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In a remote-working world, the best talent should always command top-dollar, regardless of where they live. If they are absolutely rockstar talent and can be ju

In a remote-working world, the best talent should always command top-dollar, regardless of where they live. If they are absolutely rockstar talent and can be just as good remotely, then why wouldn't they command the highest salary? In fact, they should be able to command even more money now as all the remote-OK companies bid for them without any friction over moving / commute issues. Honestly it's a win-win-win - a win for the company that has far larger talent pool, win for the employee who gets paid more and can move to a more desirable, low cost-of-living location, and win for the "left-behind" areas of the country where many rich techies will move to. This will reduce class divisions and equalize our communities without any coercion and continue to allow highly-skilled labor to extract maximum income from capital. I very much like this shift towards remote work - it is the silver lining to come out of the pandemic.

tomarr 6y ago
Well this assumes the management cost (or inefficiency) does not go up for remote, which is unclear.
- jnwatson 6y ago
  From personal experience, top-tier individual contributors are cheaper to manage.
  - kevinventullo 6y ago
    That's part of what makes them top-tier!
- corobo 6y ago
  Considering all the middle managers I know of are desperately trying to get the workforce back into offices because they seemingly have bugger-all to do now, I'd say you can cut out a fair few of them if you need to balance out a new cost. Without being overworked, can a remote manager manage more people than an on-site manager? I don't know any remote managers
  - thedufer 6y ago
    > Considering all the middle managers I know of are desperately trying to get the workforce back into offices because they seemingly have bugger-all to do now, I'd say you can cut out a fair few of them if you need to balance out a new cost. Are you sure you've diagnosed this correctly? The managers I know are ready to get back to the office for the exact opposite reason - managing remotely is much harder and more time-consuming.
    - corobo 6y ago
      I'm talking about the types that value ass in seat over output. Of course good managers are still needed :)
gotoeleven 6y ago
The best talent always has and always will command top-dollar. We're talking about reddit here.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
I think there's an even simpler reason than this... some companies that hire remote employees use the same payscale everywhere, and that gives remote workers substantial negotiation leverage. An offer for remote work from one employer that was NYC-based and offered me an NYC-competitive salary in a much cheaper city was enough to talk a different company which leveled by city substantially upwards. Having watched this effect happen, if I were considering moving while working for a company that would relevel salary based on CoL, I would almost certainly be considering offers from other employers - and if I were a manager with an employee who was moving to go remote I would really push back on adjusting their salary, knowing that there are competing employers who won't, and the employee will probably find out one way or another. I wouldn't call myself a source of advice on remote work necessarily because I kind of fell into remote work by accident pre-COVID, and COVID has really solidified the situation. But it also seems like remote work is going to be on the rise outside of the context of COVID. I live in a city with very little tech industry and so I only rarely here from recruiters, and those that do contact me are usually talking about relo to a different city. Just over the last two months or so I've started hearing from recruiters at nearly the level I did when I lived in San Francisco - and they're mostly not talking relo.
Barrin92 6y ago
>if they are absolutely rockstar talent and can be just as good remotely, then why wouldn't they command the highest salary? because this isn't how market economics work. You're not payed for being a rockstar, you're payed for the least amount of money you're willing to work for. Indian rockstar coders may be as productive as American ones, the difference is their cost of living is lower, so they're willing to do the same work for less money. Same reason your barista in SF makes more money than the same barista in Podunk Idaho despite serving just as much coffee.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  The end result will be a huge equalization in pay. People in low cost of living areas will become a lot richer and those in high cost of living places will become a lot poorer. Likely those high cost of living places will quickly drop in cost as most people spread out.
  - xur17 6y ago
    This seems like a desirable outcome. Wouldn't this mean a more even distribution of wealth rather than large concentrations in a few big cities?
    - Rebelgecko 6y ago
      It's interesting because that equalization would only affect people in certain industries which are already fairly well compensated. If people making tech salaries move to overlooked parts of the country, I wonder to what extent their wealth would trickle down to benefit their new communities? It would be interesting if a bunch of people leaving the Bay Area ended up congregating in certain low-COL communities. I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass?
      - webmaven 6y ago
        > I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass? You'd see something like that, but keep in mind that outside of dense urban cores, you mostly don't have the same constraints on available real estate that drive existing residents out by rising prices (and the SF Bay Area's lack of housing inventory is largely self-inflicted, unlike, say, Manhattan). So, yes, some competition from well-heeled newcomers will drive prices up a bit (encouraging new construction), but without a constraint on housing inventory that drives the newcomers to compete with each other, what you get is just a bit of urbanization, rather than gentrification per-se.

tomarr 6y ago

Well this assumes the management cost (or inefficiency) does not go up for remote, which is unclear.

jnwatson 6y ago
From personal experience, top-tier individual contributors are cheaper to manage.
- kevinventullo 6y ago
  That's part of what makes them top-tier!
corobo 6y ago
Considering all the middle managers I know of are desperately trying to get the workforce back into offices because they seemingly have bugger-all to do now, I'd say you can cut out a fair few of them if you need to balance out a new cost. Without being overworked, can a remote manager manage more people than an on-site manager? I don't know any remote managers
- thedufer 6y ago
  > Considering all the middle managers I know of are desperately trying to get the workforce back into offices because they seemingly have bugger-all to do now, I'd say you can cut out a fair few of them if you need to balance out a new cost. Are you sure you've diagnosed this correctly? The managers I know are ready to get back to the office for the exact opposite reason - managing remotely is much harder and more time-consuming.
  - corobo 6y ago
    I'm talking about the types that value ass in seat over output. Of course good managers are still needed :)

gotoeleven 6y ago

The best talent always has and always will command top-dollar. We're talking about reddit here.

jcrawfordor 6y ago

I think there's an even simpler reason than this... some companies that hire remote employees use the same payscale everywhere, and that gives remote workers substantial negotiation leverage. An offer for remote work from one employer that was NYC-based and offered me an NYC-competitive salary in a much cheaper city was enough to talk a different company which leveled by city substantially upwards. Having watched this effect happen, if I were considering moving while working for a company that would relevel salary based on CoL, I would almost certainly be considering offers from other employers - and if I were a manager with an employee who was moving to go remote I would really push back on adjusting their salary, knowing that there are competing employers who won't, and the employee will probably find out one way or another. I wouldn't call myself a source of advice on remote work necessarily because I kind of fell into remote work by accident pre-COVID, and COVID has really solidified the situation. But it also seems like remote work is going to be on the rise outside of the context of COVID. I live in a city with very little tech industry and so I only rarely here from recruiters, and those that do contact me are usually talking about relo to a different city. Just over the last two months or so I've started hearing from recruiters at nearly the level I did when I lived in San Francisco - and they're mostly not talking relo.

Barrin92 6y ago

>if they are absolutely rockstar talent and can be just as good remotely, then why wouldn't they command the highest salary? because this isn't how market economics work. You're not payed for being a rockstar, you're payed for the least amount of money you're willing to work for. Indian rockstar coders may be as productive as American ones, the difference is their cost of living is lower, so they're willing to do the same work for less money. Same reason your barista in SF makes more money than the same barista in Podunk Idaho despite serving just as much coffee.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
The end result will be a huge equalization in pay. People in low cost of living areas will become a lot richer and those in high cost of living places will become a lot poorer. Likely those high cost of living places will quickly drop in cost as most people spread out.
- xur17 6y ago
  This seems like a desirable outcome. Wouldn't this mean a more even distribution of wealth rather than large concentrations in a few big cities?
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    It's interesting because that equalization would only affect people in certain industries which are already fairly well compensated. If people making tech salaries move to overlooked parts of the country, I wonder to what extent their wealth would trickle down to benefit their new communities? It would be interesting if a bunch of people leaving the Bay Area ended up congregating in certain low-COL communities. I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass?
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass? You'd see something like that, but keep in mind that outside of dense urban cores, you mostly don't have the same constraints on available real estate that drive existing residents out by rising prices (and the SF Bay Area's lack of housing inventory is largely self-inflicted, unlike, say, Manhattan). So, yes, some competition from well-heeled newcomers will drive prices up a bit (encouraging new construction), but without a constraint on housing inventory that drives the newcomers to compete with each other, what you get is just a bit of urbanization, rather than gentrification per-se.