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I love how this article manages to contradict itself completely in the space of two paragraphs. Paraphrase #1: Salaries at startups aren't very high, without c

by sulam 10y ago

I love how this article manages to contradict itself completely in the space of two paragraphs. Paraphrase #1: Salaries at startups aren't very high, without considering options. Paraphrase #2: Yelp is having to raise compensation to compete against startup job offers. Past the very early stage, the first statement is untrue. I sincerely doubt that Uber is paying less base salary than GE. Certainly it is in the ballpark -- because every well-funded startup out there (there's a lot of them) pays "market rate" which nets out to "we match salaries for everyone except Google employees."

pj_mukh 10y ago
Yea, I was confused by this narrative. Startups are raising so much money but they are paying lower salaries than the big cos. Where is that money going?
werdna123 10y ago
Also, the "Bloomberg startup barometer" graph does not match its own title...
pm90 10y ago
I don't think its a contradiction: every tech company has to raise salaries to get talent, including startups. But the total compensation may be lower by startups. Uber/Yelp are no longer startups. I think the article is referring to companies much earlier in the life cycle.
maxlamb 10y ago
Yelp was founded in 2004, Uber in 2009 - they are not startups anymore. I think the statements are still holds true if we consider startups new companies that are less than 4-5 years old.
megablast 10y ago
He is suggesting that people are taking a wage cut to work at startups, because of the chance of a big payout later on. Yelp has to pay a lot more, not to beat their startup salary, but their expectation of a big payout.
- sulam 10y ago
  My point is that this is not the case. I don't know anyone taking a big pay cut to work at a startup unless they are a very, very early employee, essentially a co-founder. A company's seed round might be $2M these days (this used to be an A round) and A rounds are easily $6-8M. It's hard to justify not paying someone market rate when you have $2M in the bank and a plan that says you're going to use it to hire engineers.

by sulam 10y ago

pj_mukh 10y ago

Yea, I was confused by this narrative. Startups are raising so much money but they are paying lower salaries than the big cos. Where is that money going?

werdna123 10y ago

Also, the "Bloomberg startup barometer" graph does not match its own title...

pm90 10y ago

I don't think its a contradiction: every tech company has to raise salaries to get talent, including startups. But the total compensation may be lower by startups. Uber/Yelp are no longer startups. I think the article is referring to companies much earlier in the life cycle.

maxlamb 10y ago

Yelp was founded in 2004, Uber in 2009 - they are not startups anymore. I think the statements are still holds true if we consider startups new companies that are less than 4-5 years old.

megablast 10y ago

He is suggesting that people are taking a wage cut to work at startups, because of the chance of a big payout later on. Yelp has to pay a lot more, not to beat their startup salary, but their expectation of a big payout.

sulam 10y ago
My point is that this is not the case. I don't know anyone taking a big pay cut to work at a startup unless they are a very, very early employee, essentially a co-founder. A company's seed round might be $2M these days (this used to be an A round) and A rounds are easily $6-8M. It's hard to justify not paying someone market rate when you have $2M in the bank and a plan that says you're going to use it to hire engineers.