Qualcomm's Jacobs 26th Highest-Paid Executive

It's worthwhile to recap the differences wrought by Paul Jacobs vs Irwin Jacobs. During Irwin's stint as CEO, the company grew from nothing to a fortune 500 company. San Diego was transformed into a wireless center in the process as many companies opened development centers in the area. Most of Qualcomm's employees (those were weren't spun-off) participated in the large stock run-up, which resulted in a lot of wealthy employees. Local infrastructure benefitted because of the additional taxes paid by the employees. Fast forward to the Paul Jacob's era. Qualcomm's entrepreneurship has given way to a monopolistic culture. A culture designed to maximize revenue at customer and workers expense. San Diego is no longer a wireless center, but is instead a Qualcomm center. This could be a good thing, except that the company has imported the vast majority of new workers (roughly 7000) from countries with a low cost basis. Rather than spreading the Qualcomm wealth through lavish stock options and high wages as was the case previously, Qualcomm's wealth has grown and become narrowly focused to mostly management. The community has also not benefited as much as years past, because of reduced taxation (no new millionaires being created). Worse yet, Qualcomm's extensive lobbying for increased H-1B Visas, coupled with their support of spin groups such as Competeamerica.org, have caused a run-down of American engineers and a perception that Americans lack the skills needed, or are somehow inferior to workers abroad. This has caused massive long-term damage to the STEM professions in America and has contributed to an avoidance of these fields, by America's best and the brightest.
— April 12, 2011 10:49 a.m.

Qualcomm's Jacobs 26th Highest-Paid Executive

"Paul Jacobs may not be a true trust fund baby, and he may be capable in some roles. There's no reason, however, to think that he was the best, the only, the obvious choice to succeed Dad. There were others, or there should have been others, who made larger contributions than he did." Indeed. In fact, many people think that Sanjay Jha would have made a better Qualcomm CEO. The fact that Paul Jacobs essentially inherited the reins from his father really shows how the whole "musical chairs" game of outsourcing and in-sourcing of engineering/IT talent does not apply to the rich. I too have seen the Qualcomm nepotism that you describe and I too refuse to own Qualcomm stock.
— April 11, 2011 4:34 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

It looks like the 2010 Census numbers are in: (. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/data-drive/article… .) The article states that the percentage of Asians in areas around Qualcomm in Sorrento Valley was, up until the census, underestimated. This was likely due to the quiet, but massive importation of cheap H-1B labor that Qualcomm has undertaken in the past 10 years. A policy that has caused the loss of about 7000 jobs to Americans (and San Diegans!) in that same 10 year period. It's worthwhile to take a look at the demographics in the map. It would be interesting to compare it to a similar demographics map from 10 years ago.
— April 11, 2011 4:17 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

There are a lot of entertaining comments in the yahoo thread. Here is one of my favorites: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." I think that this helps to explain why the tea party and "Joe the Plumber" supports tax breaks for the rich.
— April 11, 2011 3:37 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

It looks like the folks at the AFL-CIO are serious after all and are creating a global IBM union... "A network of IBM unions worldwide, including the Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701, will meet in Switzerland in May to form the IBM Global Union Alliance." (. http://www.endicottalliance.org/ .) "The objectives are: - To engage IBM in dialog at global level. - To pursue agreements with IBM at global level to improve working conditions of IBM employees worldwide. - To raise levels of trade union membership at IBM." It appears that the only way to combat the abuse of multinationals is to create a multinational labor union. This is an interesting development...
— April 10, 2011 11:46 a.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

Corporate socialism. Brilliant description.
— April 10, 2011 11:19 a.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, should have been viewed as a national strategic asset, one to be preserved at all cost. Instead we've let greed kill the Goose that laid the Golden Egg.
— April 10, 2011 11:14 a.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

Also just in today, another indication of how "The already super-rich have vastly increased their share of the pie--at the expense of everyone else." (. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110408… .) "Some say it's the result of a decline in workers' bargaining power as labor unions have weakened, while others blame the rise of offshoring and outsourcing. But despite the best efforts of some commentators, there's really no serious debate about the overall realignment of income in our age: The already super-rich have vastly increased their share of the pie--at the expense of everyone else."
— April 8, 2011 3:18 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

Also just to add more data to the 2008-2009 years. Fully 6.5M American jobs were lost during that time, representing about 1 in every 10. Yet we still imported the maximum number of people allowed under the H-1B cap. This isn't market forces at work, it's simply unconstrained Wall Street greed.
— April 8, 2011 3:13 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

It's probably also worthwhile to take a look at some of the "spin" tenets of CompeteAmerica.org. All are worth discussing, but let's take a look at this first excerpt: ------ "The H-1B visa program is subject to an arbitrary cap, but use of the visa over the years reflects a need for a market-based cap. - The FY 2010 was exhausted nearly nine months after the filing period that began on April 1, 2009. In FY 2011, it took nearly 10 months after April 1, 2010, for the cap to be reached. But, the FY 2009 cap was exhausted within days in April 2008. - The fact that demand has historically fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate with the ups and downs of our economy is proof that a market-based cap on the number of H-1B visas allotted per year – as Compete America has advocated for many years – is justified." ------- Clearly this does not show market based demand. The meltdown of late 2008 through 2009 caused a major disruption of tech employment with tens of thousands of US workers being laid off at Microsoft, IBM and many other technology companies. The drop in demand for STEM workers caused a "lost year" among new grads who were not able find employment. Despite all of this it's simply unconscionable that American corporations still imported the maximum amount of cheap labor into the United State allowed under the H-1B cap. It's truly shameful that we as a country let this happen. It's not an example of market based economics at work, but simple corporate greed.
— April 8, 2011 2:52 p.m.