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Would be interesting to know if they discriminate pay, according to where the person works from. Edit: Further down the page I saw: "Why they pay based on wher

Would be interesting to know if they discriminate pay, according to where the person works from. Edit: Further down the page I saw: "Why they pay based on where team members live". That's petty.

systemtest 7y ago
That is similar to paying an employee more because they have children and need it more.
- dudul 7y ago
  I've never heard of a company doing that.
  - dx034 7y ago
    And yet, a lot of remote companies pay differently based on location. I'm also not quite sure why the choice of location should be factored in but family planning not. Paying the same, regardless of location, would maybe motivate some people to move away from crowded areas, one of the big chances remote work offers.
    - fernandotakai 7y ago
      i remember one company (i wanna say basecamp?) that pays everyone as if they lived in the bay area. i found that to be super amazing -- if they are profiting like bay area companies, why not also pay like bay area companies?
    - davnicwil 7y ago
      I think the standard argument is not that they're paying according to need, they're paying according to market norms. Thing is, in high cost of living areas the living cost is extremely pegged to job opportunities, it's almost tautological. Where there are more job opportunities, you have to pay people more to stop them working for competitors. A confounding factor is a hypothesised (not sure if backed by data) trend of talent concentration - that is, areas with lots of job opportunities attract most of the most talented people, driving salaries up further. All that's to say, if Gitlab want to hire someone living in such an area, the market dictates they must pay more in order to attract that person over a local competitor (for jobs). It's not due to the person needing the money more for a higher cost of living, at all.
      - imsofuture 7y ago
        Gitlab's idea of market norms is "market where you live + us, literally the only company that hires remote in the world". Spoiler: that only works hiring those who are ignorant of the remote employment market.
        alexhutcheson 7y ago
        Assuming I'm currently ignorant of the remote employment market, where would I go to find data or job listings that would give me a sense of what competitive rates are for remote engineers?
        imsofuture 7y ago
        I'm not sure there's a great canonical and generalized source of this information. Anecdotally, 7 years ago, remote, at a bootstrapped 15 person company, I made ~10% more than the absolute max Gitlab would pay me right now. The difference is wildly worse now.
      - stubish 7y ago
        What is never factored in is the feeling of resentment people get for doing the same or better work for less pay. While companies can rationalize these pay scales and maybe even require them to be sustainable, loyalty and engagement suffers noticeably.
  - Crontab 7y ago
    The only one I know of is the military.
  - systemtest 7y ago
    If your boss asks you to work overtime or on the weekends, explaining that you need to bring the kids to soccer is a more convincing argument than explaining that your WoW guild is depending on you for a raid. Having kids is hard but may make things easier at the office.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Not unless there's an incredibly strong link between having children and having strong alternative employment prospects. Which I don't have data on but doubt, and if I had to take a guess would assume actually works the other way. That the childless have more options.
  - imsofuture 7y ago
    This is a bad argument, because there are many other remote employers. I do not live in a low CoL area because I'm from here and never left, nor did I move here to save money. I moved here because I was able to keep a high paying career, and live somewhere I wanted to live. Gitlab is flat-out non-competitive.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - caymanjim 7y ago
    There is an incredibly strong link between having children and alternative employment prospects. People with kids in school have complicated scheduling needs and can't easily relocate, unless they homeschool all their kids.
zufallsheld 7y ago
You can check your compensation here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
- lukedegruchy 7y ago
  For Canada, Toronto and Vancouver are considered distinct from the rest of their provinces, but not Montreal from the rest of Quebec.
ThePadawan 7y ago
FYI Gitlab quite readily publicize their salary calculator at https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... .
- sytse 7y ago
  Thanks for posting our calculator. More context about us paying local rates is in https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/
  - trilila 7y ago
    Interesting, I calculated the salary in the country I am right now, and pay is way above local pay - which is good. I earn more tho with a different company working remotely, but they don't discriminate based on location. Equal amount of effort, means equal amount of pay in their view. My take aways from the blog post: "if everyone is paid the same role-based salary, the company would not be able to hire as many team members" - obviously cheaper labour means more resources. "If everyone is paid a standard salary, those who live in high-income areas would have less discretionary income when compared to their counterparts in lower-income communities." - that is the choice of those living in high income areas, and I don't see why those who make the financially sensible choice of living in a more affordable area should be penalised. However, and this is quite important, given how high salaries at Gitlab are (based on the calculator), I see no issue with this kind of discrimination. I assumed the gap might be bigger. At the end of they day it has to be a win win situation. I will refrain from criticising this "issue" from now on as I don't see any ill intention in it. Keep up the good work!
    - stubish 7y ago
      One thing I notice with the calculator is it is a simple scaling factor. While this scales for an employee's cost of living, it also scales how much they can save. An employee on $200k in San Francisco spending 50% on their lifestyle and no kids can retire by 40 to a more economically sane region with similar facilities. A similar employee doing the same job in that more economically sane region for $100k spending that same 50% is working until they are 50. Which ends up meaning that in the cheaper regions you are only recruiting from the pool of people unable to move to wealthier regions with higher pay (which granted is a high proportion due to family).
tooop 7y ago
What if somebody in SF was employed remotely by a company in a poorer country? Should the person in SF be paid less because employees in originating country have lower salaries?. Having salaries based on location is fair, the same job that pays 120k$ in SF pays 70k$ in my country and that makes me in top 2% earners in the country. I could argue that i actually get more with 70k$ in my country than somebody with 120k$ in SF.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Having salaries based on location is fair It's no more fair than paying based on lifestyle choices; if any employee in SF is providing labor worth $200k, then an employee in Bucharest providing the same labor is also worth $200k. The fact that the SF employee has higher expenses doesn't make their labor more valuable. Sure, they are paying more to live in a more desirable location, but that no more deserves higher pay from a remote employer than an employee paying more to live in a bigger house, or to consume more expensive designer drugs outside of work hours.
  - ellius 7y ago
    But prices aren't based on fairness, they are based on demand and supply. If there is a supply of workers willing to work at a lower price in areas outside of San Francisco, then it makes sense for a company to purchase their cheaper labor if it supplies the same value as the more expensive labor.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > But prices aren't based on fairness, they are based on demand and supply If they were based on supply and demand, locality of seller would have no effect on the price buyers were willing to pay for goods that aren't location-sensitive, e.g., remote work, because it's not a location-bound market and goods would trade at the global market clearing price absent (inefficient) artificial market segmentation that is only possible (for buyers) when there is an effective monopsony for the particular good/service being purchased (since competition would exploit the underpriced segments buy buying up what they are selling at a price above what the attempted segmenter was offering.)
alexhutcheson 7y ago
This post from GitLab has their official explanation of why they pay local rates: https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/
- lordfoom 7y ago
  That's a lot of spin on "to save money". They mention San Francisco rents, but they fail to mention all the advantages of living in San Francisco. Awesome for the folks in San Fran to have their lifestyle's subsidized. AND then they spread some FUD with "Remote companies using a standard pay structure are reportedly running into problems with their compensation plans" - nice and vague and ominous. Doesn't even mention what issues they're running into, just "issues". AND then they end with the weak they " hope location band salaray gaps will continue to narrow", as if they genuinely wish they could pay more, but their hands are tied. I think gitlab is a great project, but that is some grade A bullshit.
  - andrew_ 7y ago
    One of the benefits of working remotely is that we can escape our local markets' pay scales. Working from anywhere shouldn't negatively affect one's value.
- umeshunni 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. I had a look at their stock options page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/ and think that it's very misleading. > The reason we give stock options instead of straight stock is that you do not need to spend any money to purchase the stock at the date of grant and can decide to purchase the stock later as your options vest. In addition, we do not provide straight stock grants since this may subject you to immediate tax liabilities. Having worked at pre-IPO companies before, both these statements are untrue 1. Most companies issue RSUs instead of straight up stock. No one makes you 'buy' your RSUs. 2. Every pre-IPO company has a double-trigger vest condition where you 'own' the stock only at IPO or acquisition and you only owe taxes then (and most companies auto-sell a portion at IPO to cover taxes).
mynegation 7y ago
There is nothing petty about it. Everyone does it, but GitLab is just more transparent about it. It is up to you whether you accept the compensation level or not, GitLab is far from a monopoly on labour demand
- dexterdog 7y ago
  How do they handle a hire that lives in SF so he has to be paid the max who then moves somewhere else to drop his own cost of living?
  - emilycook 7y ago
    https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/#relocating https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Everyone does not do this. I work remote and get a fair market rate (for the value I add, not based on where I live). Unfortunately I couldn't apply to Gitlab last time I was in the market for work because their salaries are both lower in general and lowered even further due to geo adjustment. I'm fully a fan and believer of remote work, but you need to pay your employees just like any other top tier company would. It's actually even more important as you really want the best people for remote work since they need to be excellent communicators and more self-directed than in-house employees.
  - meowface 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, how long has your company been in existence for? This seems like something a more established company could do more easily.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      It's a startup. I actually find it to be the case that early stage companies are more willing to do remote work. In part because it's a way for them to broaden their options.
caymanjim 7y ago
This has always bothered me about GitLab and has prevented me from applying for a job there. I want to work remotely so I can move around a lot, both for long-term travel and to check out different places to live. I don't have a home. If I'm hired from NYC and then I move to rural Montana, that's none of their business. So long as I have reliable Internet wherever I am, and can work the hours I need (I'm happy to adjust my work schedule to Eastern Time from anywhere in the world, for example), then I should be paid based on my work. Is GitLab going to pay for my rental homes and airfare as I wander around the world? Are they going to adjust my pay every time I move? Are they going to pay me more because I spend a year in an RV and fuel is expensive? Are they going to adjust my pay for rent in the Cayman Islands even though food and electricity are the primary expenses there, rather than rent? The whole thing smacks of socialism as well, and reminds me of the line from some Ayn Rand novel (not endorsing her): "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Do they also plan to pay their employees based on their medical expenses and how many kids they have?
- vidarh 7y ago
  > This has always bothered me about GitLab and has prevented me from applying for a job there. That seems exceedingly silly to me. If they offer you pay you're happy with, what does it matter to you? As for your concerns about moving, then that would be a logical thing to ask about, just like discussing your remote working needs would be important with any other prospective employers. As it stands, fully remote employment opportunities are rare enough that it'd seem bothering to actually clarify details would be worthwhile if they otherwise seem like they might be a good fit. > The whole thing smacks of socialism as well, and reminds me of the line from some Ayn Rand novel (not endorsing her): "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Do they also plan to pay their employees based on their medical expenses and how many kids they have? This, to me, is ridiculous. It smacks of a private company optimizing pay for what they can get away with in different locations, rather than paying based on the most expensive area they want to be able to hire in. The missing piece that distinguishes what they do from socialism is that there is no indication that Gitlab aims to pay out as much as possible of their revenue after other costs to employees vs. building shareholder value. As far as I'm aware Gitlab is not a workers coop. The line was incidentally popularized by Karl Marx "Critique of the Gotha Programme" (1875), and variations of it in the socialist community and elsewhere long preceded the Critique. Arguably it originates in the Bible (Acts 4:32-35; describing the community of Christians in Jerusalem), but then early Christianity was in many ways a "proto-socialism" (and e.g. in Europe, things like public healthcare in most countries have come about thanks to interplay between Christian democrats and socialists, not due to socialists alone; Germany, in fact, got its first insurance system as Bismarck appealed to Christian morality to get support for a system designed to kill of support for the socialist groups he at the same time outlawed). Ayn Rand borrowed it explicitly for one of her attacks on socialism, but missed the mark badly in that Marx in the Critique itself points out that "Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby," or in other words, according to Marx a company in a capitalist economy can not successfully act as a socialist company - doing so is impossible because it needs to interact with and compete with capitalist companies on capitalist terms, which means the ability to optimize salaries and employment to minimize cost for example. So Ayn Rand concocted a scenario that Marx would have agreed with her was doomed to failure.
Androider 7y ago
It's interesting that a lot of people in this thread seem to assume that the end-goal of remote working becoming mainstream and some inherent sense of fairness is that everyone ends up being paid SF wages in the end. But basic economic theory says that if remote working becomes the new standard, you should expect the salaries between high and low COL to average out. So somewhere between SF and an Asian sweatshop... let's say a Berlin developer salary. That's not great for the SF developers, and also why SF is one of the last places I would expect remote work take off. Companies that want to hire remotely rarely publish wages online for this exact reason. They get called out for being "cheap" and "I can make X times more in SF". Yes, but most companies in the world are not looking for and can not compete for SF developers with the FAANGS in the first place. When the company is not in the Bay Area, them posting a non-SF salary is not trying to screw you over, hiring you was never on the table. Unfortunately they cannot say simply that in the job ad without calling down an epic shitstorm.

Would be interesting to know if they discriminate pay, according to where the person works from. Edit: Further down the page I saw: "Why they pay based on where team members live". That's petty.

systemtest 7y ago

That is similar to paying an employee more because they have children and need it more.

dudul 7y ago
I've never heard of a company doing that.
- dx034 7y ago
  And yet, a lot of remote companies pay differently based on location. I'm also not quite sure why the choice of location should be factored in but family planning not. Paying the same, regardless of location, would maybe motivate some people to move away from crowded areas, one of the big chances remote work offers.
  - fernandotakai 7y ago
    i remember one company (i wanna say basecamp?) that pays everyone as if they lived in the bay area. i found that to be super amazing -- if they are profiting like bay area companies, why not also pay like bay area companies?
  - davnicwil 7y ago
    I think the standard argument is not that they're paying according to need, they're paying according to market norms. Thing is, in high cost of living areas the living cost is extremely pegged to job opportunities, it's almost tautological. Where there are more job opportunities, you have to pay people more to stop them working for competitors. A confounding factor is a hypothesised (not sure if backed by data) trend of talent concentration - that is, areas with lots of job opportunities attract most of the most talented people, driving salaries up further. All that's to say, if Gitlab want to hire someone living in such an area, the market dictates they must pay more in order to attract that person over a local competitor (for jobs). It's not due to the person needing the money more for a higher cost of living, at all.
    - imsofuture 7y ago
      Gitlab's idea of market norms is "market where you live + us, literally the only company that hires remote in the world". Spoiler: that only works hiring those who are ignorant of the remote employment market.
      - alexhutcheson 7y ago
        Assuming I'm currently ignorant of the remote employment market, where would I go to find data or job listings that would give me a sense of what competitive rates are for remote engineers?
        imsofuture 7y ago
        I'm not sure there's a great canonical and generalized source of this information. Anecdotally, 7 years ago, remote, at a bootstrapped 15 person company, I made ~10% more than the absolute max Gitlab would pay me right now. The difference is wildly worse now.
    - stubish 7y ago
      What is never factored in is the feeling of resentment people get for doing the same or better work for less pay. While companies can rationalize these pay scales and maybe even require them to be sustainable, loyalty and engagement suffers noticeably.
- Crontab 7y ago
  The only one I know of is the military.
- systemtest 7y ago
  If your boss asks you to work overtime or on the weekends, explaining that you need to bring the kids to soccer is a more convincing argument than explaining that your WoW guild is depending on you for a raid. Having kids is hard but may make things easier at the office.
austhrow743 7y ago
Not unless there's an incredibly strong link between having children and having strong alternative employment prospects. Which I don't have data on but doubt, and if I had to take a guess would assume actually works the other way. That the childless have more options.
- imsofuture 7y ago
  This is a bad argument, because there are many other remote employers. I do not live in a low CoL area because I'm from here and never left, nor did I move here to save money. I moved here because I was able to keep a high paying career, and live somewhere I wanted to live. Gitlab is flat-out non-competitive.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- caymanjim 7y ago
  There is an incredibly strong link between having children and alternative employment prospects. People with kids in school have complicated scheduling needs and can't easily relocate, unless they homeschool all their kids.

zufallsheld 7y ago

You can check your compensation here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...

lukedegruchy 7y ago
For Canada, Toronto and Vancouver are considered distinct from the rest of their provinces, but not Montreal from the rest of Quebec.

ThePadawan 7y ago

FYI Gitlab quite readily publicize their salary calculator at https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... .

sytse 7y ago
Thanks for posting our calculator. More context about us paying local rates is in https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/
- trilila 7y ago
  Interesting, I calculated the salary in the country I am right now, and pay is way above local pay - which is good. I earn more tho with a different company working remotely, but they don't discriminate based on location. Equal amount of effort, means equal amount of pay in their view. My take aways from the blog post: "if everyone is paid the same role-based salary, the company would not be able to hire as many team members" - obviously cheaper labour means more resources. "If everyone is paid a standard salary, those who live in high-income areas would have less discretionary income when compared to their counterparts in lower-income communities." - that is the choice of those living in high income areas, and I don't see why those who make the financially sensible choice of living in a more affordable area should be penalised. However, and this is quite important, given how high salaries at Gitlab are (based on the calculator), I see no issue with this kind of discrimination. I assumed the gap might be bigger. At the end of they day it has to be a win win situation. I will refrain from criticising this "issue" from now on as I don't see any ill intention in it. Keep up the good work!
  - stubish 7y ago
    One thing I notice with the calculator is it is a simple scaling factor. While this scales for an employee's cost of living, it also scales how much they can save. An employee on $200k in San Francisco spending 50% on their lifestyle and no kids can retire by 40 to a more economically sane region with similar facilities. A similar employee doing the same job in that more economically sane region for $100k spending that same 50% is working until they are 50. Which ends up meaning that in the cheaper regions you are only recruiting from the pool of people unable to move to wealthier regions with higher pay (which granted is a high proportion due to family).

tooop 7y ago

What if somebody in SF was employed remotely by a company in a poorer country? Should the person in SF be paid less because employees in originating country have lower salaries?. Having salaries based on location is fair, the same job that pays 120k$ in SF pays 70k$ in my country and that makes me in top 2% earners in the country. I could argue that i actually get more with 70k$ in my country than somebody with 120k$ in SF.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Having salaries based on location is fair It's no more fair than paying based on lifestyle choices; if any employee in SF is providing labor worth $200k, then an employee in Bucharest providing the same labor is also worth $200k. The fact that the SF employee has higher expenses doesn't make their labor more valuable. Sure, they are paying more to live in a more desirable location, but that no more deserves higher pay from a remote employer than an employee paying more to live in a bigger house, or to consume more expensive designer drugs outside of work hours.
- ellius 7y ago
  But prices aren't based on fairness, they are based on demand and supply. If there is a supply of workers willing to work at a lower price in areas outside of San Francisco, then it makes sense for a company to purchase their cheaper labor if it supplies the same value as the more expensive labor.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > But prices aren't based on fairness, they are based on demand and supply If they were based on supply and demand, locality of seller would have no effect on the price buyers were willing to pay for goods that aren't location-sensitive, e.g., remote work, because it's not a location-bound market and goods would trade at the global market clearing price absent (inefficient) artificial market segmentation that is only possible (for buyers) when there is an effective monopsony for the particular good/service being purchased (since competition would exploit the underpriced segments buy buying up what they are selling at a price above what the attempted segmenter was offering.)

alexhutcheson 7y ago

This post from GitLab has their official explanation of why they pay local rates: https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/

lordfoom 7y ago
That's a lot of spin on "to save money". They mention San Francisco rents, but they fail to mention all the advantages of living in San Francisco. Awesome for the folks in San Fran to have their lifestyle's subsidized. AND then they spread some FUD with "Remote companies using a standard pay structure are reportedly running into problems with their compensation plans" - nice and vague and ominous. Doesn't even mention what issues they're running into, just "issues". AND then they end with the weak they " hope location band salaray gaps will continue to narrow", as if they genuinely wish they could pay more, but their hands are tied. I think gitlab is a great project, but that is some grade A bullshit.
- andrew_ 7y ago
  One of the benefits of working remotely is that we can escape our local markets' pay scales. Working from anywhere shouldn't negatively affect one's value.
umeshunni 7y ago
Thanks for sharing that. I had a look at their stock options page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/ and think that it's very misleading. > The reason we give stock options instead of straight stock is that you do not need to spend any money to purchase the stock at the date of grant and can decide to purchase the stock later as your options vest. In addition, we do not provide straight stock grants since this may subject you to immediate tax liabilities. Having worked at pre-IPO companies before, both these statements are untrue 1. Most companies issue RSUs instead of straight up stock. No one makes you 'buy' your RSUs. 2. Every pre-IPO company has a double-trigger vest condition where you 'own' the stock only at IPO or acquisition and you only owe taxes then (and most companies auto-sell a portion at IPO to cover taxes).

mynegation 7y ago

There is nothing petty about it. Everyone does it, but GitLab is just more transparent about it. It is up to you whether you accept the compensation level or not, GitLab is far from a monopoly on labour demand

dexterdog 7y ago
How do they handle a hire that lives in SF so he has to be paid the max who then moves somewhere else to drop his own cost of living?
- emilycook 7y ago
  https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/#relocating https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
malvosenior 7y ago
Everyone does not do this. I work remote and get a fair market rate (for the value I add, not based on where I live). Unfortunately I couldn't apply to Gitlab last time I was in the market for work because their salaries are both lower in general and lowered even further due to geo adjustment. I'm fully a fan and believer of remote work, but you need to pay your employees just like any other top tier company would. It's actually even more important as you really want the best people for remote work since they need to be excellent communicators and more self-directed than in-house employees.
- meowface 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, how long has your company been in existence for? This seems like something a more established company could do more easily.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    It's a startup. I actually find it to be the case that early stage companies are more willing to do remote work. In part because it's a way for them to broaden their options.

caymanjim 7y ago

This has always bothered me about GitLab and has prevented me from applying for a job there. I want to work remotely so I can move around a lot, both for long-term travel and to check out different places to live. I don't have a home. If I'm hired from NYC and then I move to rural Montana, that's none of their business. So long as I have reliable Internet wherever I am, and can work the hours I need (I'm happy to adjust my work schedule to Eastern Time from anywhere in the world, for example), then I should be paid based on my work. Is GitLab going to pay for my rental homes and airfare as I wander around the world? Are they going to adjust my pay every time I move? Are they going to pay me more because I spend a year in an RV and fuel is expensive? Are they going to adjust my pay for rent in the Cayman Islands even though food and electricity are the primary expenses there, rather than rent? The whole thing smacks of socialism as well, and reminds me of the line from some Ayn Rand novel (not endorsing her): "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Do they also plan to pay their employees based on their medical expenses and how many kids they have?

vidarh 7y ago
> This has always bothered me about GitLab and has prevented me from applying for a job there. That seems exceedingly silly to me. If they offer you pay you're happy with, what does it matter to you? As for your concerns about moving, then that would be a logical thing to ask about, just like discussing your remote working needs would be important with any other prospective employers. As it stands, fully remote employment opportunities are rare enough that it'd seem bothering to actually clarify details would be worthwhile if they otherwise seem like they might be a good fit. > The whole thing smacks of socialism as well, and reminds me of the line from some Ayn Rand novel (not endorsing her): "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Do they also plan to pay their employees based on their medical expenses and how many kids they have? This, to me, is ridiculous. It smacks of a private company optimizing pay for what they can get away with in different locations, rather than paying based on the most expensive area they want to be able to hire in. The missing piece that distinguishes what they do from socialism is that there is no indication that Gitlab aims to pay out as much as possible of their revenue after other costs to employees vs. building shareholder value. As far as I'm aware Gitlab is not a workers coop. The line was incidentally popularized by Karl Marx "Critique of the Gotha Programme" (1875), and variations of it in the socialist community and elsewhere long preceded the Critique. Arguably it originates in the Bible (Acts 4:32-35; describing the community of Christians in Jerusalem), but then early Christianity was in many ways a "proto-socialism" (and e.g. in Europe, things like public healthcare in most countries have come about thanks to interplay between Christian democrats and socialists, not due to socialists alone; Germany, in fact, got its first insurance system as Bismarck appealed to Christian morality to get support for a system designed to kill of support for the socialist groups he at the same time outlawed). Ayn Rand borrowed it explicitly for one of her attacks on socialism, but missed the mark badly in that Marx in the Critique itself points out that "Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby," or in other words, according to Marx a company in a capitalist economy can not successfully act as a socialist company - doing so is impossible because it needs to interact with and compete with capitalist companies on capitalist terms, which means the ability to optimize salaries and employment to minimize cost for example. So Ayn Rand concocted a scenario that Marx would have agreed with her was doomed to failure.

Androider 7y ago

It's interesting that a lot of people in this thread seem to assume that the end-goal of remote working becoming mainstream and some inherent sense of fairness is that everyone ends up being paid SF wages in the end. But basic economic theory says that if remote working becomes the new standard, you should expect the salaries between high and low COL to average out. So somewhere between SF and an Asian sweatshop... let's say a Berlin developer salary. That's not great for the SF developers, and also why SF is one of the last places I would expect remote work take off. Companies that want to hire remotely rarely publish wages online for this exact reason. They get called out for being "cheap" and "I can make X times more in SF". Yes, but most companies in the world are not looking for and can not compete for SF developers with the FAANGS in the first place. When the company is not in the Bay Area, them posting a non-SF salary is not trying to screw you over, hiring you was never on the table. Unfortunately they cannot say simply that in the job ad without calling down an epic shitstorm.