Nothing he is saying is wrong, but this is entitlement as a VP : blaming everything on "corporate" rather than accepting your responsibility as a leader to fix those problems.

He is discussing exactly that. That he failed to fix those problems from within.

With his attitude, it's clear why he failed to fix those problems.

I don't believe complaints about covid reductions to perks are unique to tech or well paid jobs however. My father is a slightly above minimum wage factory worker. There was plenty of grumbling in there when they shut down the 50% subsidised canteen with covid too.

Someone earning high six figure salary needs their subsidized food significantly less than someone earning minimum wage.

Just because you're well compensated it doesn't mean you shouldn't be fighting for your perks. Especially when you work for a multibillion corpo which earns 1mil+ per employee.

This "you shouldn't complain if you have it a bit better than others" mindset is a breeding ground for all kinds of corporate exploitation.

Why don't these employees take their high skills, work for $30k/year for 100/hours per week, take no days off and like it?

This guy is hopelessly out of touch. You work to live, not the other way around.

As for misaligned incentives, this is how it is throughout the corporate world - it's not exclusive to Google or other big tech companies. As one of the guys who puts the team on his back and works hard for the users, the reality is that doing a good job does not benefit me in the slightest. My executives care about the number of tickets and new features we churn through. I don't get paid for retention; I don't get paid more for writing good code; I don't get paid more if we get new customers. The only way I get paid more is if I get promoted. What's my motivation to work as hard as I do? My only motivations should be getting promoted or getting a new job.

The only reason any of us work for these companies is for money and benefits. We don't care about your mission statement; and neither do these executives, or they would change the incentives. It's a purely business arrangement: we agree to work X hours per week for Y dollars in total compensation under Z conditions. It's in our interest to reduce X, improve Y and Z. It's the employer's interest to do the opposite - but the employer also cares about other variables, such as retention, total revenue, total profit and costs.

I find the idea that the best paid people in the industry are entitled to be a bit rich.

Clearly there is unmet demand for quality engineers or you wouldn't be paying that much and allowing perks to dictate the balance of life equation so royally.

Maybe we're not paid enough.

It's like you're welcome to pay less, watch the talent dry up and move on.

I'm sure you'll be fine?

Doesn't Google still make roughly 150x what their employees are paid?

Being an IC is very hard if you want to do the job well. The risks are also underappreciated (massive burnout, etc). It should be compensated fairly.

Agreed, I suspect were massively underpaid but companies get away with it because we're also love what we do and are easily take advantage of when we're young and naive

Another billionaire talking about others having entitlement issues.

Insert line about smelling their own.

This blog post is yet another confirmation for me that similar to how we can have infinitely big small numbers, we can have infinitely verbose rambles around small ideas.