In a "traditional" pay model, nobody knows what anybody else makes and everybody gets what they negotiate for. Presumably candidates' cost of living would facto

In a "traditional" pay model, nobody knows what anybody else makes and everybody gets what they negotiate for. Presumably candidates' cost of living would factor in to what they ask for. But automatically and transparently paying people based on their location is weird to me. If Bob has chosen to live in a place where houses are insanely expensive, or if Bob has chosen to drive a luxury car or keep a pet elephant, those are Bob's decisions. None of them mean that he contributes more to the company. Also, since a company has non-infinite funds for salary, paying Bob more to live in SF inherently means that the company either pays less money to Alice in Arizona, thereby incentivizing her to quit or move to SF, or else doesn't hire Carol. > One of the corporate advantages of 100% remote is the business can pay your team whatever their local market rate is What if instead you framed it as "we can offer almost-SF rates to people all over the U.S., which makes us one of the top choices for every dev outside the big cities"? That's a huge talent pool to take your pick from. Seems like a competitive advantage to me.