There is no shortage of talent; there's a shortage of talent that wants to earn $100 - $130k (plus 0.2% of an A-round company! Golden paper handcuffs! Whoo!) to live in sf, an area probably more expensive than Manhattan. Without being Manhattan, or having decent public services.
Do we have a shortage of talent of the type I just described? Emphatically yes. Does that mean there is in any way a shortage? Emphatically no.
So the only sense in which there is a shortage is the same sense in which those jerks at bwm don't wish to sell me an m3 coupe for $15k. ie no shortage at all.
In my view, anyone who tries to argue that there is a "shortage" of tech should disclose the compensation package they are offering for the tech positions they are trying to fill.
There was somebody complaining about a shortage of software workers on the Buffalo subreddit recently. When prodded he admitted he was offering $35K a year.
I was contacted by a recruiter. They wanted a Phd in machine learning from a top school, 3+ years experience in adtech, hadoop experience. $110k. In Palo Alto.
Aerofs -- and they've raised $5.7mm btw [1] -- is hiring engineers at an average of $98k [2]. System software engineers, presumably with more experience, get an average of $108k. In Palo Alto. Gee, I wonder why he has problems hiring?
It is interesting that one mainly hears this loud whining for more imported skilled labor from the web publishing industry. The mining, drilling, and rail industries don't make any noise that I've heard. They have high wage earners. They are higher "tech" than 95% of IT and web publishing outfits. Why is all this visa agitation coming from Silicon Valley and not from Houston?
tech is full of useful idiots stoked by the idea of cutting their wages, who haven't fully absorbed how duplicitous and exploitative the industry really is. See google, apple, linkedin wage fixing agreements. And a lack of unions.
Do we have a shortage of talent of the type I just described? Emphatically yes. Does that mean there is in any way a shortage? Emphatically no.
So the only sense in which there is a shortage is the same sense in which those jerks at bwm don't wish to sell me an m3 coupe for $15k. ie no shortage at all.