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> Everyone at Oxide makes $201,227 USD, regardless of location. Man I would love to work for a company like that. I don't know why more people don't set their
by weystrom 3y ago
> Everyone at Oxide makes $201,227 USD, regardless of location.
Man I would love to work for a company like that. I don't know why more people don't set their startups like that.
- keepamovin 3y agoExactly, man! That's the way it should be done. It's not a company's business to decide how much your life should cost. It's its business to reward you for the value you provide, and that value is not tethered to your location, so neither should be your salary!
- dewey 3y agoThis really is one of these things where every employee in a cheap cost of living area will say "Exactly, man!" and people in an expensive area will see it differently because it might cap them lower than what they could get. I always find that a very naive point of view, of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side, who wouldn't. But I'm also aware that this is not how the world works in reality, there's different tax systems, different expense costs and we don't live in a global one-market world. I find the strategy of defining different "zones", like most of the remote first / salary transparency companies much more realistic.
- throw0101a 3y ago> This really is one of these things where every employee in a cheap cost of living area will say "Exactly, man!" and people in an expensive area will see it differently because it might cap them lower than what they could get. Well the co-founders live in the Silicon Valley area, with their physical HQ being in Emeryville: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeryville,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeryville,_California
- dewey 3y agoEarly stage VC-backed startup compensation is very different from later stage companies or bootstrapped companies. It's very common for founders or early employees to receive a lower salary and receive equity instead.
- throw0101a 3y agoHolding paper-gains equity doesn't provide monthly cashflow to buy groceries. :)
- dewey 3y agoI'm sure 200k will cover that, even in the SV.
- cdchn 3y agoI got some bad news for you.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoThe Bay Area is expensive, but it's not THAT expensive.
- cdchn 3y agoIf you've got a family to support and you need to rent or try to own a home you're going to have a tough time with 200k.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoI don't know how you're coming to that conclusion. 200k's not going to buy you a large house, but it'll comfortably pay rent/food/savings for a 2-3 bedroom house or apartment for a family of 2-4 in all but the very most expensive parts of the Bay. For mortgages, you'd need to be looking in the cheaper parts of the Bay, but that still means "dense, boring suburb" as opposed to "crime-ridden slum".
- tock 3y agoIt's just crab mentality unfortunately.
- wuliwong 3y agoHmmm...I actually had to look up what crab mentality meant but I don't see how it applies here. From my quick lookup, crab mentality apparently refers to a reactionary state of mind where a person wants to sabotage another's success even when it doesn't directly impact their own. In the case of everyone making the same salary, you could certainly still sabotage someone's success but I don't see how having the same salary makes this type of mentality _more_ likely than at a company with a more typical salary distribution. My concern with everyone having the same salaries is that, potentially, employees have less motivation to excel in their individual work and are more likely to do the minimum to just stay in good standing with their employer and not get fired. Maybe a company can offset the lack of direct financial motivation with more of a team motivation that the financial success of the company as a whole results in financial reward for the individual or some other way of recognizing individual success inside the company. I am doubtful this flat salary structure will result in a more successful company overall but I do think it's good to try new things. And yes this has probably been tried a number of times before but maybe not exactly like this. Or maybe some other external variables have changed w.r.t. other attempts in the past and this time it works. The typical salary structures we see in US companies today are the result of a large number of trials and errors and learning.
- tock 3y agoAh I think you misunderstand. I think employees in the west being pissed that someone in a third world country makes the same salary as them is crab mentality. I totally understand why companies want to pay less though. It's massive cost savings and it makes sense for them to hire for less money.
- wild_egg 3y ago> of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side It's not about what you want, it's about knowing your value. If your work is worth a SF salary then that's what you should be getting. Moving from Idaho to SF doesn't magically make you more productive. The company knows it's still getting more value from you than what you're being paid. They just want to keep more of that value for themselves whenever possible. Have some respect for yourself and know your worth
- carbotaniuman 3y agoOr, it could be that being San Francisco has agglomeration effects (granted most startups/companies uterrly fail at this part).
- spacemadness 3y agoI am so confused by this. I demand more in the Bay as Bay area landlords and their Nimby pals are exploitative jerks and California taxes and fees add up quick. Why is that cleanly separated from the discussion? I see it as more “I will demand more here than other places” vs. “I know my worth and it’s exactly X”
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoBeing in SF makes the market for your labor more competitive. If I'm living on a ranch in rural Idaho, I would interact with very few people on a given day, and most of them would be the same people I interacted with yesterday. In SF, I'd be interacting with far more people, and far more new people, with a much higher probability of those people working in tech, some subset of whom will be willing to offer me a job.
- Aurornis 3y ago> Moving from Idaho to SF doesn't magically make you more productive. If your entire world consists of staying home and interacting remotely with a company, then you are correct: Location doesn't change anything. However, moving to a high-energy city with a high density of experienced engineers and tech companies can increase your rate of learning, career advancement, and experience much more rapidly than living in a smaller city. You have to actually branch out and interact with local companies and people, but it does happen. But this is all beside the point. Hiring is a labor market. Developers who live in SF have more high-paid job options to choose from than someone living in Idaho. As a result, you need to bid more to get them into your company. Hence, the higher salary. The discussion about cost of living misses this point. The real reason developers from places like SF get paid more is because if you don't pay them wages that are competitive with their local companies, they're just going to walk away and take any number of higher paying jobs they have access to.
- keepamovin 3y agoIs that why you went to Berlin? How does Berlin compare to SV for cost of living?
- dewey 3y agoThis site is usually helpful: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Germany&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&city2=Berlin&tracking=getDispatchComparison https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
- KomoD 3y agoNo, that should not be trusted, any random person can go mess with the numbers.
- dewey 3y agoJust like Wikipedia and many other information sources. Don't trust one source blindly, do your research and you'll be fine. It gives a good enough general indication. A comparison like this will always depend on too many factors to make it applicable to everyone in any case.
- keepamovin 3y agoInteresting, it's almost double in SV the cost of Berlin! How much salary do you think should allocate to base and how much toward any location adjustments, in general?
- dewey 3y agoI can't answer that, but there's some companies that do all that in public: - https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/ https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensat... - https://www.checklyhq.com/blog/open-sourcing-our-pay-calculator/ https://www.checklyhq.com/blog/open-sourcing-our-pay-calcula... - https://buffer.com/salary-calculator https://buffer.com/salary-calculator
- a_imho 3y agoAssuming interchangeable human resources there are basically 2 options, either the company is extracting more value from everyone than the salaries they pay, in that case paying fairly would eat into the company's bottom line. Poor CXOs would not turn extra profits by keeping less fortunate employees on low salaries but just the regular one. Or the highest paid employees are not pulling their weight and their salaries are already subsidized by the rest of the company, which is also not quite fair. Nevertheless, I agree everyone looks at this problem from their own POV, however it should not be the norm to provide equal compensation for equal work.
- keepamovin 3y agoCan you explain more about your view that it should not be the norm to provide equal compensation for equal work?
- a_imho 3y agoIt was a bad edit, it (should not be controversial | should be the norm) to expect equal compensation for equal work. In slightly more detail https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/what-does-a-wage-gap-look-like/ https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/what-does-a-w... https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2022/09/16/the-wage-gap-2/ https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2022/09/16/the-wage-gap-...
- keepamovin 3y agoIf that's your blog, well done! I am totally on board with everything you say there. I've been thinking this way for years, thanks for articulating some more reasons why this is really important! Love your work! :)
- a_imho 3y agoThank you for taking a look. Be warned though, I'm personally affected and just as biased as everyone else on both sides of the issue.
- azinman2 3y ago> of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side, who wouldn't I wouldn’t. I like cities and center of culture and human activity. And the stats generally show cities growing globally, so I’m not the only one.
- dewey 3y agoReplace "somewhere in the country side" with "some other place where the cost of living is lower than the highest one in the country" if it makes you happier.
- azinman2 3y agoThe same argument applies. Places with high costs of living are high because they’re desirable. There are no cheap cities I’d want to live in.
- keepamovin 3y agoYour perspective on egalitarian salaries is intriguing, but it's important to remember you can't speak for others regarding their intentions or their whys, or what it is for them. You can't pretend to define that for someone who is not you. While you argue it's naive and cite different tax systems and costs, companies are successfully adopting this approach even in high-cost areas like the Valley. It might be hard to argue that the world doesn't work like that in reality, given that it’s already happening. While it may not be widespread, it doesn’t mean it’s without merit or unrealistic. After all, remember that today's 'unrealistic' could be tomorrow's norm! It's tempting to think that people in less expensive areas would be the main proponents of a uniform salary, but the reality is nuanced. Preferences are likely influenced by a variety of factors, not just cost of living. Your later points about the differences between compensation at different company stages are well taken, however it could be difficult to assert how much this dynamic affects preferences given the practice is not limited to early stage companies and equity vests often fail to yield returns. In addition, your suggestion that only people in poor places want egalitarian salaries, could be seen as disrespectful of other people, because it seems to ignores the totality of an individual while preferring to try to reduce them to simplistic motivations. In that way, it’s also considered abusive. And can also be seen as disrespectful of others experience, and maybe arrogant: "Only people in poor areas want such naive, unrealistic salaries." Looking deeper, this aspect of your comment, combined with its narrow focus on a single explanation, might be interpreted as your attempt to express your personal frustrations at your own salary performance, or justify and rationalize why you may not be making more. This might occur because you may find it easier to view something you don't have as unrealistic and naive, rather than the result of choices you could change. In short, while you mention that egalitarian salaries and enthusiastic support of them is naive and unrealistic, it could be argued that the view espoused in your comment is naive and unrealistic because: it lack awareness of complex dynamics; ignores the totality of an individual while preferring to try to reduce them to simplistic motivations, and dismisses real practices as unrealistic, which might also be seen as out of touch. Overall, your views unfortunately could be interpreted as narrow and an expression of personal frustration, instead of a reflection of underlying real dynamics. To conclude, while it's likely there's some truth to the correlation you propose, it's also likely true that even if some correlation exists, location is not the only factor at play. People may have various salary preferences, independent of their location, just as the value they provide is also independent. Finally, indeed, your view could be expressed more respectfully of others. Anywho, it's understandable you may have that perspective, given what your background might be. Yet it's always good to remember that you can adapt your view over time, can grow and can include more data to expand that awareness of reality which you value! :)
- caymanjim 3y agoExcept if everyone gets paid the same, you're not being rewarded for the value you provide. I don't think salary should be tied to location, but it should be tied to experience, ability, and effort.
- keepamovin 3y agoYou raise an important point. There's certainly multiple ways to look at it. The egalitarian way where a business can divide the share of revenue that is allocated for salary equally, no matter the role. This makes sense from a philosophy of everybody being a team and contributing equally to the results of the company. It can foster an esprit de corps and and a sense of fairness. On the negative side it could encourage companies to have more burdensome measures of fairness and contribution, and lead to resentment towards colleagues who don't pull their weight. Then there's the other method, where a value-based salary is allocated to each employee taking into account their experience, ability and effort. Crucially, however, this salary is not adjusted for location. That's the case to which I was speaking, specifically, even tho the type used by 0xide is clearly the egalitarian one.
- svnt 3y agoPresumably their equity is not evenly split.
- dgb23 3y ago> I don't think salary should be tied to location, but it should be tied to experience, ability, and effort. That's the labor theory of value (see: Smith, Marx), which in theory sounds meritocratic but it can't really be measured or assessed. In reality compensation either becomes a function of power, social currency and negotiation skills, which is the general norm in professions, or you have an institutionalized, perhaps even democratic process to determine salaries. Both of these variants generate overhead and are only approximations to what anyone would see as fair. The variant here where everyone gets the same, generous piece of a pie seems refreshingly simple and honest. I would also assume that it attracts the right kind of people, who are intrinsically motivated (at least after the threshold of a very high level of comfort is reached.)
- closeparen 3y agoLocation independence is not the interesting part of Oxide’s compensation strategy. It’s that everyone makes exactly the same. There are no negotiations, no levels, no promotions, and consequently no promo packets or promo projects. This is extremely enticing to FAANG types who are tired of a certain kind of bullshit, at the cost of a certain level of ambition.
- systemvoltage 3y agoI wonder if they offer equity. Hierarchies always form, they tried this with Gore Associates in Arizona (totally flat company structure) and has major problems.
- steveklabnik 3y agoWe are compensated with equity, yes.
- Aurornis 3y agoDo all employees get the same equity? I've worked at two companies where everyone got the same base salary, but the variation came in equity.
- steveklabnik 3y agoI don't know to be honest, but I assume that the equity is variable.
- cdchn 3y agoSelecting for lack of ambition may have some negative consequences on your businesses' ambition.
- closeparen 3y agoBut the problems of engineers optimizing architectures and project plans for their career trajectory over business need are also well-known.
- zensavona 3y agoOne of the many reasons I like working at Crazyegg.
- aabhay 3y agoWorks until you have to hire a designer
- nfriedly 3y agoWhy would that be a problem? Surely there are some designers willing to work for $200k.
- aabhay 3y agoBut very few founders willing to pay a designer that much.
- dcre 3y agoWe have two!
- paryhin 3y agoWe've got designers, me included, and a few others on the team who aren't engineers. I also hail from what people like to call a "third-world country". So far it's working great, and we're hiring more folks from all over the world, not just the USA.
- apexalpha 3y agoDamn that's insane. As someone from Europe these salaries are just extreme. If ya'll are looking for a remote security engineer from Europe hit me up. :) For those numbers I'll walk the servers into the customers myself.
- DonnyV 3y agoSalary is that high in the US because we have no social net or price caps here. Your on your own for everything. Healthcare, retirement, overpriced homes, out of control rent, etc
- throwaway1777 3y agoAlso because you can be fired at any moment.
- bornfreddy 3y agoYou can be fired in EU too, it just costs a few months' salary. And you can't quit without notice too so it goes both ways.
- Yajirobe 3y agoOverpriced homes, out of control rent, retirement are extremely problematic in a lot of European countries. And in the US, healthcare is usually covered by the company (talking about big tech corps). So the extremely high salary is still a net positive compared to EU
- vasco 3y agoThey say they offer healthcare too, not sure how it works for their employees outside the US: https://oxide.computer/blog/benefits-as-a-reflection-of-values https://oxide.computer/blog/benefits-as-a-reflection-of-valu... With this in mind, it's just a good salary. Until they have competition squeezing them on margins it looks like an OK approach. At some point their board most likely won't agree with paying some people below market rates for important roles and other more fungible roles paying 2-3x market rates but while they can keep doing it, it's great free marketing.
- loeg 3y agoWell, it's an immediate stumbling block to hiring anyone currently making more than that, such as senior engineers in the US.
- YorickPeterse 3y agoThat is only a problem if you insist on hiring people from such expensive areas. Given Oxide hires remotely, I doubt this is an actual problem for them.
- mtlynch 3y agoAccording to their LinkedIn[0], 28 of their 52 listed employees live in SF Bay Area, so their salaries wouldn't be that high for that area. [0] https://www.linkedin.com/company/oxidecomputer/people/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/oxidecomputer/people/
- paxys 3y agoNo company wants to hire in expensive areas, but that's just where engineering talent is concentrated.
- YorickPeterse 3y agoAh yes, because good engineers can only be found in San Francisco and similarly expensive areas.
- macintux 3y agoHence the word "concentrated". Your snark seems misdirected. I live in flyover country, and there are no shortage of talented people here, but I wouldn't dispute that the per-capita software developer talent in SF is going to be higher.
- clpmsf 3y agoI think it's mostly societal perception. For whatever reasons, a lot of people seem to think of professionals in SF and NYC as smarter or more capable than professionals from Boise or Salt Lake City. Just like a lot of people assume those who got into Harvard or Stanford as 18yr olds are smarter or more capable than those with degrees from the large public universities.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y agoI can work for half of that in Canada. But I don't have half of the skills :(
- rglover 3y agoBrilliant way to keep your team focused. No drama or in-fighting about who's getting more or less.