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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, October 12, 2018 6:20 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] idea<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'>I am not a CEO, I am only a rocket scientist.</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'>spike</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'>Very dry, sir, positively Saharan.</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'>Now why can't paying the highest for employees be compatible with a different strategy for the CEO? bill w<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>You can do that BillW, but my point is that competent leadership is still going to cost skerjillions of bucks. Top executive talent will go where the pay is best. Maximizing profits (the company’s and their own) is how they got that skillset to start with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Paying higher than standard has been done. Henry Ford did it successfully. He had a new-ish technology in a new industry, and paid his men way higher than they could make elsewhere. That worked for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>I live in an area where that strategy generally isn’t followed: they pay what the labor costs, yet they still get good people. Reason: good people will take those jobs and do the hell out of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>We hear all the flapping about immigration, but a quieter aspect of that whole question isn’t talked about so much: highly skilled and highly educated people with money can generally come to the states and get their immigration legally. They do. My own area has really filled up with smart ambitious Chinese and Indian people, here on H1B and other temporary immigration arrangements. They take up jobs paying way below what many would consider below a practical living salary. They cram into a tiny apartment with nothing in it besides beds, and live the Silicon Valley life. Shrugs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>With that eager and willing labor pool available, paying above the supply-set standard might make more problems than it solves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>On the other hand…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Companies can find ways, a good CEO and find ways, to make their company appealing. Steve Jobs was a master at this. By all accounts he was a total asshole, but somehow managed to surround himself with people who shared his vision. So these innovative outfits such as Tesla and Apple can pay starvation wages and still get people to cram the PR department with excellent resumes, if… if they can provide interesting work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>I get it: if I were young now, I would work for peanuts, provided the work is interesting. I would choose that over a high-paying boring job.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Tesla is training skerjillions of Indians and Chinese how to make good electric cars. Apple is training them to make good computers and write good software. There is no reason to pay them enough to rent an actual apartment, ja? In the long run, we all win.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 7:57 PM <<a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com">spike@rainier66.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] idea<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>>>…Sounds like a great place to work. Who steers the ship? Why does she steer the ship?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>>>…spike</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span class=m3067357911229098399gmaildefault><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>>…Ah, there's the rub. IN today's climate high level management people are given enormous golden parachutes in addition to giant salaries. This may be a trend that is hard to modify</span></span><span class=m3067357911229098399gmaildefault><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>…<span style='color:black'> </span></span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>>… <span class=m3067357911229098399gmaildefault><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>bill w</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Ja. Big companies compete with each other for high-level management talent. If your company took all those millions it pays the CEO and distributed it to the lower-level workers, your company will soon be run by an incompetent CEO that no one else would hire, the one that replaced the previous CEO who left for high wages at your competitor. Your company is quite unlikely to survive for very long.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>The whole notion fails to take into account that CEOs are not in direct competition with lower level workers. Lower level workers compete against each other, CEOs compete against each other, companies compete against each other. When I worked in engineering at Lockheed, my salary was influenced by the salaries of similarly skilled rocket scientists at Boeing, not by what the CEO made. I am not a CEO, I am only a rocket scientist.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>spike</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal>_______________________________________________<br>extropy-chat mailing list<br><a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>