r/Python • u/jmreagle • Apr 29 '24

News Google laysoff Python maintainer team

https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/google-layoffs-sundar-pichai-led-company-fires-entire-python-team-for-cheaper-labour-101714379453603.html

Are there any ramifications for the Python community outside of Google?

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u/riklaunim Apr 29 '24

AFAIK they offshored it - fired locally to hire in Germany if I recall correctly.

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u/__init__m8 Apr 30 '24

Anyone/company who goes offshore can get fucked.

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u/CHS2048 Apr 30 '24

Why? What's wrong with international business?

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u/__init__m8 Apr 30 '24

International business? Nothing. Taking US jobs overseas for cheap labor while still expecting all of the US handouts and US based business? Everything.

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u/CHS2048 May 01 '24

while still expecting all of the US handouts and US based business

That's what International business is, having US business, and also overseas business. I'm sure they still have enough business in the US to qualify for handout.

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u/Street_Customer_4190 May 02 '24

I’m probably guessing the did that because of the changes to the tax code. Instead of getting mad at the companies, we should be mad at the government who is causing them to leave

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u/__init__m8 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

They want to reap the benefits of the US economy then they need to also pay in. Not getting into politics in this sub but I'm also tired of companies paying next to no taxes and not contributing to society while doing all the taking.

But what tax code changes are you referring to? It's possible I just don't know and they are 100% at fault.

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u/Street_Customer_4190 May 15 '24

Section 174 is what is causing companies to move overseas. It’s a little bit complicated to explain but basically programming/research companies have to pay more in taxes than they have before and they don’t get as much deduction of their taxes as they use to. Even in this article, it advises that a company should probably move overseas to “increase your R&D credit”.

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u/__init__m8 May 15 '24

They can cry me a river. They should be banned from doing business in the US in that case. They don’t want to pay into the system they take from. They don’t want to provide jobs yet they want the business of the US.

Obviously nothing is black and white and I don’t know the entire story, but my above thoughts cover most cases.

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u/Street_Customer_4190 May 15 '24

You realize banning them who effectively fuck up the internet and the economy right?? We basically will be out of a job and companies that would want to higher us wouldn’t be in the US but overseas. The US would lose a lot of capital if we did something like that. Also if the system takes away money from companies like this to pay for dumb wars and new tanks, it will effect our pay and our employment because it would be economically bad for the companies to higher a lot of programmers or to pay the a high salaries(unless the want to go bankrupt in a few years)

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u/__init__m8 May 15 '24

I’m not arguing for funding wars, I’m arguing for this shitty capitalist dystopia to go away. Corps don’t pay taxes and ship jobs overseas, there should be repercussions.

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u/Street_Customer_4190 May 15 '24

Majority of corporations already pay taxes. Some of them don’t but tbh the government getting their tax dollars wouldn’t help the layman much at all. You seem to be think that most of this is cause by capitalism but that’s not true. I already proved to you at corps leaving was just the government fault but yet you still blame capitalism for. From your writings I’m assuming that you think socialism is somehow going to fix all of this. I personally have been on the left for a while(until recently) and most socialist do not have a clue on how to fix all of “capitalism’s problems”. In reality socialism makes everything worse. The whole point of capitalism is to have an efficient way of handling scarcity. Money helps communicate how much someone(or society of people) value something. Like let’s say there is a culture that sees pineapples as special and there is one that doesn’t view it that way. The one that views it as special will be willing to pay more for it than the other that view it as less special. The problem with socialism is there is no way to communicate the value of items. The government or a government-like system tells everyone how valuable an item is, which isn’t great for scarcity because individual people value thinks differently and want things at different times(if you like pizza more than burgers then you would probably buy more of them than the other. This is a very simplified version of this concept but you can learn more about it by searching up subjective theory of value.). Also it’s basically impossible to have an industrialized or advanced society that owns all the means of production because all someone needs to do to become a capitalist is to own something and make profits off of it(think sell lemonade or fixing bikes). To make sure that everyone can own it “equal” there needs to be a centralized power to enforce the rule. Having a centralized power then leads to a lot of corruption and the people who have the most desire for power and control tend to get into it, which causes situations like the USSR. The point I’m trying to make is capitalism isn’t really at fault here, it’s the greed government that is at fault. They don’t have the capability to read everyone’s minds and they are more beholden to their lobbyists than they are to us. CEOs and politicians are similar in the sense that the both are beholden to a certain type of group(the lobbyists and shareholders). The difference between them is the CEO has a lot of incentive to deliver profit in the most efficient way possible. So they don’t waste as much money compared to politicians(and government officials ). Government officials are beholden to the lobbyist so they will pay money into whatever the lobbyist convinces them to pay into. This means that they may pay into stuff that are unnecessary like buying more tanks for the military or giving aid to some bad companies. The all point of the lecture is to make you realize that our officers are the ones screwing us over and not necessarily capitalism

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u/__init__m8 May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24

No, I don’t think socialism is the fix at all. Capitalism is fine and great within boundaries. Boundaries that are largely ethical so how can it even be fixed?

CEOs shouldn't make what they make relative to workers. What Sears did purposefully driving a business into the ground should come with prosecution. We shouldn't be laying off thousands of people while still profitable for the sole fucking purpose of driving share value up $0.25.

You're stating the gov. Is greedy in this case when the link you sent stated AT&T paid no taxes on 29.6 billion but actually was refunded 1.2 billion? That's ok with you? Trickle down does not, has not, and will never work. An 8.9% tax rate for those that do and 1/3 don't pay at all. The house was wanting to repeal social programs while spending trillions on something that doesn't work.

As far as lobbyist and all that we were screwed the second citizens united went through.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '24

[deleted]

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u/IllustriousFan7840 Apr 30 '24

Salaries are lower than in the US, but 60k is just too low according to levels.fyi

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u/[deleted] May 01 '24

Definitely too low, unless they just graduated. But something in the ballpark of 100k perhaps.

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u/poincares_cook May 01 '24

Sure, but $300k is also definitely too low for the level of seniority and talent on that team. They were probably all $500k+

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u/IllustriousFan7840 May 02 '24

Is it know they were all >= L6? If so, then definitely yes

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u/CHS2048 May 01 '24

That sound fine to me, why not take advantage of lower wages overseas? Are they obliged to pay 3x more for equivalent labour?

(what regulations are relaxed in Germany?)

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u/[deleted] May 01 '24

Regarding reduced ability to fire: That won’t make much of a difference. If they decide to lay off 10% of the staff, that can be done just as easily in Germany. The difference is that there are some checks on whom they have to let go (they have to apply social criteria) within the respective group of employees across the company that have comparable jobs and qualification (say, senior Python devs).

But I can also tell you: There are many companies that don’t give a shit about labor laws. As a laid off employee, you can sue them… which means either you look for a new job and then at some point the lawsuit will be settled [= typical outcome] with the effect that you get perhaps a better severance [unlikely, many high profile companies voluntarily pay more generous severance packages than they’d have to], or you hold out for years without income until the court rules that the firing was illegal and you are to be re-employed and paid salaries for the entire time… or the court rules that the firing was legal and nothing happens. But if you’re highly qualified, the chance that you get a better deal by suing is extremely low.

Also, consider that there are no punitive damages in Germany.