pride in my work and want to see my work get into production. But that’s separate from having any loyalty to the company more than I described above.*

Most founders that I know do care about their employees, they want them to be happy, productive, and have a great career. It doesn't always work out, but the intention is there.

Companies are run and owned by people, especially the small ones, and people empathize and care about other people.

I agree. But no company’s - especially one that is publicly owned or investor funded - first priority is its employees.

The alternative is to admit that he's taking advantage of his employees because he can. Rationalization is much easier.

I also don't see how wanting more female engineers could get in the way of building products so I'm not sure why you threw that in there. It's not like people are staring at the wall all day pondering diversity issues instead of building products.

Also, I think it's odd that you consider regional median and average wages to be exploitive.

> abysmal dating environment

It's kind of funny you say that you're sick of people complaining about lack of diversity then you yourself follow it up with a complaint about a lack of diversity.

you're not really making a case against the bay area, you're making a case for why companies outsource: low wages, low labor regulations, and a captive workforce available to be exploited.

Generally this doesn't work both ways. If times get tight, engineers are among the first to be canned.

Good engineers command higher prices because they need the buffer to live on after that "loyalty" gets them RIFed.

Every Russian I've worked with that went to MSU or MIPT had excellent English, but they also all went to the US for grad school so I don't know how representative they are.

More and more companies will eventually recognize the talent abroad is how you want to supply your business, while the market demand you want will still remain in the U.S.

That is until those poor folks at Eastern Europe realise they can charge much more and the circle will repeat.

Say you make $150k. As far as I know that is around $100k after taxes i.e. $8350 a month. Say your rent is $4k and another ~$1k in miscellaneous expenses. That leaves you ~$3k in discretionary income and probably a bit less for saving if you want to have some "luxuries".

If you have been in the housing market for a long time or otherwise have a better situation your living expenses might be a lot lower. If you are paying $1.5k (upfront or de facto) in housing costs that might effectively double your savings i.e. what you get to actually control from your salary.

But it is sort of worse than that. Because every additional dollar you want to make gets taxed with your marginal tax rate. Meaning if you want to have the same savings as someone with lesser living costs you have to increase you salary quite a bit. In this case you have to go to somewhere close to $200k. Which is a pretty huge gap for something that doesn't have anything to do with your actual work performance.

Of course this can all get better or worse depending on circumstances. Still, it is a big deal.

Whilst the no-poach agreements were wrong, I don't think comp was kept artificially low in the way you mean. What drives up comp in the valley at the moment is the existence of companies that make tons of money but have voting, share structures and cultures that don't incentivise them to return any to investors. The combination of huge profits, endless vanity hiring and no dividends or share buybacks is fairly new and it's not clear to me it's a good trend. I don't believe Facebook, Google or Twitter actually need all those engineers they're hiring.

And yes, I think that'd be the right thing to do. The sums of money we're talking about here are vast. They're not going to go into the pockets of some stereotyped "fat cat" capitalist. Outside of pension payouts they'll be reallocated to other companies that may be doing important things of the sort that big internet firms just won't tackle, like biotech/drugs research.

Look at it like this. Does Google really need to create yet another instant messaging product for the seventh time? Or would the capital used to do that be better re-allocated to some other part of the economy?

Mmm...could you elaborate on the abysmal dating environment? :-)

1. Single men vastly outnumber single women in Silicon Valley due to the unfortunate gender demographics of the tech industry, making for a very competitive dating environment for single men.

2. Due to the Bay Area's high housing prices, single people living in the Bay Area who are not Bay Area natives tend to be highly-paid young professionals. These people tend to be driven, ambitious, and have very high dating standards. There's nothing wrong with having high standards, but it makes the dating scene more difficult since you have to work on meeting those standards in order to be successful with the dating scene. It seems like a man has to be in excellent physical shape, make a ton of money, and have the right pedigree in terms of degrees and credentials in order to be attractive in Silicon Valley since there are so many young professional single men in this area.

3. There's a big problem with "flaking" in the Bay Area, where some people have a bad habit of standing people up on dates and other social outings. This has happened to me, and it is very rude and inconsiderate, especially with the busy schedules that many people in Silicon Valley have, as well as the traffic.

4. This is probably my most controversial point, but despite the Bay Area's reputation as a politically progressive place, ethnic minorities seem to have a harder time dating than non-minorities. This matters to me since I'm black, a rarity in Silicon Valley. While the statistics on this page from OkCupid (https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...) are not confined to the Bay Area, based on my personal experience and on empirical research I've done by reading other sites regarding the dating scene in the Bay Area, it is a problem here.

To be frank, while I enjoy Silicon Valley's career opportunities, the high cost of living and the difficulties I've experienced dating here make me want to research some alternatives, although as a lifelong Californian (but not a Bay Area native), I'm a bit apprehensive about leaving the state since I enjoy California's diversity and weather. I've thought about Tokyo, which I've lived before as an intern and absolutely loved, but it would be a massive cut in salary.

I am also speaking from experience here.

Isn't this universally true and not based on location at all? I'm a bit confused by this point TBH.

I think what is universally true is that the ladies will go for the highest ranking guys they can get. What seems to be happening there is that gender imbalance accentuates the effect by raising the bar higher than it otherwise would be.

This has nothing to do with the dating scene, and I risk deviating from the topic, but I felt this indescribable, overwhelming sense of freedom as an African-American in Japan that I never felt in America. I felt the difference in treatment, where I was treated better in Japan than in America. Women in Japan wouldn't walk on the opposite side of an alley whenever I walked by, nor would they act scared whenever I was alone in an elevator with them (I had an incident in Sacramento as a teenager when a white woman refused to enter an elevator with me and another black guy.) I felt like I was in a place where I could finally be myself. To me, being a "gaijin" in Japan was an upgrade from being an African-American in America.

But at the same time I can sympathize in that street interactions in California have grown openly hostile across the board. The level of polite hospitality is so low and paranoia so high that it is actually hard to go outside and do business without ending up in a confrontation of some kind. Just the other week I was crossing the street in SF after seeing a movie[1] and a lady(a white lady) crossing the other direction gave me the finger and screamed "fuck you, fuck you" for no reason I could fathom.

We passed, and then I had a feeling of deja vu and thought, "didn't that happen the last time I saw a movie here too? Does this woman just go around in the evening cursing out strangers for self-care?"

And that is the kind of thing that sounds dreadfully believable for SF these days. The privilege spares me from most avenues of material loss, but that's hardly something to be proud of.

[1] The film was Sorry to Bother You, if it matters. I enjoyed it

Now if you are a girl, things are actually tougher in Asia.