The only thing worse than the author claiming that is you asking for "data". Like what data? This is qualitative. And yes, Google killed one particular flavor of startup that paid its employees with smoke
It’s always kind of funny when people respond to a subjective opinion with “where’s the data?” because unless you’re responding with data it’s pretty much just a way of saying “I don’t like this”
The blog post makes a bold claim about how the rise of tech salaries at Google killed entrepreneurship. The poster could have at least given this a sniff test: how about, for example, showing a graph of Google salaries overlaid with a graph of the number of start-ups from the crunchbase database? As he didn't even go to this minimum effort, it's valid to ask "where's the data" here.
This is a good point. When somebody says something “killed” an intangible thing, they are obviously speaking literally. Honestly we don’t even need a graph, surely if he’s alleging a murder he would be able to produce the weapon, like a knife or a gun
Now obviously someone could mistakenly interpret that sentiment as “incredibly high salaries attracted talent of such caliber that they could have started their own companies but did not” but that simply can’t be possible because there is no graph that shows all of the businesses that didn’t happen, therefore it is literal.
It’s not like anybody on here has worked with somebody that could easily have started their own company but chose SWE at a FAANG. It’s just not a thing
> And yes, Google killed one particular flavor of startup that paid its employees with smoke
To me, it reads like a desperate far-fetched argument to deny employees a fair compensation for their work. As if there is any virtue in stiffing people out of their paycheck.
