[sliverstorm]

You say they will cease to be large, and "pretty soon" at that. You accuse employees of being impatient. But this collusion lasted for nearly five years.

Besides, how can their talent leave for players paying better money when nobody except for the large players can afford top wages? Just because Google can extract $150k+ of yearly value out of an engineer doesn't mean another company can. You need a large, successful business for that...

[smsm42]

Five years is not a very long time for a company, and it assumes this collusion actually suppressed wages in a meaningful way, compared to the rest of the industry, which is yet to be proven.

>>> Besides, how can their talent leave for players paying better money when nobody except for the large players can afford top wages?

If their wages are so high already as to be unaffordable for most of the industry, it significantly deducts from my sympathy about them being oppressed by wage-suppressing large companies. To both have wages that nobody except very few very rich players can pay and then complain their wages should actually be even higher and are artificially and illegally low seems to me a bit greedy, not?

>>> Just because Google can extract $150k+ of value out of an engineer doesn't mean another company can.

Another company then sucks at what it is doing if it can't extract value efficiently. But experience shows new players routinely come out to disrupt existing ones. But if Google is able to both extract huge value and pay huge wages - unattainable anywhere else - what exactly is the complaint about? That these wages aren't huge enough yet and could be even huger?

[sliverstorm]

Five years is not a very long time for a company, but for an individual? Especially in an industry that exhibits ageism and by some accounts is "done with you" when you turn 40? Given that, five years is more than 25% of the time in which you are hot on the market. So, no, I don't really think someone who has been shafted for five years is being "impatient". Just how long do you expect them to wait?

[smsm42]

Where that 40 thing comes from? Maybe it was true 20 years ago when 40 years old meant no extensive experience with modern computing, but by now it's plain stupid to refuse to hire experienced developers in their 40s. Sergey Brin is 40, Larry Page is 40 - are they really "too old" now? I think this ageism thing is going to die very soon, if it already didn't.

>>> Just how long do you expect them to wait?

That depends on what you're waiting for. I was talking about economic processes, they don't happen overnight. If you want to improve your personal situation, you don't have to wait for that.

[sliverstorm]

Where that 40 thing comes from?

My observation of discussions on HN about age discrimination. (I'm not a software engineer, so I have no personal touch with that job market)

If you want to improve your personal situation, you don't have to wait for that.

When the top employers are actively colluding against you, maybe yes, you do. You have no power against a company worth $400B, unless you band together with your peers. Perhaps in some kind of legal action...?

[smsm42]

You don't have to work in a company that is worth $400B. Of course, this company may pay the best, far over what other companies do - but then your complaints about your wage being artificially suppressed sound a lot like pure greed.

[sliverstorm]

The problem isn't when one company pays better than everybody else. The problem is when the top ten different companies, all of which you would like to work for and all of which pay the best, agree with eachother that none of them will pay you what you are worth.

Now, I think you already understand that, and your counter was "well then someone will hop in and pay you what you are worth and they will suffer for colluding". But clearly that hasn't happened.

Seriously, the fact that the word "collude" can even be used here is a bad sign. If you pay attention to business history, that word is never good.

[lostlogin]

This doesn't directly correlate, however Apples profit per FTE was over $2 million in 2013. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/31/apple-revenue-per-hea...