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>The root of the question is: what determines compensation at companies? So let's say I start a company selling cars. I decide to sell my cars for $1. It's a t

>The root of the question is: what determines compensation at companies? So let's say I start a company selling cars. I decide to sell my cars for $1. It's a terrible business model, and I don't make much money. So according to you, because my company makes no money, I should be allowed to pay my staff way under market. This doesn't make sense to me, despite being obviously illegal. The amount of money you paid for labor is decided by a market. Just because I have a horrible business model of giving away cars for free does not entitle to me to underpay for labor. And conversely, if I am a good engineer working for Wikipedia, and FB offers me a much better paying job, I will probably jump ship to FB. Employee retention is a problem for any company. Now I'm not saying Wikipedia is completely justified in paying the exact same pay grade as FAANG, but it's ridiculous to me that there are so many tears about an executive member of Wikipedia making the same amount of money as a middle manager at Facebook. We are not even comparing directors, we are comparing rank & file to the CEO of another company and people still have a problem with it. >It's disingenuous at best to connect a nonprofit's executive staff making large salaries with raising the minimum wage I don't see how the argument is different. I don't think engineers working at Wikipedia should make 300k because they work at Wikipedia. I don't think cashiers working at McDonalds should make $15/hr because they work at McDonalds. You are removing the value of their work simply based on where you think their social status should be,

mithr 5y ago
It has little to do with social status, and everything to do with your implicit assumption that SV salaries are the tech world's equivalent of minimum wage. In reality, SV salaries are the highest in the tech world, not the lowest. Not paying SV salaries is not equivalent to "paying your stuff under market", because SV is not the market -- it's the highest-paying corner of the market. The better analogy here is GoldBurger, which is a very successful burger chain that sells gold-plated $200 burgers and pays its employees $100/hr. Would it then be reasonable for my local mom-and-pop burger joint, where the most expensive burger costs $5, to compete with GoldBurger on salary? Would the cashiers making only $20/hr at my local joint be paid "way under market" just because GoldBurger exists? The fact that GoldBurger exists and can create very well-paying jobs for its cashiers doesn't mean that suddenly the entire base of the market rises up to match it. It just means that, all else being equal, it's entirely possible that potential employees will go with GoldBurger rather than my local joint, if given the choice, and the local joint will have to hire other folks. If every burger joint was like GoldBurger, my local joint would be in trouble. But that doesn't tend to be the case, and it isn't the case in the tech world, either.

mithr 5y ago

It has little to do with social status, and everything to do with your implicit assumption that SV salaries are the tech world's equivalent of minimum wage. In reality, SV salaries are the highest in the tech world, not the lowest. Not paying SV salaries is not equivalent to "paying your stuff under market", because SV is not the market -- it's the highest-paying corner of the market. The better analogy here is GoldBurger, which is a very successful burger chain that sells gold-plated $200 burgers and pays its employees $100/hr. Would it then be reasonable for my local mom-and-pop burger joint, where the most expensive burger costs $5, to compete with GoldBurger on salary? Would the cashiers making only $20/hr at my local joint be paid "way under market" just because GoldBurger exists? The fact that GoldBurger exists and can create very well-paying jobs for its cashiers doesn't mean that suddenly the entire base of the market rises up to match it. It just means that, all else being equal, it's entirely possible that potential employees will go with GoldBurger rather than my local joint, if given the choice, and the local joint will have to hire other folks. If every burger joint was like GoldBurger, my local joint would be in trouble. But that doesn't tend to be the case, and it isn't the case in the tech world, either.