[piva00]

Those employees are making order of magnitudes of their salary in revenue. Google is having record profits. Why exactly should Pichai tighten the purse strings? For the shareholders? What, exactly, have those shareholders done to create this revenue (except for the ones that are employees and get golden handcuffs shares)?

[s1artibartfast]

Let's be real again, most employees don't touch anything that contributes to revenue.

[piva00]

Then why are they employed? If they perform any function that helps to materialise that revenue they are indirectly responsible for it.

Unsure why the HN crowd is so hyper-focused on direct attribution. As a worker in a corporation you are part of a machine, this machine uses you as a part of it and the machine as a whole generates revenue. You might not be the main piston firing and generating power but you are still part of the mechanism. If someone hired you even though you won't be creating any value it's not your problem that the machine is dysfunctional.

[s1artibartfast]

I just think it is a funny juxtaposition when workers shout about the "Value or revenue they created" on one hand and then claim and then claim individual value creation doesn't matter on the other hand.

The whole question of where the value comes from and "who deserves it" is central to the argument, and there are a lot of positions with different axioms. I hadn't heard that it is deserved simply for being a warm body in a chair independent of any productivity, so that's a new one.

The same could be said of shareholders:

Why are employees so focused on direct attribution? As a shareholder you are part of the machine, ect. If you aren't creating any value, its not your problem the machine is dysfunctional...

[piva00]

> I hadn't heard that it is deserved simply for being a warm body in a chair independent of any productivity, so that's a new one.

A worker was hired by a system, that system decided they needed that worker and as a contract promised said worker a salary. Why is the fault of the worker that the work they perform doesn't add value?

I really can't comprehend why a systemic failure such as hiring people that you think don't add value is supposedly an individual's fault. If the system failed, why is that you point to the worker and not to the system that failed and hired said zero/negative value worker?

> As a shareholder you are part of the machine

That's a new one. What part exactly does a shareholder perform in this machine, given we are discussing a public company? No bullshit about "pricing" and other financial shenanigans, please.

[s1artibartfast]

I'm not saying anything is the employees fault. Good on them for taking advantage of systemic dysfunction to get a salary. I just don't think it is also an argument that they are creating value.

As for the shareholder, If I were to steal man the position I would say the critical role in the machine they provide is the motivation. The equivalent of the animal brain amygdala. Their existence provides the drive to execute and reward pathway.

A different analysis might say that both the useless employee and the shareholders are cancer, sucking up value and providing nothing. In a better designed system both would be surgically removed

[unity1001]

> Unsure why the HN crowd is so hyper-focused on direct attribution.

Not only the HN crowd, but increasingly everyone, everywhere are so hyper-focused on direct attribution because...

> As a worker in a corporation you are part of a machine

...our work life, less, our actual society should not be made into a soulless machine for the profit of absentee shareholders.

[colinmhayes]

People aren't paid the revenue they create. In fact the revenue you create is nothing but an upper limit to how much you can be paid. You get paid what your company believes your replacement cost is. Google believes the market is cooling and therefore replacement cost is decreasing, so pay goes down.

[SoftTalker]

The shareholders own the company, bottom line.

[piva00]

Yeah, and that answers nothing about my question: what work have they done to create revenue?

I don't care that they own the company, that's meaningless for my question...