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Value tends to scale with scarcity, economics 101. Gitlab doesn't have to pay people higher salaries for living in HCOL. All it should care about is talent leve

Value tends to scale with scarcity, economics 101. Gitlab doesn't have to pay people higher salaries for living in HCOL. All it should care about is talent level, which should favor hiring talented people not in HCOL.

TulliusCicero 8y ago
> Value tends to scale with scarcity, economics 101. By this reasoning, you'd expect to find the most "valuable" baseball players in areas devoid of professional baseball teams. Something tells me you didn't completely think this through. Gitlab is willing to pay high salaries for people living in expensive areas for essentially the same reason Google's dev offices are mostly located in expensive areas.
- richardwhiuk 8y ago
  Baseball players move to where there are teams.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    And programmers tend to move where there are tech companies.
    - richardwhiuk 8y ago
      Less so. If you want to play in MLB (and you do, because that's where any of the money is) then you have to move to where there's an MLB stadium - the team isn't going to move to you. Whereas, there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world, and companies offer remote work, which will reduce the differentiation - but not eliminate it.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        >there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world I question whether there are many companies that, aside from executives or other high value employees, pay similar salaries around the world. I imagine at least some pay comparable salaries across the US--or at least salaries that don't completely follow CoL--but pay Indian or Chinese developers what they pay Bay Area ones? That seems unlikely at any scale.
      - TulliusCicero 8y ago
        That's why I said "tend to move", yes. > there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world The jobs with the really high salaries (and arguably the most exciting coding jobs) are disproportionately located in a handful of major tech hubs.
- flamedoge 8y ago
  Programming is unique in that you don't have to be physically located in same place as others to do work. It's no brainer why GitLab is targeting this "hidden" talent pool.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Yes and no. I’ve had the opportunity to try some state of the art telepresence/teleconferencing kit. Stuff that they visit your office before they decide if they’ll sell it to you and then do a custom fit-out of a suite. Imagine the swankiest private cinema, x10, and another one on the far side. It doesn’t hold a candle to a bunch of guys in a room at a physical whiteboard, for the sheer collaboration bandwidth. Fully-remote has its use cases, but it doesn’t cover all use cases.
    - skeptic_69 8y ago
      I agree.
- wolco 8y ago
  Most players drafted are not from big cities with professional teams. Most are from smaller farming communities, poorer countries, etc. The reason is big city kids have better options with higher success rate compared to more rural kids.
- randomdata 8y ago
  > By this reasoning, you'd expect to find the most "valuable" baseball players in areas devoid of professional baseball teams. Why? Scarcity is dependent on demand. Something that absolutely nobody wants will never be scarce, even if the quantities of said thing are small in absolute numbers. If there is no professional baseball team, presumably nobody needs a professional baseball player, and thus professional baseball players won't be scarce at all, but rather infinitely abundant and pay will reflect that by trending towards zero.
WhompingWindows 8y ago
Following your logic, the value of someone in a high-demand market like SF or NYC will be higher, because it'll be much harder to find someone to do the job for the same low price as someone in a non-HCOL area. I mean those willing to work for the same price as a LCOL engineer in a HCOL area are very scarce, so they WOULD contribute good value on average if only you could hire them. But you probably can not, and I agree with the comment above yours. Maybe compensation/bonuses/promotions are the proper way to reward those who have proven their added value.
stetrain 8y ago
If a bunch of companies started setting equal salaries for remote work not dependent on location, then over a long period of time the workers with the desired talent level would migrate to areas with low cost of living and start applying for those jobs. The issue is that today the people with the desired talent level are likely to have already moved to a HCOL area because that's where the highest concentration of available work is. You have to compete with the other jobs they could take that are scaled to the HCOL area. Turns out popuplation migration is not instantaneous, spherical, or frictionless.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> Value tends to scale with scarcity, economics 101. By this reasoning, you'd expect to find the most "valuable" baseball players in areas devoid of professional baseball teams. Something tells me you didn't completely think this through. Gitlab is willing to pay high salaries for people living in expensive areas for essentially the same reason Google's dev offices are mostly located in expensive areas.

richardwhiuk 8y ago
Baseball players move to where there are teams.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  And programmers tend to move where there are tech companies.
  - richardwhiuk 8y ago
    Less so. If you want to play in MLB (and you do, because that's where any of the money is) then you have to move to where there's an MLB stadium - the team isn't going to move to you. Whereas, there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world, and companies offer remote work, which will reduce the differentiation - but not eliminate it.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      >there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world I question whether there are many companies that, aside from executives or other high value employees, pay similar salaries around the world. I imagine at least some pay comparable salaries across the US--or at least salaries that don't completely follow CoL--but pay Indian or Chinese developers what they pay Bay Area ones? That seems unlikely at any scale.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      That's why I said "tend to move", yes. > there are many more software companies that pay roughly the same wages all of the world The jobs with the really high salaries (and arguably the most exciting coding jobs) are disproportionately located in a handful of major tech hubs.
flamedoge 8y ago
Programming is unique in that you don't have to be physically located in same place as others to do work. It's no brainer why GitLab is targeting this "hidden" talent pool.
- gaius 8y ago
  Yes and no. I’ve had the opportunity to try some state of the art telepresence/teleconferencing kit. Stuff that they visit your office before they decide if they’ll sell it to you and then do a custom fit-out of a suite. Imagine the swankiest private cinema, x10, and another one on the far side. It doesn’t hold a candle to a bunch of guys in a room at a physical whiteboard, for the sheer collaboration bandwidth. Fully-remote has its use cases, but it doesn’t cover all use cases.
  - skeptic_69 8y ago
    I agree.
wolco 8y ago
Most players drafted are not from big cities with professional teams. Most are from smaller farming communities, poorer countries, etc. The reason is big city kids have better options with higher success rate compared to more rural kids.
randomdata 8y ago
> By this reasoning, you'd expect to find the most "valuable" baseball players in areas devoid of professional baseball teams. Why? Scarcity is dependent on demand. Something that absolutely nobody wants will never be scarce, even if the quantities of said thing are small in absolute numbers. If there is no professional baseball team, presumably nobody needs a professional baseball player, and thus professional baseball players won't be scarce at all, but rather infinitely abundant and pay will reflect that by trending towards zero.

WhompingWindows 8y ago

Following your logic, the value of someone in a high-demand market like SF or NYC will be higher, because it'll be much harder to find someone to do the job for the same low price as someone in a non-HCOL area. I mean those willing to work for the same price as a LCOL engineer in a HCOL area are very scarce, so they WOULD contribute good value on average if only you could hire them. But you probably can not, and I agree with the comment above yours. Maybe compensation/bonuses/promotions are the proper way to reward those who have proven their added value.

stetrain 8y ago

If a bunch of companies started setting equal salaries for remote work not dependent on location, then over a long period of time the workers with the desired talent level would migrate to areas with low cost of living and start applying for those jobs. The issue is that today the people with the desired talent level are likely to have already moved to a HCOL area because that's where the highest concentration of available work is. You have to compete with the other jobs they could take that are scaled to the HCOL area. Turns out popuplation migration is not instantaneous, spherical, or frictionless.