Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

> For years, companies like Google, Facebook/Meta, and Amazon hired too many developers. They knew they were hiring too many developers, but they did it anyway because of corporate greed. They wanted to control the talent pool.

Aside from all the claims with no sources/references whatsoever (claims which are not at all self-evident), blaming "corporate greed" for hiring employees? Isn't it also "corporate greed" to lay people off? Blaming corporate greed for causing high salaries? Let me guess, if they started cutting salaries, that is also corporate greed?

It's not possible to "control the talent pool" when there are so many companies in competition. Yes, they want to hire the best engineers they can find and they will pay handsomely for it. Every company (even our small non-profit) wants to hire the best engineers we can find. It's not "corporate greed" or us wanting to control the talent pool.

> Aside from all the claims with no sources/references whatsoever

It's an opinion piece about many of our shared experiences.

> blaming "corporate greed" for hiring employees?

They explained their argument.

> Isn't it also "corporate greed" to lay people off?

It depends. A struggling company that needs to reduce workforce to survive? No. A company worth trillions laying off en-mass because stock rates are down? Yes, probably.

> Blaming corporate greed for causing high salaries?

They explained their argument in the article

> Let me guess, if they started cutting salaries, that is also corporate greed?

It depends. A struggling company that needs to reduce salaries to survive? No. A company worth trillions cutting salaries because stock rates are down? Yes, probably.

Questioning that feels a lil naive?

Are you honestly of the opinion that big tech isn't primarily motivated by money and is instead being run like a family business with an upstanding owner that has the well-being of their employees at heart?

I'm not even sure how companies can be greedy. Many animals will gorge themselves on food far beyond what they "need" in the moment. There's nothing guaranteeing their next meal, so it's an adaptive strategy. In a competitive free market, growth is a survival strategy. Companies can and do die when their old sources of revenue decline and they failed to discover and grow new sources. Not only do they lose out on profits, but they have to fire employees. Avoiding or minimizing layoffs and the toll they take on lives is absolutely something many executives and managers have in mind, even at large corporations, when running a business.

We don't normally ascribe greed to animals, and it doesn't make much sense to do so for corporations, particularly commercial corporations. But to the extent we can equivocate the entity and the people who manage it, underlying motivations are mixed, complicated, and varied.

And I'd argue that not all corporations, even multinationals, are similarly aggressive and "ruthless", so clearly there are complex social dynamics beyond profit maximization. Corporations aren't moral agents in the same way we consider people, yet they're not pure profit maximizing automatons, either.