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> how much you earn is based on how much value you provide. Sadly, 20+ years in the tech industry has cured me of this belief. I was at Yahoo at one time. The

> how much you earn is based on how much value you provide. Sadly, 20+ years in the tech industry has cured me of this belief. I was at Yahoo at one time. There were quite a few "Friends of Jerry" floating around, making 6 figures, doing absolutely nothing (no offense to Jerry). Eventually they all drifted away, but not before they had accumulated a good amount of cash. I have an acquaintance who befriended a founder of a major company that went public, now valued into the 10s of Bs of dollars. For 5 years he worked there, from the beginning. No one knew what the hell he did there, but he was just floating around the CEO. He left the company recently, and bought a 5M+ pad in SF. Till today, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who can describe what he did there for 5 years. Look at many of the CEOs of companies. I could argue that for many of them, what value they provide to the company is negligible. The company runs mostly by itself, and they just hang around playing golf, collecting multi-million dollar paychecks. Terry Semel of Yahoo collected 100s of millions of dollars in stocks, but fumbled the Google deal, Facebook, etc. The man couldn't even use the Yahoo search engine properly!

conanbatt 9y ago
Of course that happens, but most of the time it doesnt, simply because its not sustainable. There is no difference for a CEO to be generous with stock to an employee than handing over the cash to his own son. A more valuable employee is going to tend to have better wages.
- 1024core 9y ago
  > A more valuable employee is going to tend to have better wages. I disagree. Wages are a proxy for your value, but not a very accurate one. Among my circle of friends, I've seen 2 of them get significantly different offers for doing very similar jobs. One can negotiate very well; the other is a total nerd. Both are comparable in ability. The negotiator makes nearly 2x as much as the other guy. There is a lot more to compensation than just your "value to the company".
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    One expects that if this thread hangs around long enough, we'll eventually see claims that negotiating well against the firm is actually of some sort of value to the firm.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    I'd answer: who are you to measure the value of your friends? And also, if you have a hotdog stand, you cant pay Elon Musk a lot more than you would pay any highschool kid. You say they have similar jobs, I'll say they aren't , one way or another. If they truly are similar jobs, then one of your friends is getting above his value, or the other below, with the consequences that come from that situation. Value is truly a complicated thing to measure, and it has many axis where it can easily go "out of whack".
- xor1 9y ago
  >Of course that happens, but most of the time it doesnt, simply because its not sustainable. I laughed out loud at this comment. You're cute. You really think things are less likely to happen just because they're unsustainable?

conanbatt 9y ago

Of course that happens, but most of the time it doesnt, simply because its not sustainable. There is no difference for a CEO to be generous with stock to an employee than handing over the cash to his own son. A more valuable employee is going to tend to have better wages.

1024core 9y ago
> A more valuable employee is going to tend to have better wages. I disagree. Wages are a proxy for your value, but not a very accurate one. Among my circle of friends, I've seen 2 of them get significantly different offers for doing very similar jobs. One can negotiate very well; the other is a total nerd. Both are comparable in ability. The negotiator makes nearly 2x as much as the other guy. There is a lot more to compensation than just your "value to the company".
- jessaustin 9y ago
  One expects that if this thread hangs around long enough, we'll eventually see claims that negotiating well against the firm is actually of some sort of value to the firm.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I'd answer: who are you to measure the value of your friends? And also, if you have a hotdog stand, you cant pay Elon Musk a lot more than you would pay any highschool kid. You say they have similar jobs, I'll say they aren't , one way or another. If they truly are similar jobs, then one of your friends is getting above his value, or the other below, with the consequences that come from that situation. Value is truly a complicated thing to measure, and it has many axis where it can easily go "out of whack".
xor1 9y ago
>Of course that happens, but most of the time it doesnt, simply because its not sustainable. I laughed out loud at this comment. You're cute. You really think things are less likely to happen just because they're unsustainable?