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As long as a company is turning a profit, they by definition can afford to be paying their employees better. As a company you can choose not to, but it also mea

As long as a company is turning a profit, they by definition can afford to be paying their employees better. As a company you can choose not to, but it also means you get to suffer the consequences, and lose the right to complain that your employees were "poached" when in reality it was simply a matter of you not paying them enough to stay.

adrianN 1y ago
If you compete with someone who can afford to lose money longer than you, for example because they have some departments with very high margins and can cross-subsidize, you can win.
Workaccount2 1y ago
Profit distribution only makes sense to owners of the company. A better way to give employees a share of the profits is to give them shares of the company. But then that also comes at the expense of compensation in dollars. You cannot pay for groceries with company shares. People really like the idea of "When you win, I get money, when you lose, you lose money". Explained like that they agree it's bad, but explained like "Companies should be distributing profits to workers" they fall over themselves about how good of an idea it is. Running a business is a gamble and like gambling, you need to put skin in the game to get a share of winnings (and lose your skin in the losses). People are just hyper-focused on the winners.
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1989.3,2025.1;quarter:142;series:Assets;demographic:networth;population:1,9;units:levels https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
- lovich 1y ago
  This has nothing to do with their point. If company X is making a profit and losing employees to a competitor paying more, then company X has effectively chosen to let that happen. They don’t get to complain that they ate their cake and don’t have it anymore.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > People really like the idea of "When you win, I get money, when you lose, you lose money". Explained like that they agree it's bad, It's not bad, it's a cost. You obviously wouldn't make a deal like that in isolation. You also wouldn't give someone a salary for nothing. But a cost like that can be worth paying just like a salary is worth paying. (Obviously you'd have limits on the numbers, just like salary is limited.)
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    The salary is the cost. People think that profits should be distributed on top of salary. And frankly it already happens to a degree with bonuses. But there is this pervasive idea that any leftover profit is just money that should have gone to workers.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      Most jobs have benefits on top of salary. Distributing part of the profits would be a reasonable benefit. There are hundreds of millions of profits here. Distributing even 10% of that to employees would be a tremendous amount of money. Even a lot less would have a big effect. A 10% profit share makes plenty of sense. Yes, even while insulating employees from losses, it still makes sense. Owners need to be able to reap profit but they don't need to get all of it forever. Employees owning stock is not the only way profit sharing can work.
HumblyTossed 1y ago
There's no way Massimo could have competed in a salary race with Apple. Apple could have paid those employees MILLIONS if they wanted to.
- dmitrygr 1y ago
  Yes, this is capitalism. Apple get 1st rate engineers, Massimo gets 3rd. If they want 2nd, they pay more
  - HumblyTossed 1y ago
    Oh just stop. There's a point at which they simply can't compete on salary with a multi trillion dollar company.
ryandrake 1y ago
Yea, these employees are not being "poached." They're not zero-agency deer owned by Masimo, grazing on their land, that Apple came in and stole away. They can decide for themselves that someone else is offering a better business arrangement. There is a market rate for talent, and if you can't afford the market rate, then you don't get the talent.
missingcolours 1y ago
I mean, this doesn't tell us whether they can pay them twice as much or $5 more per year. Some companies make no profit, or very little, or very little per employee.

adrianN 1y ago

If you compete with someone who can afford to lose money longer than you, for example because they have some departments with very high margins and can cross-subsidize, you can win.

Workaccount2 1y ago

Profit distribution only makes sense to owners of the company. A better way to give employees a share of the profits is to give them shares of the company. But then that also comes at the expense of compensation in dollars. You cannot pay for groceries with company shares. People really like the idea of "When you win, I get money, when you lose, you lose money". Explained like that they agree it's bad, but explained like "Companies should be distributing profits to workers" they fall over themselves about how good of an idea it is. Running a business is a gamble and like gambling, you need to put skin in the game to get a share of winnings (and lose your skin in the losses). People are just hyper-focused on the winners.

wahnfrieden 1y ago
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1989.3,2025.1;quarter:142;series:Assets;demographic:networth;population:1,9;units:levels https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
lovich 1y ago
This has nothing to do with their point. If company X is making a profit and losing employees to a competitor paying more, then company X has effectively chosen to let that happen. They don’t get to complain that they ate their cake and don’t have it anymore.
Dylan16807 1y ago
> People really like the idea of "When you win, I get money, when you lose, you lose money". Explained like that they agree it's bad, It's not bad, it's a cost. You obviously wouldn't make a deal like that in isolation. You also wouldn't give someone a salary for nothing. But a cost like that can be worth paying just like a salary is worth paying. (Obviously you'd have limits on the numbers, just like salary is limited.)
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  The salary is the cost. People think that profits should be distributed on top of salary. And frankly it already happens to a degree with bonuses. But there is this pervasive idea that any leftover profit is just money that should have gone to workers.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    Most jobs have benefits on top of salary. Distributing part of the profits would be a reasonable benefit. There are hundreds of millions of profits here. Distributing even 10% of that to employees would be a tremendous amount of money. Even a lot less would have a big effect. A 10% profit share makes plenty of sense. Yes, even while insulating employees from losses, it still makes sense. Owners need to be able to reap profit but they don't need to get all of it forever. Employees owning stock is not the only way profit sharing can work.

HumblyTossed 1y ago

There's no way Massimo could have competed in a salary race with Apple. Apple could have paid those employees MILLIONS if they wanted to.

dmitrygr 1y ago
Yes, this is capitalism. Apple get 1st rate engineers, Massimo gets 3rd. If they want 2nd, they pay more
- HumblyTossed 1y ago
  Oh just stop. There's a point at which they simply can't compete on salary with a multi trillion dollar company.

ryandrake 1y ago

Yea, these employees are not being "poached." They're not zero-agency deer owned by Masimo, grazing on their land, that Apple came in and stole away. They can decide for themselves that someone else is offering a better business arrangement. There is a market rate for talent, and if you can't afford the market rate, then you don't get the talent.

missingcolours 1y ago

I mean, this doesn't tell us whether they can pay them twice as much or $5 more per year. Some companies make no profit, or very little, or very little per employee.