There’s a bit of a kerfuffle regarding Uber
hiring away 40 plus Carnegie Mellon staffers from CMU’s National Robotics
Center for Uber’s new, and welcomed, driverless car engineering office in
Pittsburgh. Is there a problem here? I don’t get it. What’s not to like? Isn’t “the new economy” all about disruptions
such as this. That’s a declaration, not
a question.
A dynamic economy at any geographic level is
constantly changing. This is precisely
what Pittsburgh lacked for two or more generations: a chance for individuals to
reinvent themselves, let alone the city and region. It’s why the now talked about “Diaspora” of
the young and the talented happened when they moved to the East Coast, the
Research Triangle, Texas and Florida, and about every other point beyond. All they [we] were trying to do was find a
place to best use talents.
And that’s the chance Uber is giving to those CMU engineers. I’ve read the
comments coming from CMU upper level managers and they are surprisingly [to me] chary with their enthusiasm for this turn of events. I would think they should be thrilled that
their staff has opportunities to move into what must be higher paying jobs in
the private sector. But it seems not; which
is all too typical of an industrial era management style reminiscent of
indentured worker conditions. In
contrast let’s particularly note that Robotics Institute’s managers are very
enthusiastic about this enterprise.
Of course CMU’s high level managers, as management
types anywhere would be, are concerned that they now have to replace these
engineers. That’s management’s job –
hiring and staffing. In the nationwide
robotics market, these folks are in demand.
So maybe Pittsburgh’s notoriously lower wage scale needs to finally,
FINALLY, start rising. It’s the only way
the region will compete to keep the aforementioned young and talented in the
area. And forget the BS about “well we
can pay less in Pittsburgh because the cost of living is lower”. The cost of living is lower because income
levels are depressed. Those incomes
provide only so much anyone can pay for a mortgage, as one example, thereby keeping
Pittsburgh housing values, and overall cost of living, depressingly low. But
trust me, as a former young person I can tell you, after you graduate from college,
the last thing on your mind are single family housing prices. A $3 flat white or a $7 craft beer is the
same price on University Avenue in Palo Alto as it is on Penn Avenue in East
Liberty.
So let’s celebrate a too-rare big name,
national headlines win for Pittsburgh.
The future is creeping into the local job market, disrupting the all too
comfortable lives of organization managers in the region. Finally.
