A few years ago, I built an exact replica of a Saas product I saw online and priced it 1/3 theirs. The actual founder went mad and started a smear campaign. Lucky for him, Workload at my regular job picked up and I abandoned the project, but this highlighted the weak moats of most of these products.

and this is the main reason most companies overhire. It's so that engineers are less inclined to go home and build their own competitor.

The other way to view is that even though you could undercut that business by two thirds, you didn’t make enough profit to make it worth pursuing over your day job.

So maybe you were selling it far too cheap after all.

I would've made significant more than my day job just by subscriptions (not counting share value). I had just joined workforce and leaving it so early didn't seem right to me.

For most of these companies sales and marketing is the moat.

Edit: curious to know what was the SaaS that got rattled by your fun experiment.

I'll dm u :)

> and this is the main reason most companies overhire. It's so that engineers are less inclined to go home and build their own competitor.

This is most definitely not true.

If hosting is cheap, I'd be tempted to put it out for free just to up the ante with the other company.

> diversity programs...

Not even remotely comparable to the other things you listed. People such as yourself seemingly can't stop talking about it though, despite it having no effect on your life.

Diversity programs have considerable side effects: there's both pressure to hire people who tick DEI boxes, and equivalent resistance to get rid of those who are underperforming. And neither of these does any favors to those who are qualified, but get tarred with the suspicion of being the dreaded "diversity hire".

for a period of time, one of my previous employers had an unwritten policy that you couldn't send a job offer to a non diversity applicant at our headquarters. so yeah, these programs can actually have a pretty big impact on my life.

Yeah, google doesn't have that. So it doesn't affect your life.

Well I don't know about GOOG specifically, but I know there has been relatively large diversity teams at every tech company I've worked for in recent years. Again, not GOOG specifically, but it's not uncommon for companies like this to have employees whose job it is to email people informing them to do things like rename their project's master branch to main. There have also been efforts within companies like GOOG to bring in employees who are less qualified simply because they're female or are of a certain racial group. My point about diversity programs is not that the team itself is expensive, but that when these companies push politically-motivative policies within an organisation they often cause larger inefficiencies and disruption. We've seen this in several companies in recent years such as Coinbase and Netflix.

Whether you believe diversity and inclusion is important isn't really relevant to the profitability point my comment was focusing on.

I also don't think it's necessarily comparable to the other things I listed and was actually considering not including it because I know there's always someone like yourself who will just focus solely on the politics and not my point. For example you didn't take issue with my point about their over hiring of kitchen staff? That's probably a much smaller expense and arguably doesn't have the larger productivity costs of diversity programs - it may in fact boost productivity.

I think many of the things you mentioned w.r.t. diversity is actually forward-thinking and potentially yields more returns later. If there's a brilliant swe that feels uncomfortable at a company because of how they name their branches, they won't work there. Same goes for hiring a "less-qualified" individual. How many decisions or projects can be improved because of a diversity of input? Again, a non-linear outcome that is harder to measure than immediate profitability. Those are some arguments for those programs focusing on your productivity point.

The issue with your arguments in response is the issue with the entire way DEI is structured in industry. It's not that diversity is unimportant, diversity of /thoughts/ and /beliefs/ is critical to building products that appeal to the widest audience/target market. It's that the way programs are implemented focus on the wrong things, and worse are based on this type of wishy-washy thinking.

Your argument amounts to a completely unsubstantiated what-if "[What] if there's a brilliant swe that feels uncomfortable at a company because of how they name their branches..."

Here's a counter-argument: Productive driven people don't get distracted by irrelevant and petty things like what the repository branch is named in the private repo that no customer ever sees. This is the type of petty nonsense that bureaucracy loves though, and bureaucracy kills innovation, creativity, and productivity. The entire issue with DEI isn't that opponents think diversity is bad, or that we're against hiring people from diverse backgrounds, it's that the way DEI is implemented is a cancerous bureaucracy that kills companies and teams.

It's just another form of the massive spread of administration/non-productive management across large organizations within the West. There's now close to (or in excess of) 1:1 administrators to faculty in most universities in the US, and the majority of the administrative hires are in DEI. These bureaucracies work to advance the bureaucracy, not to advance the mission of the organization they purport to represent. The massive waste of money on administration in hospitals, insurance companies, universities, and large corporations does not make these organizations improve patient outcomes, improve education of students, reduce medical costs to society, or improve products in the market that people rely on in their day to day lives. It's just a huge pile of burning money supporting the existence of roles that effectively detract from the overall productivity and quality of organizations.

This isn't just DEI, by the way, it's all forms of unnecessary bureaucracy. It's one of the reasons why we need stronger anti-trust, because this is an inherent cancer to large organizations. The only solution for which is to have smaller organizations in the first place, so they can be razor focused on their actual core mission and not burning mountains of cash on administrative boondoggles.

Indeed, I didn't cite any sources but I'm fairly sure there's literature studying this phenomenon. I agree that DEI when used as a political tool is a distraction for a company.

These are good points.

I guess my issue is that unless done well it's very often just disruptive. At the place I work the exec team is currently pushing diversity as a major goal and have told us explicitly that there are too many old white men at the company - especially within senior positions.

Since the push to replace white male leaders our corporate Jabber board has been filled with nothing but arguments about race with one side of the opinion that white male leaders need to immediately step down and make way for others, and the other arguing that this is a racist corporate policy which makes them feel unwelcome and without any path to career progression.

I kinda get both sides of the argument, but the focus on diversity was a key catalyst to the problems we now have with diversity at the company. Had the execs just not taken a stance on the ideal racial demographics of the employees we'd probably not be fighting about it.

I see your point and agree it can be frustrating if DEI initiatives are used as a political tool or blindly without considering the pitfalls of a naive implementation.

Your complete mischaracterization of these programs and outright lies about "efforts within companies like GOOG" reveals that you are completely unqualified to assess their impact on profitability. And thus you are in fact the one mentioning it for political reasons.

You also didn't say "over hiring kitchen staff", you said "free lunches", which are two different things.

>I rank the odds of you getting hurt by these specific discrimination practices aimed at you low, so stop mentioning them!

No. Humans are not equal in aptitude. Neither are human groups. Either account for it, or don't, but be consistent.

> despite it having no effect on your life.

How could it have no effect on our lives? It has effect when you compete against a diversity hire, it has effect when you have to work with a diversity hire, it has effect when your manager has to decide who to lay off when your coworker is a diversity hire.

Of all of the minorities in the world, even of the subset that may compete with you on for a position, you just CAN'T fathom that some of them may be better than you? That in even competition, this person, who just happens to be a (gender, racial, sexual orientation, ability, religous) minority is better than you at the position you're chose to apply for?

Framing your competition as diversity hires (and contemplating the outsized concern that they have on your life) says more about than you think. You're the bottom of the barrel at what you do. "Diversity hires" don't compete at a high level.

I for one know that if my competition wins, whether they are a minority or not, they do it on skill. I've elevated myself out of the concerns of competing with diversity hires, because I'm great at what I do. Level up.

Tell me more about how Asian Americans have to have better grades than Whites, Blacks and Latinos to get into the same school because they are somehow worse.

Because amongst similarly qualified candidates we are THEN allowed to differentiate. It's the same reason you may pursue extracurricular and then put them on your college resume. Differentiation.

Where's your crocodile tears for Vietnamese kid from south central (where the Vietnamese in America are on the lower end of the economic scale) who is admitted to Harvard instead of a Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Indian kid from a well to do family? Lets segment Asian Americans and see how you feel.

When opportunity is equally earned, we can then look to representation. Your argument is just an attempt to claim all spoils.

I don’t understand your case about Vietnamese being admitted to Harvard at all, or how I would have tears let alone crocodile tears. Your words make no sense.

I guess english is not your primary language, because it's plain english.

It is illegal to do what Harvard is doing in hiring decisions. It may even be illegal for Harvard to do what it is doing, given how the supreme court decides to rule. Affirmative Action doesn't exist in employment.

Affirmative action definitely exists in hiring. There are racial and gender quotas.

Such a quota would be very loudly illegal.

Why would it be illegal to have two separate but otherwise identical simultaneous job postings, one only covering the protected group and one only covering the unprotected group? Like, 10 males and 10 females, or 10 whites and 10 non-whites, or 10 elders and 10 youngsters, as long as they are employed without such seggregation after hiring.

I'd guess that Asians with lower grades are less likely to apply. You'd get a distribution that looks like that even with completely random acceptance

And I forgot to say this: all of your words here are ad hominem attacks. You have a condescending attitude implying that somehow if one fails to win, they don’t have the right to complain about the unfair system. An absurd notion, given that they are impacted the most.

There’s a difference between failing to win, and asserting that others cheated. Calling others “diversity hires” implies that others have cheated. You don’t get to claim the high ground there.

It is not cheating if the act is in accordance with the rules of the game. What I am against is the rule itself. Never have I named names or suggested that ALL hires of a certain race are diversity hires. You have to put words in my mouth because you know you cannot refute my argument without purposefully misconstruing my words first.

if you're losing out to a "diversity hire", you weren't that good.

Your logic can rationalize any kind of unfair treatment in the world and therefore an invalid argument. After all, there alway are some people who are just so good that an unfair system cannot deny them.

What is a "diversity hire"? Anyone that's a minority? Or perhaps someone that _you_ believe wouldn't have been hired if they weren't a minority? Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's the latter.

How would you know if a colleague of yours is a "diversity hire" without making assumptions? How do you know that you're just not as good? Because you don't think their work is high quality? Maybe you're a bad judge because your work isn't high quality. Or maybe you only see part of their work? Or maybe your pre-judgement has already doomed you to biased analysis of anything they do.

Or maybe if you're worrying about this you're just not very good.

Companies don't write magical blank cheques to someone who ticks off the right boxes without having them do any actual work. They are hired with the expectation of delivering value to the company by performing real work adequate to their qualifications. The term "diversity hire" is meaningless and frankly derogatory without evaluating actual individual performance. Companies have pipelines to handle underperforming employees and there are no signs any of them are being spared due to ticking off the right boxes despite that right-wing conspiratory trolls allege.

It does have an effect on his life if the group he belongs to isn't a "diverse" one. I say this as someone who would probably be considered "diverse", I'd like to be judged based on my merits not by diversity quotas the blue haired gestapo has dictated.

>blue haired

I don't understand this reference. What does blue hair (assuming metaphorical and not literal?) mean in this context?

People that care about these topics are often slandered as "women with dyed hair." It is a way of creating an outgroup.

Maybe it's just another way for them to revolt against society, or they just really like the way it looks. I don't really know why but dying their hair in some outlandish color is pretty popular with that crowd. I'm not against it by the way, it looks nice when done well.

It's a literal meaning referring to the idea of a secret ruling class of leftist women in society. They're assumed to have all this societal influence and control ("blue-haired gestapo") despite no actual leaders resembling this. I feel like the burden of proof is pretty high for claims like this.

Amusingly enough, “blue hairs” has long been slang for elderly women - a lot of old women used to put a bit of bluing in their yellowish grey hair to make it look whiter/more silvery, and some of them overdid it a bit at times.

What’s bluing? A non-permanent blue dye that used to be used when rinsing white shirts to make them look less yellowed. It’s still sold, but I don’t know anyone under 60 who still buys it.

Amused by this shift in meaning, mostly because I’m now the female equivalent of a “grey beard” in tech, old enough to have experienced the Dotcom bust - there is a fair bit of silver in my hair, and I can’t be bothered to cover it. “Grey bun”?

For those wondering about the blue haired elderly woman... the archetype is that of Mrs. Slowcombe. For example https://youtu.be/wBiNSI-4qFs

I think this sentiment comes from Universities (which do have cases of bloated diversity groups) and then that sentiment is passed on to the idea corporations, which to your point are a drop in the ocean in terms of overall costs.

This guy!

Imagine thinking “diversity programs” are a significant cost center, as if their spend were comparable to real estate or employee compensation

It's not really about the cost though, is it? If they were donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire, I doubt you'd have the same outlook. Wasted or misspent money is never something to overlook, particularly when you could have justified keeping a few more employees on if you'd just stopped setting money on fire.

Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.

Falsely equivocating spending on diversity programs to "donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire" is really telling.

This monthly discussion comes up on HN and it's already turning into a dumpster fire.

> Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.

I hope this is right.

But I keep seeing stats like that being thrown around and implying that the cause of those high financial returns are diversity when it is as likely that projections of high financial returns give you the money and time to focus more heavily on diversity. Both can also be symptoms of a common cause such as healthier management.

Again, correlation is not causation.

This is surely the case. It gets old watching progressives paint their interpretations as objective fact.

Could you share some of these stats being thrown around that you're eluding to?

> Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.

Falsely equivocating correlation and causation is really telling.

So true. SJW at its finest :-(

And yet, somehow, there is zero correlation between hiring KKK members and organizational competitive success - hence the false equivocation.

Nobody said anything about causation, you raised that straw man yourself. If you'd look up the stat I quoted, you'd see McKinsey says the same thing:

>While correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesn’t automatically translate into more profit), the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizatio...

Right but it is instead likely the case that companies with ridiculous profitability are likely to have diversity programs. That’s the thing about statements like this, it’s just one interpretation of the data.

> top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity

This is the rare case where BIPOC is actually a useful concept. Is this still true when counting only BIPOCS (no Asians, no Hispanics, etc.)?

Watch out for the PACs. https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020 (somewhere between donating to the KKK, setting it on fire, and using it for bribes). I wonder what a company that donates equally to both sides is trying to achieve, hmm?

I don't know if you're American or not but that's a common strategy to select higher quality candidates for your side whilst selecting the lowest possible quality candidate for the opposing side via the primary process. That said, that's not always the case and you could absolutely be right.

How can you equate spending on diversity with spending on the KKK?

Feel free to disagree with me on this, but I hold the view that diversity programs erode productivity generally speaking.

And for the record here, I'm not even opposed to them as a worker. It bothers me about as much as companies providing me with free lunches (not at all). In my current place we spend around an hour each week either discussing diversity or in diversity & inclusion training, and it's always the easiest hour of my week.

Google is bragging about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity programs every year.

Revenue: 256 billion dollars.

So "hundreds of millions" is .1% of their spending.

And it is a line item that can be effortly axed in hard times. As others said, it's basically marketing. If you have a company that actively consumes your personal information, but it's a rapacious creepy fascist company, people aren't going to hand over their data to it.

Even if you hate the "woke", you probably still trust a company with a bunch of sensitive, moralistic raving SJWs that will scream if Google is abusing things too much. Which has happened!

Likely, worth every penny.

Diversity programs are best viewed as a relatively cheap marketing expense. They exist to make the company look better to certain people. When there are more pressing concerns, you pare them back because you have better things to worry about that what non-customers think of you.

I doubt it. It feels more like the end of an era.

All the so called "cool" technologies from FAANG names in the last 15 years have lost its luster.

There's a new set of companies that are ready to take over. The most obvious ones to fall to the wayside are the ones threatened by ChatGPT and TikTok.

Who knew tech could be trendy?

That’s absolutely out of touch with reality. The owner of TikTok Bytedance was massively laying off people already. It is nowhere as profitable as any of the FAANGs.

ChatGPT is nowhere a product that can pay for itself.