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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

Exactly - thank you. You wrote this more succinctly and clearly than I did! That is precisely my concern.

I guess I'll read the book now if it isn't too expensive (or even available in my region!), but I think many of these ideas about mutually beneficial employment only really works where power is relatively well balanced - in other words the employer can't get rid of you or treat you badly because you are irreplaceable it very hard to replace, and the employee has loyalty towards the company.

The instant this changes, then one party will often be largely unfairly affected.

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The hope is that as talent mobility increases, the power imbalance will ebb. But it is rare for the power to be perfectly balanced.

"But it is rare for the power to be perfectly balanced."

That's the difference between the powerful and the powerless. The powerful thinks the imbalance is a fact that will never change; the powerless thinks that must change.

The problem in corporate world nowadays is that the powerful people disguise this difference all the time. For example : "hey, you can negotiate your salary and if you disagree, you have total freedom to go somewhere else. How powerful you are !"

I'll sure read your book, but I'm under the impression I'll see another, maybe very sophisticated disguise...

(yes you can call me a "socialist" (in the European sense) :-) because all of this is super political in fact)

You're absolutely right that too many corporate employers take a "check the box" approach to being good employers. They strive to do well in rankings and to develop a good reputation, rather than focusing on treating people well.

But the bigger issue is that people have ended up in a position where they are powerless. And that is because the system doesn't see them as valuable. In an economic sense, unskilled labor isn't that valuable. But in a philosophical sense, those human beings are part of a society that should be looking out for them.

The best instrument of change in this case is government action (which I suppose means that holding this opinion also makes me a little bit socialist).

The root cause of the problem, at least in the United States, is that our educational system (aided and abetted by institutional discrimination and/or neglect) has failed to give many of its citizens the skills and knowledge they need. Furthermore, the social safety net is both inconsistent and insufficient.

As a mere business book author, I have a hard time tackling such problems, though I've certainly offered my opinions.

I recall an example, a bit fuzzy, so I might be off on some. Over at Zappos, someone was great at their QA job (or something, bug good at it never the less), Zappos were able to improve process and this position and person were made redundant. Not her fault, but you cannot fault the company either. However, I do find fault in not training this person for an alternate path in the company. Of course it's easier to just hire someone new to fill in a new role then it is to retrain. Govt needs to incentivize retraining.

Talent mobility will improve things for top talent wherever you are; but talent mobility will hurt you if you are not top talent unless you live in the lowest cost place to hire people. In other words if you are not top talent things are going to get worse not better.

The whole point of software engineering is to automate yourself out of a job.

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