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The big question of this is if it's creating "culture debt" that carries interest or not. Specifically, when the time comes to introduce varying comp, will ther

by gfodor 6y ago

The big question of this is if it's creating "culture debt" that carries interest or not. Specifically, when the time comes to introduce varying comp, will there be blowback and possibly worse dynamics than if it had been that way from the beginning? Will anyone ever make less than $175k? I think unless you are certain you want to maintain this forever (and it doesn't sound like Oxide does, they see this as probably changing eventually) then you may be playing with fire for when that day actually comes. I'm really interested to see how that transition goes. The current state of things is just half of the story needed to draw any conclusions about it since the full consequences won't be understood until the company either commits to this being a permanent state of affairs, or successfully introduces variable salaries.

sokoloff 6y ago
If I think as a leader who has seen an org policy change or ten, I predict that they’ll make that change slightly too late, such that it will be obvious to everyone why it’s practically mandatory to do so. If it’s done from a position of strength and obvious need (“we’re growing so fast that we need to bring on a commissioned sales team!” or “we now have thousands of customers who need support but aren’t willing to pay their share of then-$200K to get basic support questions answered” or “we’re expanding into a new office compound where we have to have a security team patrolling to keep the campus safe and we’ve decided to make them employees and give them equity so that they can share in the upside of our company!”), then it will be totally fine. If it’s done from weakness and spiraling downwards, well, it’s just one more bummer speedbump along that road, but it’s the road that sucks not that particular speedbump.
- neilv 6y ago
  In the business-is-booming scenario you mention... could tech support and physical security be done in such a way that it's feasible to pay those people the same comfortable salary as the senior engineers? Such as with help of technology, and making the positions small in number and high in skill? I haven't thought it through, but my initial gut feel is: possibly, if you did it from the start in an org. My next question: if you're successful with creating that warm-fuzzy equitable utopia, but it can't be extended to the whole of society (due to scalability, entrenched interests, conventions, or whatever), then what's the moral and emotional situation around hiring going to be like? For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability? For an emotion example related to that, let's say you can only hire one person, but there are multiple awesome candidates. This is not an unusual situation, and one normally feels a bit bad, but how much worse will you feel, if you're turning people down for a dream job that's "well above market" that they won't find anywhere else? (I'm not suggesting one shouldn't become a doctor because they'll feel bad when they can't heal all their patients, but the question seems worth considering. And maybe the question helps to better understand or articulate what it is everyone believes and wants to do, and what the scope it. Is it explicit that we think such-and-such is a good model for humanity, and we've decided can best tackle that within our little microcosm and whatever example (and market pressure) it sets, and so we're scoping it this-and-that?) BTW, I'm not so worried about retaining the senior engineers, when the person with the (in some ways harder, some ways easier) job of custodian makes as much money as them. If the salary is good, and the work is good, I suspect there's plenty of highly-skilled engineers who'd want to work in a cultural environment like that. And who knows what all effects that might have, or what other crazy, appealing ideas might be pursued there.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    > For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability? Even if you had that laudable motivation, I’d argue that if the going rate for drives a golf-cart security is $25K/yr, you do way more good to hire 3 of them at $66K/yr than 1 of them at $200K. Maybe to the point that hiring 1 @ $200K is arguably less ethical than hiring 3 @ $66K.
    - neilv 6y ago
      Good point. If funds were the factor limiting how many people we hired (with some desired qualification/potential) at 6x economic elevation, then it might be better to hire 3 times the number of people at only 2x elevation. But were that funds limit a bit fuzzy, and we had the option to pay each of those 3-times-the-people at the $200K we decided was the amount to live comfortably in that place, that'd be another option. (Not to sound all college-frosh socialist. I just suppose I shouldn't get too comfortable with societal compromises, since, if something doesn't bother me, I'm less likely to try to improve it. I also shouldn't congratulate myself on being bothered, and confuse any comfort from that with having actually made any effort on the problem.)

by gfodor 6y ago

sokoloff 6y ago

If I think as a leader who has seen an org policy change or ten, I predict that they’ll make that change slightly too late, such that it will be obvious to everyone why it’s practically mandatory to do so. If it’s done from a position of strength and obvious need (“we’re growing so fast that we need to bring on a commissioned sales team!” or “we now have thousands of customers who need support but aren’t willing to pay their share of then-$200K to get basic support questions answered” or “we’re expanding into a new office compound where we have to have a security team patrolling to keep the campus safe and we’ve decided to make them employees and give them equity so that they can share in the upside of our company!”), then it will be totally fine. If it’s done from weakness and spiraling downwards, well, it’s just one more bummer speedbump along that road, but it’s the road that sucks not that particular speedbump.

neilv 6y ago
In the business-is-booming scenario you mention... could tech support and physical security be done in such a way that it's feasible to pay those people the same comfortable salary as the senior engineers? Such as with help of technology, and making the positions small in number and high in skill? I haven't thought it through, but my initial gut feel is: possibly, if you did it from the start in an org. My next question: if you're successful with creating that warm-fuzzy equitable utopia, but it can't be extended to the whole of society (due to scalability, entrenched interests, conventions, or whatever), then what's the moral and emotional situation around hiring going to be like? For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability? For an emotion example related to that, let's say you can only hire one person, but there are multiple awesome candidates. This is not an unusual situation, and one normally feels a bit bad, but how much worse will you feel, if you're turning people down for a dream job that's "well above market" that they won't find anywhere else? (I'm not suggesting one shouldn't become a doctor because they'll feel bad when they can't heal all their patients, but the question seems worth considering. And maybe the question helps to better understand or articulate what it is everyone believes and wants to do, and what the scope it. Is it explicit that we think such-and-such is a good model for humanity, and we've decided can best tackle that within our little microcosm and whatever example (and market pressure) it sets, and so we're scoping it this-and-that?) BTW, I'm not so worried about retaining the senior engineers, when the person with the (in some ways harder, some ways easier) job of custodian makes as much money as them. If the salary is good, and the work is good, I suspect there's plenty of highly-skilled engineers who'd want to work in a cultural environment like that. And who knows what all effects that might have, or what other crazy, appealing ideas might be pursued there.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  > For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability? Even if you had that laudable motivation, I’d argue that if the going rate for drives a golf-cart security is $25K/yr, you do way more good to hire 3 of them at $66K/yr than 1 of them at $200K. Maybe to the point that hiring 1 @ $200K is arguably less ethical than hiring 3 @ $66K.
  - neilv 6y ago
    Good point. If funds were the factor limiting how many people we hired (with some desired qualification/potential) at 6x economic elevation, then it might be better to hire 3 times the number of people at only 2x elevation. But were that funds limit a bit fuzzy, and we had the option to pay each of those 3-times-the-people at the $200K we decided was the amount to live comfortably in that place, that'd be another option. (Not to sound all college-frosh socialist. I just suppose I shouldn't get too comfortable with societal compromises, since, if something doesn't bother me, I'm less likely to try to improve it. I also shouldn't congratulate myself on being bothered, and confuse any comfort from that with having actually made any effort on the problem.)