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Sending the sales team on a paid vacation to a tropical paradise while the engineering product flounders is such a perfect representation of corporate rot it so

Sending the sales team on a paid vacation to a tropical paradise while the engineering product flounders is such a perfect representation of corporate rot it sounds like something out of a Mike Judge movie

ralph84 2mo ago
Presidents club is a standard way to reward top performing sales reps across many industries. It doesn't indicate anything other than the company is trying to reward and retain their top sales reps. Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps.
- onion2k 2mo ago
  Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps. That isn't true. Early sales employees ('customer success', 'technical sales', 'growth', maybe product roles) get just as much equity as engineers who join at a similar time. The difference is that engineers often join earlier, with the commensurate risk that comes with. Also equity rarely pays out so you'd need to be comparing the probability of an exit that actually rewards the share class that engineers get, whether or not they've been diluted to nothing, whether there's a secondary market to sell on before an exit event, etc. It also depends on whether someone even wants the potential reward equity gives them over the more tangible rewards of money and perks. Comparing this stuff is hard. The point here though, is that the company is rewarding sales people at a time when the product is doing poorly, which implies the leadership team care more about selling a bad product than turning it into a good product. I hope that's not the case because it used to be a good platform.
  - icantevenhold 2mo ago
    Technical sales and customer growth also don’t get the cut of sales that usually the actual sales reps do. In general i think sales reps make more money overall but have a much more stressful job and can get axed whenever they underperform for a quarter etc
    - onion2k 2mo ago
      Having done sales before, I can assure you that it's differently stressful rather than more stressful. Trying to sign a customer for a substantial booking is stressful, but so is deploying a complex change that you can't roll back. There's hard things about every role. Engineers can also be axed at any time for performance. They're fortunate that most companies are bad at measuring that, but they're also subject to things like stack ranking at very bad companies (fire worst 10% every year) so it's certainly not better to be in eng rather than sales. Ultimately all roles have aspects of them that suck, so you need to find the one that sucks least for you.
      - icantevenhold 2mo ago
        Idk it’s just my experience from having worked in both roles 5+ years. YMMV Of course all roles have aspects that suck. But for me FTE is so much less stressful than sales - but I make less money. alas
- pjmlp 2mo ago
  That is a Silicon Valley thing, around the world you get a regular office salary and that's it.
  - dilyevsky 2mo ago
    First of all it's not just SV - all of US sales is like this. Second, if you're talking about Europe - base/variable comps split may not be 50/50 but it's often the same OTE structure with some modifications due to local legalese
    - pjmlp 2mo ago
      I am talking about software developers, not sales. I never seen this on my 30+ years on the job, other than being an early joiner to startups, equity isn't a thing. > Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps. At very best, some companies might offer some kind of fixed bonus, if you over delivered as part of the KPI/OKR/whatever goals for the year, or the profits were nice enough that everyone gets a cut.
      - dilyevsky 2mo ago
        Agree on the equity, afaik it’s due to how eager European countries are to tax illiquid shares on exercise instead of on sale like in US. Even without the equity part i think most engineers should be thankful for not having to hit their kpis to get full paycheck
      - deleted 2mo ago
        [deleted]
- superxpro12 2mo ago
  [dead]
technion 2mo ago
I'm confused at the way they promoted it. Is there any way someone outside the company reading a Twitter post would consider this a positive thing for the product to be told what incentives the sales team get?
- dmurray 2mo ago
  It's not aimed at consumers of their product. Someone outside the company who was thinking of joining a B2B sales team, and who likes tropical vacations, might react positively to this post. Or a potential investor might be impressed to see the company has a mature sales pipeline and plenty of revenue to reward its top salespeople.
- Hasz 2mo ago
  It is to hire new reps, they are competing for talent.
dilyevsky 2mo ago
if i'm working for a company i sure hope they're sending their sales reps to a tropical paradise, and if they don't, i hope i don't own any equity.
ygouzerh 2mo ago
This one looks shocking on the outside indeed! It's however a sales HR practice: lower salary and commission, but use the alluring treat that top performers will have a special exclusive trip at the end of the year. Many are crazy for it. It's more a reward for a competition-style work mindset.
neya 2mo ago
It's because of the CEO: Kara Sprague. Just another Marissa Meyer story, nothing new. We all saw how Yahoo turned out in the end.
Hasz 2mo ago
Completely standard for enterprise (and even commercial/etc) sales. It would be extremely surprising if they did not have it. Usually take top n% of reps by quota attainment, GP, or incentive/SPIFF hits. Most (enterprise focused) companies, even outside of tech, has something like this. Called Club, P-club, presidents club, circle of excellence, etc. HackerOne chose a sales-first culture and this is their way of rewarding that growth.
segmondy 2mo ago
This is normal. Almost 3 decades in the industry and sales get very nice vacation to tropical paradise all the time. At best we go some decent conference.

ralph84 2mo ago

Presidents club is a standard way to reward top performing sales reps across many industries. It doesn't indicate anything other than the company is trying to reward and retain their top sales reps. Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps.

onion2k 2mo ago
Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps. That isn't true. Early sales employees ('customer success', 'technical sales', 'growth', maybe product roles) get just as much equity as engineers who join at a similar time. The difference is that engineers often join earlier, with the commensurate risk that comes with. Also equity rarely pays out so you'd need to be comparing the probability of an exit that actually rewards the share class that engineers get, whether or not they've been diluted to nothing, whether there's a secondary market to sell on before an exit event, etc. It also depends on whether someone even wants the potential reward equity gives them over the more tangible rewards of money and perks. Comparing this stuff is hard. The point here though, is that the company is rewarding sales people at a time when the product is doing poorly, which implies the leadership team care more about selling a bad product than turning it into a good product. I hope that's not the case because it used to be a good platform.
- icantevenhold 2mo ago
  Technical sales and customer growth also don’t get the cut of sales that usually the actual sales reps do. In general i think sales reps make more money overall but have a much more stressful job and can get axed whenever they underperform for a quarter etc
  - onion2k 2mo ago
    Having done sales before, I can assure you that it's differently stressful rather than more stressful. Trying to sign a customer for a substantial booking is stressful, but so is deploying a complex change that you can't roll back. There's hard things about every role. Engineers can also be axed at any time for performance. They're fortunate that most companies are bad at measuring that, but they're also subject to things like stack ranking at very bad companies (fire worst 10% every year) so it's certainly not better to be in eng rather than sales. Ultimately all roles have aspects of them that suck, so you need to find the one that sucks least for you.
    - icantevenhold 2mo ago
      Idk it’s just my experience from having worked in both roles 5+ years. YMMV Of course all roles have aspects that suck. But for me FTE is so much less stressful than sales - but I make less money. alas
pjmlp 2mo ago
That is a Silicon Valley thing, around the world you get a regular office salary and that's it.
- dilyevsky 2mo ago
  First of all it's not just SV - all of US sales is like this. Second, if you're talking about Europe - base/variable comps split may not be 50/50 but it's often the same OTE structure with some modifications due to local legalese
  - pjmlp 2mo ago
    I am talking about software developers, not sales. I never seen this on my 30+ years on the job, other than being an early joiner to startups, equity isn't a thing. > Engineers who find it distasteful should be happy to know engineers typically get way more equity than sales reps. At very best, some companies might offer some kind of fixed bonus, if you over delivered as part of the KPI/OKR/whatever goals for the year, or the profits were nice enough that everyone gets a cut.
    - dilyevsky 2mo ago
      Agree on the equity, afaik it’s due to how eager European countries are to tax illiquid shares on exercise instead of on sale like in US. Even without the equity part i think most engineers should be thankful for not having to hit their kpis to get full paycheck
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
superxpro12 2mo ago
[dead]

technion 2mo ago

I'm confused at the way they promoted it. Is there any way someone outside the company reading a Twitter post would consider this a positive thing for the product to be told what incentives the sales team get?

dmurray 2mo ago
It's not aimed at consumers of their product. Someone outside the company who was thinking of joining a B2B sales team, and who likes tropical vacations, might react positively to this post. Or a potential investor might be impressed to see the company has a mature sales pipeline and plenty of revenue to reward its top salespeople.
Hasz 2mo ago
It is to hire new reps, they are competing for talent.

dilyevsky 2mo ago

if i'm working for a company i sure hope they're sending their sales reps to a tropical paradise, and if they don't, i hope i don't own any equity.

ygouzerh 2mo ago

This one looks shocking on the outside indeed! It's however a sales HR practice: lower salary and commission, but use the alluring treat that top performers will have a special exclusive trip at the end of the year. Many are crazy for it. It's more a reward for a competition-style work mindset.

neya 2mo ago

It's because of the CEO: Kara Sprague. Just another Marissa Meyer story, nothing new. We all saw how Yahoo turned out in the end.

Hasz 2mo ago

Completely standard for enterprise (and even commercial/etc) sales. It would be extremely surprising if they did not have it. Usually take top n% of reps by quota attainment, GP, or incentive/SPIFF hits. Most (enterprise focused) companies, even outside of tech, has something like this. Called Club, P-club, presidents club, circle of excellence, etc. HackerOne chose a sales-first culture and this is their way of rewarding that growth.

segmondy 2mo ago

This is normal. Almost 3 decades in the industry and sales get very nice vacation to tropical paradise all the time. At best we go some decent conference.