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You believe that this ends at Silicon Valley. This most likely is common practice across a multitude of companies and industries.

• mindcrime 13y ago
  There's just no way that every (or even most) companies in, say, the US, are all collectively colluding to do much of anything, much less fix wages. There's a reason that cartels don't really work, and that's because somebody always has an incentive to cheat. Same deal here... even IF you got every single company to agree to fix programmer salaries, it would never hold up, because some member of the group would either find a way to pay more and disguise it somehow, or they'd flat out openly rebel and take their chances. Does this happen on a small scale among handfuls of companies? Almost certainly, as we've seen. But how much impact it has at a more macro level is certainly questionable.
  • DamnYuppie 13y ago
    It doesn't take every company, it realistically takes less then 30%. I have never seen companies trying to pay more then the bare minimum to get someone to fill the role. Being generous, sadly, isn't in the DNA of the majority of organizations. They always attempt to pay as little as needed.
    • eru 13y ago
      Of course they do. The secret ingredients are competition and bidding wars.