That's why people unionize. Hasn't happened to tech yet, don't know if it will, but it isn't a forgone conclusion this is how markets have to work.

And when costs get to high, what’s stopping tech companies from just expanding their overseas presence?

The same thing that is causing reshoring: rising developing world wages, culture, language barriers, etc. If you have the necessary support in government, labor law. The defeatists will always argue against improvement of the status quo; they are not to be indulged, as their goal is not improvement. Only 30% of an org's workers need to vote for the NLRB to hold an election [1], and then you only need a simple majority to unionize.

Are we arguing against the attempt when a quick glance at the financials for FAANG and Co shows ample profit margins available for worker compensation?

[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...

Yet every major tech company has large presence overseas already. There is no language barrier when your entire team that’s working on a product speaks the same language.

Also it’s not like tech today is mostly people whose first language is English - no judgements

It appears to be a frequent occurrence for proclamations based on strongly held beliefs to be made that something is impossible, until it isn't. The balance of labor and capital is inevitably in tension perpetually, and I am simply arguing for more balance. Success is not assured, by any means, but that is no reason to accept the status quo in silence. There is always nuance, and I think it's unhelpful in the discussion to say "it won't work because of x." But that's not a conversation. The conversation is, "here are challenges with the current economic configuration, and here are some levers that could be pulled to make changes where there is a more equitable outcome for those who are getting the short end of the stick."

There is a wide gap between capital sucking up all of the productivity with workers being slave labor and Marxists seizing the means of production and burning it all down; neither is being argued for, but somewhere solidly in the middle of those extremes. Capital makes some sort of return, value is created, workers are treated fairly, receive reasonable compensation for the value they're creating, and have a seat at the table of the org, and everyone goes home happy. If someone is more of an Ayn Rand/Libertarian/individual exceptionalism sort of a person, this view is likely unpalatable, and there is no common ground to meet at.

Going overseas also carries risk. It could be something as irritating as just cultural or language friction or as bad as a civil disturbance or war breaking out.

Never mind just the quality of workers available for the price you have set as the threshold.

I’m not talking about your everyday enterprise companies hiring one or two developers.

I’m referring to major tech companies that already have foreign headquarters just expanding overseas.

Problem is more that the contributions of an engineere are hard to quantify, so that 10M never gets compared to the 250k

Hah, no. The problem is whenever someone talks about pushing back, you can find at least one guy saying "ok then I'll do the job" and 3 people saying "I don't care, my 250k is super comfy".

Like others point out, it's incredible the US hasn't mass outsourced their work to Europe yet.

If you're able individually as a sole contributor to create 10M of value, sure, off you go, quit you job to go solo and generate all that sweet revenue for yourself.

It turns out someone identifying a market opportunity, getting funding, renting office space, hiring HR, infrastructure, service and support personnel, product designers, QA, sales, etc, etc all costs a surprising amount of money and effort that for some reason all those people feel they deserve to be paid for..

This is a deflection: the original comment didn't say that there was no value in other parts of the business. It said that the price/value ratio was wrong.

The other comment didn't give for why a 10m:250k ratio is wrong either though. The argument that the 10m is only enabled by the rest of the company is a reason why it isn't i 1:1. What should the ratio be? Why would it necessarily approach 1:1?

But you can't unlock your value without those other parts of the business. Again, as an employee you aren't paid the value of your work, you're paid your replacement cost.

…or form a union with only those capable of generating 10M/year and dictate that market together. Easier than starting a company.

I might join a union of all software engineers in order to help junior engineers keep from getting completely burned out or horribly exploited, but I wouldn't join a union of elite FAANG engineers. I'm pretty sure the $250-$500k we can command is the most we can reasonably expect companies to be able to pay, since there's a ton of competition among them to hire us already

Otherwise, someone would've collected some VC money, hired the best of the best code monkeys for $1M+ each, and taken over some tech niche by now

Except Apple and others have already been caught colluding to stop engineers from making higher salaries.

And the courts put a stop to it. There were several cases against various companies over the years, but there don’t seem to be any since 2014. Did engineers salaries suddenly jump as a result 6 years ago? Is there any evidence of significant collusion since?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Steve and Larry share their employees salaries with each other to avoid a bidding war over top talent.

Lucy finds out and orders Steve and Larry to stop doing that.

Now Steve shares salary data with Teddy and Teddy tells Steve what the market average is. Larry also shares salary data with Teddy and also learns what the market average is.

No collusion! But the effect is the same. That's why they earn the big bucks.

Knowing the price of a thing is how markets work. If I want to buy tomatoes and a friend tells me a shop down the road has them on special offer, that's not collusion.We're not artificially suppressing the price of tomatoes. Anyway companies already know this by just offering a given salary and seeing if they get decent applicants. If they're not getting enough good applicant, they just raise the offer if they think it's appropriate. Having said that the habit of companies suppressing info about salaries between employees should be fought.

>If I want to buy tomatoes and a friend tells me a shop down the road has them on special offer, that's not collusion.We're not artificially suppressing the price of tomatoes.

You mixed up the analogy though. Rather it should be that tomato seller 1 talks to tomato seller 2 down the road and they agree to never charge less than x$ for 1 pound of tomatoes thus removing market forces and creating an artificial floor for tomato prices

You aren't really naive enough to think that just because a court ordered a corporation to stop doing something that they always stop doing that thing? Not only that but the order was only against some companies in SV which these days aren't even the highest paying or most desirable to work for.

But then some competitor should come and sell the same thing for much less money, which means that you do not really create 10M value.

That's why companies try and sell you their brand and/or their ecosystem as well as their product.

Arguably one of the best at doing this is Apple. A similar product exists and has cheaper options (various Android flavors) but people prefer their green text bubbles and status symbol brand effect.

It often works like that for people in sales or other positions that puts them in the flow of money. The get paid some percentage and the more deals they are involved in, the more they are paid.