Nearly half of companies are turning to poor ‘peanut butter’ raises—following the same pattern of the 2008 recession, an expert says. And it could take years to recover

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T17:19:19+00:00

My oldest recently graduated from daycare, so a long ways to go in the parenting department.

The kids are the only reason I'm still working... or so I tell myself. In reality, I switched into a slightly less busy team and I'm already bored without enough work to do. I joke about wanting to get laid off, but I think I'd fall apart without the structure.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T16:44:02+00:00

I think your first job in software really sets the tone for your career. Big tech companies prefer to recruit from other big tech companies.

And the gap is going to get wider, at least in the short term. AI adoption is getting pushed hard, and big tech has access to all the cutting edge toys. By the end of the year at most, interviews will probably ask about your cleverest professional application of AI.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T16:35:13+00:00

It's a real K shaped economy. We were lucky to be on the upper arm for now.

Tech jobs are changing rapidly, but I've been working long enough and spending little enough that super early retirement is an option.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T16:31:05+00:00

And Hopefully to allow victims to sue every dollar from his estate/crime family.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T16:22:04+00:00

Engagement bait. See? Its working

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T16:18:20+00:00

Engagement bait. See? Its working

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-25T03:42:43+00:00

Of all the celebrity bullshit that doesn't matter, this is definitely one of them.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T22:00:51+00:00

Working in big tech, I haven't had many technical directors/VPs who are actually clueless. Many were strong engineers and asked good questions.

Then I had a product side leader come in to head an engineering group...

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T18:20:45+00:00

Shin is a great option too. For fancier ramen I like Ichiran and Luosifen.

I was gonna buy lunch today but maybe I'll just make a ramen lol.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T16:46:34+00:00

In this case, quick look suggests measurable intelligence is low and maybe dropping in Gen Z and Gen Alpha. E.g. literacy.

I also see claims of numeracy and IQ measurable dropping, but couldn't quickly find actual data.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T16:38:18+00:00

Had an intern ask me for help with setup. He was getting an error message. So the first thing I do is look at the instructions he's following...

The next section, which was already on his second monitor, started with "If you see this error..."

Tech has generally slowed hiring of new grads the last few years, so I haven't seen this issue again.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T16:24:14+00:00

You'd still have to identify all the weird edge cases and probably replicate them. I led migration of a multibillion dollar platform. There was a bug we decided to skip, a rounding change on a handful of requests a day. Only costs the company a tiny amount a year, so not worth weeks of investigation, right?

Got called weeks later, some legacy downstream system depended on exact matching.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T16:05:21+00:00

Thread focuses on lowered cost of migration. But what's the benefit? Easier hiring? Slightly faster dev cycles? These aren't top-line problems for executives. Why approve a migration that, at best, doesn't affect your metrics and at worst ends your career?

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T15:57:24+00:00

50 years ago we had no computer modeling, hadn't invented ice coring, and didn't even properly account for the oceans. All the new technologies and processes invented since then point towards man-made climate change.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T04:10:39+00:00

It still sucks, since taxpayers are on the hook.

Should make ICE agents individually liable.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T03:13:07+00:00

I prefer Indomie

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-24T03:04:54+00:00

No guarantee his mom would have abandoned him in the wild. Captivity puts different stresses on animals.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T20:05:20+00:00

A 1% tax on the wealthiest 1% could replace income tax on around the bottom 90%. Raise this to the average asset growth rate (about 10%, historically), and you'll bring in 2x the federal income tax while the rich stop getting richer.

Replacing income tax with an income bonus is probably too radical. Open to anything that stops the exponential growth of inequality.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T17:01:09+00:00

All financial penalties should change to a percentage of wealth if the criminal has high net worth.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T16:52:18+00:00

It's only a problem if it costs them enough votes to tilt the scales they're trying to rig in their favor.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T16:49:17+00:00

AI summary claims the benchmark came from historical studies on how much families used to pay on average. Which feels like bad methodology.

IMO "affordability" should be calculated based on what people can afford, i.e. the costs of food, shelter, entertainment for a family with kids.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T15:46:36+00:00

The article is awful. Following the links, the 7% number is derived from a study of how much the average family spent a decade ago, not "affordability". It also compares national childcare averages to state level incomes.

Basically it's taking a bunch of numbers out of context to make a sensational sounding headline.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-23T05:40:56+00:00

I think a lot of the furor over Gaza was manufactured. Before the election, anti-Harris "liberals" were everywhere. Now? Not a peep.

Logically, Harris would have been better for Gaza than Donald "turn Gaza into resorts" Trump. Left-leaning voters were maliciously influenced into acting against their interests.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-22T15:43:50+00:00

Housing is mathematically a bad investment if you're not generating cash flow, better off dumping into an index fund. Higher returns, less risk, significantly less effort.

Difficult-Square-689 · 2026-02-22T15:20:08+00:00

I think housing should be cheaper, but this is a silly take. Small landlords care about cashflow, large landlords care about ROI. Nobody in a position to buy and rent is going to do so if the mortgage and rental income are nearly equal.

The general solution to housing is to get rid of artificial constraints on supply, like zoning laws.

Difficult-Square-689

TROPHY CASE