The Engineering wage raises during 2010-2014 are a huge part due to Facebook back then entering a biding war for talent, which google had to counter which raised comps for everyone. Also, after 2015 you had more companies hitting the fray (Uber, Airbnb, etc). If it wasn't for Facebook, the compensation industry wise would look something like MSFT's comp (pretty low in general).

So, for one thing, Meta / Facebook has been great at raising the comps for engineering in SV.

You seem to be conflating Western society with engineering wages in SV. They are not the same, and what's good for one can very much be bad for the other!

I guess you were getting at the Mafia analogue in GP. Perhaps that was an unfortunate analogue, but GP's points were valid, not native.

I was not commenting on that - more on Facebook's business practices in general.

As for Silicon Valley collusion re: wages in my opinion the agreement that George Lucas / Steve Jobs / Ed Catmull / Others made in the late 90s / early 2000s to screw over tech workers and specifically VFX workers (they were afraid of a VFX union) was worse and flys under the radar way more than it should. VFX workers to this day continue to get screwed by this totally illegal collusion (and there was a large settlement of "unknown amount" at one point).

edit: After looking into the above lawsuit we may actually be talking about the same thing - although it did dramatically screw the VFX industry more than tech. And I refuse to credit Facebook with helping with that - it was the exposure of that collusion that ended it.

That does not mean Google gets a pass and I don't think my original comment implies that at all

It was a combination of both the lawsuit and Facebook. Had the lawsuit happened without Facebook bidding for top talent, it would've taken decades for compensation to rise to the rate they are now because there was no other company able or willing to attract top talent away from Google, Apple, etc.

Right now, the same thing is happening thanks to Amazon. They're having a hard time hiring SWE's due to the terrible reputation, so they've increased their compensation sharply to attract talent. Facebook followed suit since they are also finding it difficult due to its horrible public perception right now.

The result is that other major tech players are upping their compensation to continue to compete for top talent. It's wonderful.

I’m still blown away how true this is, especially given how overwhelmingly vital VFX is to film & TV revenue now - Star Wars, MCU.

Uh society is more important than SV engineering wages, full stop. You’re looking at a single tree and ignoring the forest of manipulation FB has done to society.

I think the reason people hate on Facebook here is that they do things like spread misinformation and lies about elected officials and current events, damaging democracy. It is annoying that Apple and Google underpaid already-well-paid people, but not a huge issue for society in general.