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>> We canceled our upcoming team retreat to Berlin. Savings: $400,000. Compared to all their other costs that one stood out the most. 500k savings laying off 1

by ctvo 10y ago

>> We canceled our upcoming team retreat to Berlin. Savings: $400,000. Compared to all their other costs that one stood out the most. 500k savings laying off 10% of your workforce compared to 400k for a team retreat in Berlin. Is this typical?

deleted 10y ago
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jacquesm 10y ago
One-off versus monthly recurring.
ndiscussion 10y ago
That does seem astronomical. $4,000 per employee if they have ~100 employees like they say. Anyone think their salaries are absurdly high for some locations and positions? They've got Adnan working as an "Advanced Backend/Frontend Developer" in Sri Lanka, making only $65,104. This actually makes sense to me because Sri Lanka's cost of living is pretty low. But they've got an Advanced "Happiness Hero" which I presume is an email support role making $77,397 in Kentucky. Last time I checked, $77,000 is an extraordinarily high salary in KY, especially for someone doing email support.
- SystemOut 10y ago
  That's assuming what they do is straight e-mail support. I'm not sure what a happiness hero does but they might be expected to do much more than e-mail support. In many companies the "success manager" role tends to require people with more education and technical background to do in-depth troubleshooting and real customer interaction.
- hammock 10y ago
  $4,000 would barely cover business-class airfare between SF<->Berlin for one employee. Not to mention accommodations, event space, meals and entertainment.
  - jpna66dd 10y ago
    Are you saying it is customary to fly people business class in the Valley, rather than coach? Especially for a team retreat?
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Are you saying you can fly coach from SF to Berlin and actually still engage in a "retreat"?
      - jpna66dd 10y ago
        I am trying to learn about the business habits in the Valley. I wish someone could inform me. To answer your question, obviously I am not from the valley, i run my own business, it is quite profitable, i don't do retreats, and i fly quite a bit, always coach. So if i ever organised a retreat, i would expect everyone to fly coach. Hence my question.
        tokensimian 10y ago
        FWIW, the US Government's regulations for civil service workers (civilians working for the federal gov't) are pretty strict, and are often used as a basis for private companies. (EG, mileage reimbursement is usually a rate set by the feds.) Their policy is business class for international flights over 8 hours. Given that, I think it would be seen as common/acceptable to mimic.
        ma2rten 10y ago
        Interesting, ... that would basically mean that all flights from San Francisco to outside of the Americas should be business class.
        lmeyerov 10y ago
        Keep in mind: government employees who travel international are often diplomats. Gov rates for diplomats are, overall, luxurious. (I'm not sure of the bleedover here, but would not be surprised.) Above comment about business class / direct for long trips, and at least direct/convenient economy for ~startups (not 2 guys & a laptop) sounds right.
- hinkley 10y ago
  That may be a customer retention role, in which case I think that's within reason.
- dsacco 10y ago
  Yes, I agree with you. Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what a "Happiness Hero" is, it appears they are paying a developer's salary for email support. $77k in Louisville, Kentucky would be about $135k in NYC. $77k is not "extraordinarily" high for Kentucky without any context, but it would be very surprising for an email support role. In fact, I would expect $70k to be a very upper bound for technical support in NYC. That said, there might be a very technical component of the job role that we do not have any insight on.
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    There are a few of them on their salary list and pay does not seem to have an correlation with working location. Could simply be level of ability and/or amount of quality work performed.
deleted 10y ago
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minimaxir 10y ago
Interestingly, their last retreat (https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/ https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/) totaled $111k. The tripling of staff since last year makes the economics more difficult.
pixelmonkey 10y ago
Buffer is a fully distributed (remote) team. The money they save on offices, they spend on travel. Do you think an office for 100 people would cost less than $400K/year? (I know it wouldn't in NYC.) See my notes on this here: http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-digital-and-physical http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-d...

by ctvo 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 10y ago

One-off versus monthly recurring.

ndiscussion 10y ago

That does seem astronomical. $4,000 per employee if they have ~100 employees like they say. Anyone think their salaries are absurdly high for some locations and positions? They've got Adnan working as an "Advanced Backend/Frontend Developer" in Sri Lanka, making only $65,104. This actually makes sense to me because Sri Lanka's cost of living is pretty low. But they've got an Advanced "Happiness Hero" which I presume is an email support role making $77,397 in Kentucky. Last time I checked, $77,000 is an extraordinarily high salary in KY, especially for someone doing email support.

SystemOut 10y ago
That's assuming what they do is straight e-mail support. I'm not sure what a happiness hero does but they might be expected to do much more than e-mail support. In many companies the "success manager" role tends to require people with more education and technical background to do in-depth troubleshooting and real customer interaction.
hammock 10y ago
$4,000 would barely cover business-class airfare between SF<->Berlin for one employee. Not to mention accommodations, event space, meals and entertainment.
- jpna66dd 10y ago
  Are you saying it is customary to fly people business class in the Valley, rather than coach? Especially for a team retreat?
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Are you saying you can fly coach from SF to Berlin and actually still engage in a "retreat"?
    - jpna66dd 10y ago
      I am trying to learn about the business habits in the Valley. I wish someone could inform me. To answer your question, obviously I am not from the valley, i run my own business, it is quite profitable, i don't do retreats, and i fly quite a bit, always coach. So if i ever organised a retreat, i would expect everyone to fly coach. Hence my question.
      - tokensimian 10y ago
        FWIW, the US Government's regulations for civil service workers (civilians working for the federal gov't) are pretty strict, and are often used as a basis for private companies. (EG, mileage reimbursement is usually a rate set by the feds.) Their policy is business class for international flights over 8 hours. Given that, I think it would be seen as common/acceptable to mimic.
        ma2rten 10y ago
        Interesting, ... that would basically mean that all flights from San Francisco to outside of the Americas should be business class.
        lmeyerov 10y ago
        Keep in mind: government employees who travel international are often diplomats. Gov rates for diplomats are, overall, luxurious. (I'm not sure of the bleedover here, but would not be surprised.) Above comment about business class / direct for long trips, and at least direct/convenient economy for ~startups (not 2 guys & a laptop) sounds right.
hinkley 10y ago
That may be a customer retention role, in which case I think that's within reason.
dsacco 10y ago
Yes, I agree with you. Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what a "Happiness Hero" is, it appears they are paying a developer's salary for email support. $77k in Louisville, Kentucky would be about $135k in NYC. $77k is not "extraordinarily" high for Kentucky without any context, but it would be very surprising for an email support role. In fact, I would expect $70k to be a very upper bound for technical support in NYC. That said, there might be a very technical component of the job role that we do not have any insight on.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  There are a few of them on their salary list and pay does not seem to have an correlation with working location. Could simply be level of ability and/or amount of quality work performed.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 10y ago

Interestingly, their last retreat (https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/ https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/) totaled $111k. The tripling of staff since last year makes the economics more difficult.

pixelmonkey 10y ago

Buffer is a fully distributed (remote) team. The money they save on offices, they spend on travel. Do you think an office for 100 people would cost less than $400K/year? (I know it wouldn't in NYC.) See my notes on this here: http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-digital-and-physical http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-d...