4 ms·
He’s also receiving €1 million as a one-time compensation. Not quite enough to retire on that.
by layer8 1y ago
He’s also receiving €1 million as a one-time compensation. Not quite enough to retire on that.
- lapcat 1y agoDo you have a reference for this?
- akuchling 1y agoFrom https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-...
- edm0nd 1y agoStill enough to have a good lil nest egg that generates okay-ish passive income if invested correctly. @ 4% that's €40k/year more than what most regular people have
- kjkjadksj 1y agoDoes he not have to pay taxes on that 1m euros in the eu?
- cntlzw 1y agoAbsolutely. That is either "Teileinkünfteverfahren" (60% of 1 Million EUR are taxed, 40% are tax-exempt) or "Abgeltungssteuer" (Government takes a 25% cut). Fun fact: there is no tax on winning the lottery in Germany!
- mk89 1y agoSure he does. He lives in Germany. They are gonna rip that 1 million apart.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoI guess top rate in Germany is 45%
- fhd2 1y agoIf you live in the west, 47.5% even. But that's income tax, whether that applies here depends on how it's structured.
- vjerancrnjak 1y agoSome countries have 0 rate if sold after x years. Although many had it in the past, they’ve started eliminating it.
- torginus 1y agoAnd some countries have the opposite - they tax your invested gains as if you turned them to cash
- zwnow 1y agoYou pretty much pay taxes on everything in the EU. In Germany there are ways you can reduce the total tax you have to pay and as far as I know you wont have to pay social security contributions on that. It'll still be 6 digit tax amount.
- naIak 1y agoDamn, where is Mastodon getting €1M from? Also where do you get from that you can't retire with €1M. It seems very feasible as long as you keep a frugal lifestyle.
- geerlingguy 1y ago> We deeply appreciate the generosity of Jeff Atwood and the Atwood Family (EUR 2.2M), Biz Stone, AltStore (EUR 260k), GCC (EUR 65k), and Craig Newmark. > We want to thank the generous individual donors that participated in our fundraising drive. We put individual donations entirely towards Mastodon’s operations (primarily, paying our full-time employees to improve Mastodon), which totalled EUR 337k over the past 12 months (September 2024 - September 2025). From https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-...
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 1y agoWhy is retiring mentioned? Most jobs pay zero when you leave so 1M is cool.
- jandrese 1y agoDepends how old you are how much you already have saved. If you still have a mortgage payment it's probably not going to make it. If he fully owns a farm out in the woods somewhere where you don't have to buy health insurance it might be possible. Taxes are probably the biggest worry, inflation the next.
- 1y ago
- jimbokun 1y agoIt is if you deliberately find a low cost of living area and control your costs.
- jasonjmcghee 1y agoIt doesn't say he's retiring (afaik) - he might still have compensation
- layer8 1y agoHence why I said it’s not enough to retire on it.
- simonw 1y agoHere's more information on that: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-... > For our team, a vital aspect of getting this restructuring right was making sure that Eugen was compensated fairly for Mastodon’s brand trademark, assets, and the 10 years he spent building Mastodon into what it is today (while taking less than a fair market salary). Based on replacement costs, Eugen’s time and effort, and the fair market value of the Mastodon brand, its associated properties, and the social network, we settled on a one-time compensation of EUR 1M.
- layer8 1y agoWas already linked here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45971902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45971902
- stevage 1y agoYou're assuming zero savings to begin with, which is a weird assumption.
- pcthrowaway 1y agoHis salary from Mastadon annual reports 2021-2023 were 28,800, then 36,000, then 60,000 euros annually (reports for 2024 and 2025 are not released yet), so unless he had side gigs or deals, I wouldn't expect he has a ton of savings at the moment. Glad he is getting a decent payout with his exit, though unfortunately a windfall like this in one year offers less take-home than if he was paid this over several years. I really hope he's able to find success and better work-life balance in his future endeavours