[danachow]

> Programmers are not commodities

But usually, they are treated as such. American companies have a hard time treating most of their white collar workforce as anything but. On the other hand, Stripe has been seemingly well managed up to this point - but they have only existed in happy times so far. Many companies change their tune when the chips are down.

> It's also very expensive and difficult to hire new ones, even if you're hiring them at a cheaper salary than the last ones.

This may be true - but the average tenure of a tech worker shows most firms are not able to do act on this.

> Stripe 100% wants to retain its employee base, just like any company would.

I wouldn't put it past Stripe, but "just like any company would" is pretty naive. Serious retention efforts are by far the exception in my observation. This also weakens your argument - is Stripe not actively working to retain talent or are they just like "any company?" If really the latter, then they are fucked.