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Sigh. If you are running a start up and you're using this to fuck over your very first employees' salary then please take a long hard look at yourself in the m

Sigh. If you are running a start up and you're using this to fuck over your very first employees' salary then please take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. You are decieving the very people you are hiring to make your business a success. Are you really cut out for this kind of work if you deliberately fucked over your first and likely some of the most important employees in your business? Just to save a tiny fraction of some VC's money? With respect, I think if this is you then you may as well shut the startup now and save everyone the time and pain and money that will inevitably come later (either due to failure stemming from your questionable ethics and questionable business acumen evident from your hiring practices, or when your employees/engineers #1-10 realised you conned them and they leave for someone else and leave you in the lurch at some critical point). It's not going to be a great experience for anyone.

godzillabrennus 8y ago
Even later stage companies should wise up. It costs a fortune to recruit talent into a company. Any small bumps in pay you can offer to increase retention is a good idea.
hitekker 8y ago
"Come here and belong!" is the startup siren song. In my experience, even YC startups don't actually care for their employees outside of their contributions to the team. The only things that matter are the customers, the investors, and the founders-- and sometimes not even the customers. The ideal of a small company worrying about its rank-and-file, fighting "evil" giant megacorp is frankly just a useful ruse to buy developers on the cheap. Why pay a wage when you can give kool-aid?
joshu 8y ago
Your points notwithstanding, “some VCs money” could not be more wrong.
geebee 8y ago
Underpaying based on an information advantage, as a strategy, seems very self-defeating. The reason is that engineers who figure start to suspect that they are overpaid are unlikely to go confront their managers about it - they will first test their value by applying for other jobs. Once they get a much better offer, they are likely to leave rather than use it to negotiate. I've wondered why this happens so much, and I think some of it comes down to a personality difference between management types and many engineering types. Managers and other negotiating types aren't uncomfortable with the process, to the point where they are often bewildered that someone would go through all of that (leaving the company) when they could have just asked for more money.

godzillabrennus 8y ago

Even later stage companies should wise up. It costs a fortune to recruit talent into a company. Any small bumps in pay you can offer to increase retention is a good idea.

hitekker 8y ago

"Come here and belong!" is the startup siren song. In my experience, even YC startups don't actually care for their employees outside of their contributions to the team. The only things that matter are the customers, the investors, and the founders-- and sometimes not even the customers. The ideal of a small company worrying about its rank-and-file, fighting "evil" giant megacorp is frankly just a useful ruse to buy developers on the cheap. Why pay a wage when you can give kool-aid?

joshu 8y ago

Your points notwithstanding, “some VCs money” could not be more wrong.

geebee 8y ago

Underpaying based on an information advantage, as a strategy, seems very self-defeating. The reason is that engineers who figure start to suspect that they are overpaid are unlikely to go confront their managers about it - they will first test their value by applying for other jobs. Once they get a much better offer, they are likely to leave rather than use it to negotiate. I've wondered why this happens so much, and I think some of it comes down to a personality difference between management types and many engineering types. Managers and other negotiating types aren't uncomfortable with the process, to the point where they are often bewildered that someone would go through all of that (leaving the company) when they could have just asked for more money.