On: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due t...

[kadoban]

> A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine

Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. It's _possible_ for you to be worse off in a union, but rare.

[kortilla → kadoban]

> Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways.

You do know that your employment depends on the success of the business, right?

The relationship with an employee is no more adversarial than your relationship with the local grocery store when you buy a bag of potatoes.

[hiptobecubic → kortilla]

Yeah, except that switching grocery stores is practically zero cost, so any store that does silly shenanigans gets spanked almost immediately.

Also, grocery stores are about a million billion gazillion times more transparent about trading with you relative to trading with other shoppers.

[WWLink → hiptobecubic]

The trading with a grocery store is heavily regulated as well. They have requirements for storage and handling, their scales have to be calibrated, and there can be very strict fines for things like screwing around with sale prices.

[kortilla → hiptobecubic]

Switching jobs has a very low cost now as well. It’s not 2009 anymore.

[hiptobecubic → kortilla]

Switching jobs is not "very low cost" at all. It's a huge pain in the ass, even if you don't count interview prep.

[deterministic → kortilla]

The behaviour, motivation, and goals of individuals (including your boss and CEO) working for a business very rarely has anything to do with the goals of the business itself. There is a lot of pretend going on, but that is mostly just surface BS. Why do you think CEO’s spend billions buying back shares instead of using that money to invest in new products and other innovations that will make the business more successful long term? Could it perhaps be (gasp! horror!) that they care more about personal enrichment than making the business successful long term?

[skeeter2020 → kadoban]

> Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways

I'm sad that you think this, and would urge you to analyze your situation to see if it's really true. My one piece of advice is that companies seek to minimize cost centers, but invest in profit centers. Get out of the former and in to the latter.

[supersync → skeeter2020]

Cost centers: anything that improves your experience as an employee.

It’s smart to move out of it, but the fact that you have to in order to progress is a clear indicator why companies will perpetually undervalue talent - even in competitive markets.

[barry-cotter → kadoban]

> but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways.

This really isn’t true. What you’re describing isn’t even a zero sum game it’s negative sum, where hurting the other party is among your goals in itself. The company is interested in using you to make money and for many purposes happy, satisfied employees who are growing in productivity are good. All of those are also things the employees usually want.

Are employee and company interests fully aligned? Absolutely not, but if your employer’s interests are almost completely opposed to yours get out.