That’s not what the threat is supposed to be. The threat is supposed to be that all the engineers will step away from their keyboards and the ginormous money machine will grind to a halt.

But since Google pays so much it’d be both really hard to convince people to take the risk, and really easy for the company to replace them. Having employees partake of the money machine via stock is also a factor.

I don’t think Google would unionize unless the vast majority of coders worldwide were already active members of the International Brotherhood of Logicians and had already won some big concessions from other FAANGs.

> The threat is supposed to be that all the engineers will step away from their keyboards

The problem with threats is the company might call your bluff. You have to be prepared to actually walk away to have real leverage and Google pays well enough that most engineers would probably take reduced pay over walking away.

The reason strike tactics worked historically is that the work conditions were actually *that* bad and there was also the component of striking workers threatening scabs.

You don't threaten to leave, the whole point of unions is to attempt to equalize a negotiation when workers can't easily get another job. Dockworkers don't threaten to go work at a competing port, they threaten to stop working and shut down the dock.

Not everyone picks jobs based on top salary. I wouldn't work for Google even if they doubled my salary.

> Not everyone picks jobs based on top salary. I wouldn't work for Google even if they doubled my salary.

So? I don't really like this kind of non-response response. It's like the guy who joins every conversation to point out that they don't, in fact, own a TV (Onion article, look it up).

I mean, sure, there are people who have enough that they won't take a new job for double the money, but they are so few and far between that it doesn't make sense to structure the argument around them.

You may not want double your salary, but for every one of you there are a few thousand others who want a nicer house, or better schools for their kids, or nice vacations, or an earlier retirement.

When you say you won't even consider doubling your salary because you don't want to work for a perfectly legal company, in reality you are saying that a) you have no one who depends on you and your income for success, and b) you don't care to retire early to do your own thing.

You are NOT saying anything about your principles, even though you think you are.

> I mean, sure, there are people who have enough that they won't take a new job for double the money

You’re making a big leap (and judgement here) by assuming willingness to take lower pay is primarily based on already “having enough”. I know plenty of folks who find most of FANG highly distasteful and would never take a job there despite not “having enough”.

> When you say you won't even consider doubling your salary because you don't want to work for a perfectly legal company

“Perfectly legal” has little bearing on how ethically or morally a company behaves. Most folks don’t use legality as a measuring stick when evaluating the merits of say, a payday loan company, and that measuring stick shouldn’t be used here, either. Amazon is a “perfectly legal” company well known for poor working conditions and major work/life balance problems.

> You are NOT saying anything about your principles, even though you think you are.

What makes you believe this? OP made a salient point: many people do not in fact choose jobs purely based on salary. Anecdotally I know this to be true, and whether or not there are people willing to take those jobs has no bearing on a principled stance taken by someone that chooses to prioritize those principles.

I also can’t cast aspersions on someone willing to work there, but arguably it’s a good thing that at least some folks stick to their principles. Admittedly this is easier to do when you “have enough”, but it’s insulting to those who don’t to assume this is the only factor in making principled decisions.

Don't be ridiculous, you're just making assumptions based on your value system. I have children and I've passed on higher paying jobs (perhaps not double but 50%) out of principle. I also wouldn't work for Google whatever the compensation, and there are plenty of people who don't value money above everything else.

We all know people value things other than money, that was not the point.

The point here is whether there are a large number of people who would refuse a job Google for 2x their salary. On that specific point, I agree with the parent post, that there aren't that many.

You can interpret the comment you are replying to a bit more charitably.

Basically, people have concerns other than money. And on the margin, those concerns make differences. (Just like on the margin, extra dollars also add up. Even if the impact of any one extra dollar is very _marginal_.)

Google pays well, but not the most. (Unless things have changed recently.)

Who pays the most?

Netflix pays top of market for Silicon Valley _and_ readjusts your comp (100% cash based) every year to be top of market again.

Do they readjust down when the market goes down?

Prop trading firms pay more, I don't know if they pay the _most_ however.

For front office work, they definitely do pay the most.

Though not necessarily per hour.

(Ok, probably still per hour. But hours can be quite long.)

A super genius could most likely bargain for a pay/bonus cut and 40 hour weeks for 7 figures easily after a few years of demonstrated performance.

Yes. Though a super genius also gets special treatment at eg Google and other places.

So it's hard to say anything general about their compensation.

Well it’s a sliding scale sort of thing right. A regular ole’ genius could probably negotiate the same for high six figures.

I've worked for Google, Goldman Sachs, a few others, and now for a prop market maker.

I'd say I'm at best a regular ole' genius, and I can confirm that you can negotiate quite a lot.

Especially when taking a new job, and especially if you arrange for having multiple offers. Negotiating while already on the job faces quite a lot more headwind.

Google does not already pay the most. In recent years, they've been known to even 'lowball' SWE candidates with no leverage.

Source: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Facebook,Microsoft&tr...

Anacdata: My personal comp is on the lower half of the spectrum for my level. Took a small pay cut from the startup I came from.

Left for Google because I was tired of proposing changes, having someone else in the org disagree, and then having someone high up say "I talked to my friend at Google and he likes my way better so it's better than yours". Now I'm going to be the Googler and never have to worry about that again.

You think you'll join a giant company and that there will be less need to get organisational buy-in for your proposals than there was in a startup? That's a take I haven't heard before...

No, I thought that people would have the experience to evaluate my proposals on their merits, not on if they contain buzz words. So far that's been pretty true. :)

On the way to launching my first large internal service in the next few weeks.

But _my friend_ from google likes _my way_ better

Hedge funds and trading firms. Google doesn't pay the most.

The threat of starting a new Google?

"I'll leave to do a startup, and you'll have to hire some new grad and train them for years till they're as good as me" is a common threat.

At that point, it's better to let the employee go.

Except that seems to be in the minds of a large chunk of FAANG employees... They can't let them all go. So they give payrises instead

It's probably cheaper to give them all pay raises. Even if they all left and started startups there will be 1 or 2 that hit it big and probably eat Google's lunch. That will probably happen anyway by an outsider but the odds are less.