Oracle laid off ~13% of its staff to fund a $300B computing deal with OpenAI. Now, a credit downgrade and $7B in required power grid guarantees put the massive project in jeopardy.
Some corporations have shit objectives, others do not.
The objective of a corporation is to make money. Doesn’t really matter which corporation.
There are loads of people who work for companies and really believe they’re making the world a better place through their work.
And most of them would be wrong I’m sure. They’re just making profit for a corporation. I’m sure most OpenAI and Anthropic employees also feel like they’re making the world a better place.
I’ve had exactly one job in my life that wasn’t software engineering. I was definitely making the world a better place, as I reduced e-waste generation by tons upon tons. Specifically, I fixed thousands of laptops slated for landfill, many of them fairly new and high spec so they’d get several years of usage after refurbishing.
What did I get in return? Poverty, timed piss breaks so I’d hit my targets (since nearly half of the already low salary was paid out as a “bonus” - after I left they raised salaries to keep up with minimum wage increases, but then reduced the bonus so they wouldn’t actually have to pay people more). The owners were also unhappy that the profit margin was only 55%, they wanted to see 60% profit margin. Probably so they could sell the company for even more money. This was a 3 year old company making over a hundred million in revenue… On a 55% profit margin. Renting a studio apartment was about half my income, utilities included.
Every job since then has been a tech job of one type or another. None of them AI companies, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re doing payroll, healthcare, whatever. Ultimately you’re just doing your job so some rich dude can buy another yacht, or so that the owner’s wife could sell the company to a private equity company after nagging her husband into suicide because he didn’t want to sell but she wanted to retire. And I DO work for a small company now, as a contractor, but you won’t believe the insane luck and circumstances that got me into this job when layoffs were already happening everywhere.
And I live in a mostly sane country where you can still theoretically get by on a job doing whatever. Now imagine you’re in Silicon Valley, earning 200-300k a year, paying a mortgage on a tiny house that cost well over a million, and your options for getting a new job are McDonald’s, Walmart and whatever other stores are shit enough to work for that they’re always looking for people, which are now paying a super high wage of $20 an hour because California. You still sure you want to change jobs?
Only way to get out without ending up homeless is literally to save up for multiple years working in that job you hate. Golden handcuffs pretty much.
Do try to remember that it usually takes years to get into another field of skilled work and you start at the bottom of the ladder, making shit wages and not everyone can just share a small apartment with roommates, some people have families
This is just the same false dichotomy you’ve been presenting all the way along: starve or sell out.
The undeniable and obvious fact you’re avoiding is that loads of people have jobs that they find satisfying in a “life well lived” kind of way. There are loads of corporations who’s employees believe in what they’re doing.
Your timed piss break anecdote is not an example of a satisfying job. A job where you make minimum wage is not an example of a satisfying job.
It doesn’t take years to get into another field, and you don’t start at the start because you take all your skills and experience with you, obviously. I’m in my 40s, young family, working on a postgraduate degree in something tangentially related to the field I’ve been working in for 20 years. I do find my current job satisfying, I’m just weary of it. People can and do change professions all the time.
Objectively, this is very much a case of “I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”.
Like I said at the start, you don’t get a free pass just because you’re not a CEO.
The objective of a corporation is to make money. Doesn’t really matter which corporation.
And most of them would be wrong I’m sure. They’re just making profit for a corporation. I’m sure most OpenAI and Anthropic employees also feel like they’re making the world a better place.
I’ve had exactly one job in my life that wasn’t software engineering. I was definitely making the world a better place, as I reduced e-waste generation by tons upon tons. Specifically, I fixed thousands of laptops slated for landfill, many of them fairly new and high spec so they’d get several years of usage after refurbishing.
What did I get in return? Poverty, timed piss breaks so I’d hit my targets (since nearly half of the already low salary was paid out as a “bonus” - after I left they raised salaries to keep up with minimum wage increases, but then reduced the bonus so they wouldn’t actually have to pay people more). The owners were also unhappy that the profit margin was only 55%, they wanted to see 60% profit margin. Probably so they could sell the company for even more money. This was a 3 year old company making over a hundred million in revenue… On a 55% profit margin. Renting a studio apartment was about half my income, utilities included.
Every job since then has been a tech job of one type or another. None of them AI companies, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re doing payroll, healthcare, whatever. Ultimately you’re just doing your job so some rich dude can buy another yacht, or so that the owner’s wife could sell the company to a private equity company after nagging her husband into suicide because he didn’t want to sell but she wanted to retire. And I DO work for a small company now, as a contractor, but you won’t believe the insane luck and circumstances that got me into this job when layoffs were already happening everywhere.
And I live in a mostly sane country where you can still theoretically get by on a job doing whatever. Now imagine you’re in Silicon Valley, earning 200-300k a year, paying a mortgage on a tiny house that cost well over a million, and your options for getting a new job are McDonald’s, Walmart and whatever other stores are shit enough to work for that they’re always looking for people, which are now paying a super high wage of $20 an hour because California. You still sure you want to change jobs?
Only way to get out without ending up homeless is literally to save up for multiple years working in that job you hate. Golden handcuffs pretty much.
Do try to remember that it usually takes years to get into another field of skilled work and you start at the bottom of the ladder, making shit wages and not everyone can just share a small apartment with roommates, some people have families
This is just the same false dichotomy you’ve been presenting all the way along: starve or sell out.
The undeniable and obvious fact you’re avoiding is that loads of people have jobs that they find satisfying in a “life well lived” kind of way. There are loads of corporations who’s employees believe in what they’re doing.
Your timed piss break anecdote is not an example of a satisfying job. A job where you make minimum wage is not an example of a satisfying job.
It doesn’t take years to get into another field, and you don’t start at the start because you take all your skills and experience with you, obviously. I’m in my 40s, young family, working on a postgraduate degree in something tangentially related to the field I’ve been working in for 20 years. I do find my current job satisfying, I’m just weary of it. People can and do change professions all the time.
Objectively, this is very much a case of “I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”.
Like I said at the start, you don’t get a free pass just because you’re not a CEO.