5 ms·

I mean, Wikimedia has about 250-300 employees and what they pay their CEO is about what Facebook and Google pay a senior SWE. They seem to run pretty lean to me

by t8sr 3y ago

I mean, Wikimedia has about 250-300 employees and what they pay their CEO is about what Facebook and Google pay a senior SWE. They seem to run pretty lean to me. Firing everyone and moving to a cheap country doesn't seem feasible, and they already are apparently moving a lot of their hiring to Germany. I don't really see what's outrageous here? > Obviously it's become a gravy train . Oh come on - their CEO manages 250 people and gets paid what a SWE with 3 years of experience gets paid down the street. Their engineers are paid like a third of what they could be making at Amazon. Nobody is doing this for the money. EDIT: As a comparison for people unaware of the cost of living in SF, a bus driver makes about 80k a year. A senior SWE at Wikimedia makes about 120k, according to levels.fyi.

bomewish 3y ago
the reason people find these massive pay packets unbecoming is because it's a nonprofit. Companies can do what they like -- but these folks are going hat in hand to civilians and asking for handouts, which they then use to people these people 700k. Are you happy to subsidize that? I suspect many normal people donors would not be.
- ertian 3y ago
  This seems to me like a strange and counterproductive attitude. People are fine with Facebook or Google manipulating them and extracting vast amounts of money from them and handing it out to their employees, but get upset when an extremely useful product simply asks for voluntary payment from time to time to pay out a fraction as much in order to retain talent? The world would be better off if people were happy to donate to useful products like Wikipedia, and encouraged high pay there (because with a large enough denominator, it's an insignificant amount of money to users), and more upset about the exploitative practices of mainstream companies. Then we might see more open and straightforward services like Wikipedia, and fewer creepy and insidious businesses like Facebook or Google (thinking specifically of YouTube and it's attempts to drive 'engagement' here...)
  - bomewish 3y ago
    Hm. Though I'm skeptical it's really "talent" in the sense of purely meritocratic ability, you know? It seems cronyish. Why does a nonprofit actually need someone who is "worth" 700k/year? Would that person be able to command that much in private industry? In theory, if they could legitimately pull down 700k from nonprofit work, this suggests they would be worth far _more_ in industry. The Wikimedia foundation does not oversee a fast growing startup. They need to maintain a website. Why does that need 200 staff and some of them pulling down 700k? The other thing is that nonprofits have a fundamental misalignment in product market fit. They are not selling a good to a customer, so the feedback loop is not tight. They have to convince donors of their value, fundamentally an ideological proposition in many ways, but the donors are not the consumers of the product. So there's an information asymmetry there. Of course I agree on all your points about corporates. But nonprofits get a special status -- both in terms of tax and in the eyes of the public -- so we hold them to a different standard.
    - t8sr 3y ago
      It's hard to argue with someone who calls running Wikipedia "maintaining a website". Either you have never worked in the industry or you're just being intellectually dishonest. It will take you 5 minutes to find videos of the CEO of Wikipedia talking to congressional committees about just a small selection of stuff she was dealing with. And for doing that she was paid what a staff software engineer makes for taking 6 months to change the shade of blue of a button in gmail.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
It says 700 employees and contractors in 2022. I wonder what the biggest departments are. Do you think Sysadmin / tech / development is the highest? followed by editors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation
noobermin 3y ago
To be honest, this more highlights how far out of step tech salaries are with...well everyone else.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Tall poppy syndrome
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- t8sr 3y ago
  A bus driver in San Francisco makes about 80k on average, ranging up to about 150k AFAIK. The higher end is more than a senior engineer makes at Wikimedia in California. It maybe highlights that salaries in the US are higher than in much of the rest of the world, but I don't think that's Wikimedia's fault.
  - toadi 3y ago
    Maybe US is out of whack a bit with salaries. As software engineer I never made 80k in Europe. I made more when I was freelance engineer. Now I live in Asia only the very senior people will make like around 100k. I have had several leadership roles still not make as much money as a SWE in America. Now I bought land and build a nice house on it, with a big garden, pool and big garage for my motorcycles. All out of my own pocket without going into debt. Think in the end it is not the size of the paycheck that matters. But quality of life is calculated with cost of living and your paycheck.
    - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
      Which part of Asia?
  - akolbe 3y ago
    Relatively few Wikimedia staff are in San Francisco. Nearly half are outside the United States: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Foundation_Details#Compensation_Principles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... As for the other side of the equation, revenue, most of that is from readers' donations. And most of that comes from North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia. But the Foundation also shows its fundraising messages and sends its fundraising emails begging readers to chip in in places like India, Brazil and South Africa: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2021-22_Report https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2021-22_Report
cubefox 3y ago
They obviously don't need 250 to 300 people. They need a few server admins and software developers, but no thinly veiled activists.
- flerovium 3y ago
  What are their engineers working on?
  - swalling 3y ago
    The entire annual plan is public. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... (The "infrastructure" goal is the one related to engineering).
superchroma 3y ago
Yeah but this isn't Facebook, it's just a free encyclopedia.

by t8sr 3y ago

bomewish 3y ago

the reason people find these massive pay packets unbecoming is because it's a nonprofit. Companies can do what they like -- but these folks are going hat in hand to civilians and asking for handouts, which they then use to people these people 700k. Are you happy to subsidize that? I suspect many normal people donors would not be.

ertian 3y ago
This seems to me like a strange and counterproductive attitude. People are fine with Facebook or Google manipulating them and extracting vast amounts of money from them and handing it out to their employees, but get upset when an extremely useful product simply asks for voluntary payment from time to time to pay out a fraction as much in order to retain talent? The world would be better off if people were happy to donate to useful products like Wikipedia, and encouraged high pay there (because with a large enough denominator, it's an insignificant amount of money to users), and more upset about the exploitative practices of mainstream companies. Then we might see more open and straightforward services like Wikipedia, and fewer creepy and insidious businesses like Facebook or Google (thinking specifically of YouTube and it's attempts to drive 'engagement' here...)
- bomewish 3y ago
  Hm. Though I'm skeptical it's really "talent" in the sense of purely meritocratic ability, you know? It seems cronyish. Why does a nonprofit actually need someone who is "worth" 700k/year? Would that person be able to command that much in private industry? In theory, if they could legitimately pull down 700k from nonprofit work, this suggests they would be worth far _more_ in industry. The Wikimedia foundation does not oversee a fast growing startup. They need to maintain a website. Why does that need 200 staff and some of them pulling down 700k? The other thing is that nonprofits have a fundamental misalignment in product market fit. They are not selling a good to a customer, so the feedback loop is not tight. They have to convince donors of their value, fundamentally an ideological proposition in many ways, but the donors are not the consumers of the product. So there's an information asymmetry there. Of course I agree on all your points about corporates. But nonprofits get a special status -- both in terms of tax and in the eyes of the public -- so we hold them to a different standard.
  - t8sr 3y ago
    It's hard to argue with someone who calls running Wikipedia "maintaining a website". Either you have never worked in the industry or you're just being intellectually dishonest. It will take you 5 minutes to find videos of the CEO of Wikipedia talking to congressional committees about just a small selection of stuff she was dealing with. And for doing that she was paid what a staff software engineer makes for taking 6 months to change the shade of blue of a button in gmail.

ThinkBeat 3y ago

It says 700 employees and contractors in 2022. I wonder what the biggest departments are. Do you think Sysadmin / tech / development is the highest? followed by editors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation

noobermin 3y ago

To be honest, this more highlights how far out of step tech salaries are with...well everyone else.

kortilla 3y ago
Tall poppy syndrome
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
t8sr 3y ago
A bus driver in San Francisco makes about 80k on average, ranging up to about 150k AFAIK. The higher end is more than a senior engineer makes at Wikimedia in California. It maybe highlights that salaries in the US are higher than in much of the rest of the world, but I don't think that's Wikimedia's fault.
- toadi 3y ago
  Maybe US is out of whack a bit with salaries. As software engineer I never made 80k in Europe. I made more when I was freelance engineer. Now I live in Asia only the very senior people will make like around 100k. I have had several leadership roles still not make as much money as a SWE in America. Now I bought land and build a nice house on it, with a big garden, pool and big garage for my motorcycles. All out of my own pocket without going into debt. Think in the end it is not the size of the paycheck that matters. But quality of life is calculated with cost of living and your paycheck.
  - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
    Which part of Asia?
- akolbe 3y ago
  Relatively few Wikimedia staff are in San Francisco. Nearly half are outside the United States: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Foundation_Details#Compensation_Principles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... As for the other side of the equation, revenue, most of that is from readers' donations. And most of that comes from North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia. But the Foundation also shows its fundraising messages and sends its fundraising emails begging readers to chip in in places like India, Brazil and South Africa: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2021-22_Report https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2021-22_Report

cubefox 3y ago

They obviously don't need 250 to 300 people. They need a few server admins and software developers, but no thinly veiled activists.

flerovium 3y ago
What are their engineers working on?
- swalling 3y ago
  The entire annual plan is public. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... (The "infrastructure" goal is the one related to engineering).

superchroma 3y ago

Yeah but this isn't Facebook, it's just a free encyclopedia.