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Everyone at Oxide makes the same salary: >We decided to do something outlandishly simple: take the salary that Steve, Jess, and I were going to pay ourselves,

Everyone at Oxide makes the same salary: >We decided to do something outlandishly simple: take the salary that Steve, Jess, and I were going to pay ourselves, and pay that to everyone. [https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-values https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-...] Does everyone at Oxide have the same equity grant?

actionfromafar 1y ago
That would be even more outlandish, I don't think that's possible.
- kylebenzle 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - draw_down 1y ago
    [dead]
- lumost 1y ago
  It depends, there are certainly founders who come from sufficient money that the value of founding a unicorn is not material to their Net worth. However I’d also suggest that the concentration of tech in the last decade is also partly due to startups chronically stiffing their employees on equity. The difference in compensation potential naturally forces a talent split where talent joins larger and much better compensated firms.
illegalmemory 1y ago
They have since updated it slightly > Since originally writing this blog entry in 2021, we have increased our salary a few times, and it now stands at $207,264. We have also added some sales positions that have variable compensation, consisting of a lower base salary and a commission component.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  so basically everything converges to having specific reasons to have different salary schemes.
  - liamkinne 1y ago
    Yes, but you aren't wasting time early on negotiating compensation.
  - ArnoVW 1y ago
    One exception, for sales. I don't see how they could have done it differently. We have a "one rate per level" rule. The rates are published, and so are the definitions of the levels, and everyone's level (i.e. indirectly you can know everyone's salary) Worked great, untill we started to look for sales. Doesn't work. They only know incentive-based schemes. So now they have an incentive-based scheme just for the sales, which is (essentially) budgetted from their stock-option package (that everyone gets). I.e. they benefit from growth a little bit earlier and directer. If we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have a sales department.
    - abxyz 1y ago
      I argued this in the previous discussion about oxide’s compensation structure: I disagree that sales must be commission based. Yes, finding sales staff that are willing to work for a salary and equity shrinks the pool but the same is true of engineers willing to work for a flat rate across the company. Sales might seem mystical and magical to engineers but it isn’t. A small company with a small sales team can absolutely work without commission. Yes, it is harder, but it is not impossible. The carve out for sales undermines the ideas behind a flat salary structure. Just because we can measure a sales person’s contributions in dollar amounts does not mean we must measure it in dollar amounts. Sales is as much about the partnerships between sales people and product/engineering, why aren’t all the people who work on a deal getting commission? I’d go as far as to argue that oxide is in the perfect position as a big-ticket long-cycle business to abandon traditional sales commission structures. They take on all the negatives (sales people overselling to get commission) with no benefits. There are other ideas. Company wide bonus based on sales made during the year?
dustingetz 1y ago
indeed, founders are generally compensated at half the competitive rate
NewUser76312 1y ago
Of course not, what's the purpose of asking such as silly question? Are you being snarky and suggesting that employees deserve the same upside that founders deserve?
- diggan 1y ago
  > Of course not, what's the purpose of asking such as silly question? How is it silly if they already do that for salaries? Co-ops with equal ownership isn't unheard of, and isn't silly at all.
  - AngryData 1y ago
    Yeah they aren't unheard of at all, co-ops have had slow but steady growth in the market for some decades now.
    - cpach 1y ago
      I’m not sure I follow. In what market(s)?
      - aapoalas 1y ago
        One famous example is Igalia, doing Open Source consulting for various companies, including Google, Apple, and others. They're a worker owned co-op and have grown very nicely over the years.
        cpach 1y ago
        Igalia are very cool! Not sure if it’s so easy to reproduce their success (if I’m wrong on that point, that’s only good I guess).
      - AngryData 1y ago
        Agriculture has a lot, utility services including fiber internet, electrical, and natural gas, many credit unions, there are a few retail stores like REI, mutual insurances, a number of pharmacies and homecare and other health services are co-op, many other worker co-ops, and there are a decent number of housing co-ops. Other than maybe a few rural fiber co-ops most are not super fast growing businesses, and they lack attention seeking rich owners, so they don't get a lot of attention, but co-ops as a whole has steadily gained more market presence nearly across the board over the decades.
Aurornis 1y ago
> Does everyone at Oxide have the same equity grant? I thought I saw this question answered in a previous thread and the answer was basically “no”, but the question has been avoided a lot. Aspects of equity compensation would inherently need to be different over time due to valuation, fundraising stage, and so on. However I always thought it was strange that they made a big deal about paying everyone the same base salary but then were silent on the equity comp strategy. Everyone knows that in a job like this the total comp is important. The old Oxide compensation discussions were interesting. There was discussion about how they thought candidates asking about compensation to be something of a negative signal because they wanted people who weren’t in it for the money, basically. I heard this from a now ex-employee of Oxide who was describing how to navigate their hiring process, so take with a grain of salt. EDIT: I checked their website again. The compensation link goes to a blog post ( https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-values/ https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-... ) which has this section about equity: > Some will say that we should be talking about equity, not cash compensation. While it’s true that startup equity is important, it’s also true that startup equity doesn’t pay the orthodontist’s bill or get the basement repainted. We believe that every employee should have equity to give them a stake in the company’s future (and that an outsized return for investors should also be an outsized return for employees), but we also believe that the presence of equity can’t be used as an excuse for unsustainably low cash compensation. As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-depth treatment, but in short, equity compensates for risk – and in a startup, risk reduces over time: the first employee takes much more risk than the hundredth. Which doesn't answer the question.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  Anyone who doesn’t ask about compensation (at least at a later point in the interview process) would be a red flag to me. Most valuable people know they’re valuable, and do (and should!) negotiate compensation.
  - ge96 1y ago
    self esteem problem ha (not asking or thinking low)
Etheryte 1y ago
Out of curiosity, how would you imagine that working out, technically and specifically? You start out with founders having equity, and maybe some early investors. Then you employ some people and... what happens exactly? Are new shares created, is everyone who was already onboard slowly diluted, what happens when someone joins and leaves? Etc, I don't think there is an approach to this where all sides would be happy, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
- steveklabnik 1y ago
  Not your parent, and not suggesting in any way that Oxide is one, but the key term you want to search to learn more about that kind of arrangement is "worker owned cooperatives." There's a lot of variety in how it's handled.
kortilla 1y ago
This has been the biggest red flag to me about oxide since these blogs came out. You don’t join a startup for salary and every startup I’ve been at that emphasizes fair salaries is doing that to intentionally discourage people from pushing on total compensation. Employees apart from the very early ones are likely really getting fucked on equity because oxide explicitly treats candidates asking about equity as a red flag. Companies structured like this end up turning into a combination of rich people who don’t need money and are just interested in the problem space and then mediocre people who can’t get a better offer. (If you are good, remote work with high TC is definitely available.) Unless Oxide is giving out huge equity bonuses for good perf (which would make their comp post hypocritical), it’s going to have a continuous talent decline as it grows. There aren’t enough independently wealthy high performers interested in what Oxide is doing to sustain a talent pool.
- mwcampbell 1y ago
  > (If you are good, remote work with high TC is definitely available.) But how good do you have to be at things other than the work itself (edit: and how lucky as well) to land one of those jobs with higher compensation? For someone outside of high-cost-of-living tech hubs, Oxide's fixed salary could be life-changing all by itself, even with minimal equity. The fact that they take that deal doesn't necessarily mean that they're mediocre.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > For someone outside of high-cost-of-living tech hubs, Oxide's fixed salary could be life-changing all by itself, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at compensation tables and reference data. $200K is definitely good salary, but I wouldn’t call it “life changing” relative to what someone qualified to work at Oxide could earn in an average non-tech hub metro area. The type of candidate who qualifies to work at Oxide has numerous options for high paying remote work, and probably well paying local work too.
  - kortilla 1y ago
    Assuming they are exclusively hiring US, in a low CoL area $200k sets you up for a solid middle to upper middle class lifestyle. That’s a Walmart store manager. You’re not gonna retire early, take years off at a time, or anything else like that which the big tech companies RSU grants can get you.

actionfromafar 1y ago

That would be even more outlandish, I don't think that's possible.

kylebenzle 1y ago
[flagged]
- draw_down 1y ago
  [dead]
lumost 1y ago
It depends, there are certainly founders who come from sufficient money that the value of founding a unicorn is not material to their Net worth. However I’d also suggest that the concentration of tech in the last decade is also partly due to startups chronically stiffing their employees on equity. The difference in compensation potential naturally forces a talent split where talent joins larger and much better compensated firms.

illegalmemory 1y ago

They have since updated it slightly > Since originally writing this blog entry in 2021, we have increased our salary a few times, and it now stands at $207,264. We have also added some sales positions that have variable compensation, consisting of a lower base salary and a commission component.

ekianjo 1y ago
so basically everything converges to having specific reasons to have different salary schemes.
- liamkinne 1y ago
  Yes, but you aren't wasting time early on negotiating compensation.
- ArnoVW 1y ago
  One exception, for sales. I don't see how they could have done it differently. We have a "one rate per level" rule. The rates are published, and so are the definitions of the levels, and everyone's level (i.e. indirectly you can know everyone's salary) Worked great, untill we started to look for sales. Doesn't work. They only know incentive-based schemes. So now they have an incentive-based scheme just for the sales, which is (essentially) budgetted from their stock-option package (that everyone gets). I.e. they benefit from growth a little bit earlier and directer. If we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have a sales department.
  - abxyz 1y ago
    I argued this in the previous discussion about oxide’s compensation structure: I disagree that sales must be commission based. Yes, finding sales staff that are willing to work for a salary and equity shrinks the pool but the same is true of engineers willing to work for a flat rate across the company. Sales might seem mystical and magical to engineers but it isn’t. A small company with a small sales team can absolutely work without commission. Yes, it is harder, but it is not impossible. The carve out for sales undermines the ideas behind a flat salary structure. Just because we can measure a sales person’s contributions in dollar amounts does not mean we must measure it in dollar amounts. Sales is as much about the partnerships between sales people and product/engineering, why aren’t all the people who work on a deal getting commission? I’d go as far as to argue that oxide is in the perfect position as a big-ticket long-cycle business to abandon traditional sales commission structures. They take on all the negatives (sales people overselling to get commission) with no benefits. There are other ideas. Company wide bonus based on sales made during the year?

dustingetz 1y ago

indeed, founders are generally compensated at half the competitive rate

NewUser76312 1y ago

Of course not, what's the purpose of asking such as silly question? Are you being snarky and suggesting that employees deserve the same upside that founders deserve?

diggan 1y ago
> Of course not, what's the purpose of asking such as silly question? How is it silly if they already do that for salaries? Co-ops with equal ownership isn't unheard of, and isn't silly at all.
- AngryData 1y ago
  Yeah they aren't unheard of at all, co-ops have had slow but steady growth in the market for some decades now.
  - cpach 1y ago
    I’m not sure I follow. In what market(s)?
    - aapoalas 1y ago
      One famous example is Igalia, doing Open Source consulting for various companies, including Google, Apple, and others. They're a worker owned co-op and have grown very nicely over the years.
      - cpach 1y ago
        Igalia are very cool! Not sure if it’s so easy to reproduce their success (if I’m wrong on that point, that’s only good I guess).
    - AngryData 1y ago
      Agriculture has a lot, utility services including fiber internet, electrical, and natural gas, many credit unions, there are a few retail stores like REI, mutual insurances, a number of pharmacies and homecare and other health services are co-op, many other worker co-ops, and there are a decent number of housing co-ops. Other than maybe a few rural fiber co-ops most are not super fast growing businesses, and they lack attention seeking rich owners, so they don't get a lot of attention, but co-ops as a whole has steadily gained more market presence nearly across the board over the decades.

Aurornis 1y ago

> Does everyone at Oxide have the same equity grant? I thought I saw this question answered in a previous thread and the answer was basically “no”, but the question has been avoided a lot. Aspects of equity compensation would inherently need to be different over time due to valuation, fundraising stage, and so on. However I always thought it was strange that they made a big deal about paying everyone the same base salary but then were silent on the equity comp strategy. Everyone knows that in a job like this the total comp is important. The old Oxide compensation discussions were interesting. There was discussion about how they thought candidates asking about compensation to be something of a negative signal because they wanted people who weren’t in it for the money, basically. I heard this from a now ex-employee of Oxide who was describing how to navigate their hiring process, so take with a grain of salt. EDIT: I checked their website again. The compensation link goes to a blog post ( https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-values/ https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-... ) which has this section about equity: > Some will say that we should be talking about equity, not cash compensation. While it’s true that startup equity is important, it’s also true that startup equity doesn’t pay the orthodontist’s bill or get the basement repainted. We believe that every employee should have equity to give them a stake in the company’s future (and that an outsized return for investors should also be an outsized return for employees), but we also believe that the presence of equity can’t be used as an excuse for unsustainably low cash compensation. As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-depth treatment, but in short, equity compensates for risk – and in a startup, risk reduces over time: the first employee takes much more risk than the hundredth. Which doesn't answer the question.

ethbr1 1y ago
Anyone who doesn’t ask about compensation (at least at a later point in the interview process) would be a red flag to me. Most valuable people know they’re valuable, and do (and should!) negotiate compensation.
- ge96 1y ago
  self esteem problem ha (not asking or thinking low)

Etheryte 1y ago

Out of curiosity, how would you imagine that working out, technically and specifically? You start out with founders having equity, and maybe some early investors. Then you employ some people and... what happens exactly? Are new shares created, is everyone who was already onboard slowly diluted, what happens when someone joins and leaves? Etc, I don't think there is an approach to this where all sides would be happy, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

steveklabnik 1y ago
Not your parent, and not suggesting in any way that Oxide is one, but the key term you want to search to learn more about that kind of arrangement is "worker owned cooperatives." There's a lot of variety in how it's handled.

kortilla 1y ago

This has been the biggest red flag to me about oxide since these blogs came out. You don’t join a startup for salary and every startup I’ve been at that emphasizes fair salaries is doing that to intentionally discourage people from pushing on total compensation. Employees apart from the very early ones are likely really getting fucked on equity because oxide explicitly treats candidates asking about equity as a red flag. Companies structured like this end up turning into a combination of rich people who don’t need money and are just interested in the problem space and then mediocre people who can’t get a better offer. (If you are good, remote work with high TC is definitely available.) Unless Oxide is giving out huge equity bonuses for good perf (which would make their comp post hypocritical), it’s going to have a continuous talent decline as it grows. There aren’t enough independently wealthy high performers interested in what Oxide is doing to sustain a talent pool.

mwcampbell 1y ago
> (If you are good, remote work with high TC is definitely available.) But how good do you have to be at things other than the work itself (edit: and how lucky as well) to land one of those jobs with higher compensation? For someone outside of high-cost-of-living tech hubs, Oxide's fixed salary could be life-changing all by itself, even with minimal equity. The fact that they take that deal doesn't necessarily mean that they're mediocre.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > For someone outside of high-cost-of-living tech hubs, Oxide's fixed salary could be life-changing all by itself, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at compensation tables and reference data. $200K is definitely good salary, but I wouldn’t call it “life changing” relative to what someone qualified to work at Oxide could earn in an average non-tech hub metro area. The type of candidate who qualifies to work at Oxide has numerous options for high paying remote work, and probably well paying local work too.
- kortilla 1y ago
  Assuming they are exclusively hiring US, in a low CoL area $200k sets you up for a solid middle to upper middle class lifestyle. That’s a Walmart store manager. You’re not gonna retire early, take years off at a time, or anything else like that which the big tech companies RSU grants can get you.