I don't see anything wrong with this at all. I certainly don't think we're dragging anyone down, considering that it's just one company's policy and people who

I don't see anything wrong with this at all. I certainly don't think we're dragging anyone down, considering that it's just one company's policy and people who don't like it are free to work elsewhere. It's hardly coercive, like there's some legislation banning the practice of negotiating salaries. This is a choice made by the CEO of a company. It may turn out to be a competitive advantage, it may turn out to be the opposite. Perhaps people are responding to this in the context of gender equity. That makes sense, especially considering that this is the context Ms Pao chose to use to present the policy. But consider this http://www.salary.com/why-women-don-t-negotiate/ http://www.salary.com/why-women-don-t-negotiate/ Now, that's just a link on the web, I do need to dig into this more. But here's the quote: "Forty-six percent of men always negotiate salary following a job offer, compared to just 30% of women. And while 39% of men are apprehensive about negotiating, that number jumps to 55% for women." So a small minority of men sometimes accept an offer without negotiating, a slightly larger minority of women do the same. Similarly, a narrow majority of women are nervous about negotiating, whereas a very large minority of men are. There is a huge amount of overlap here. Things like this really shouldn't be presented as "men do this, women do that", but they almost always are. Truth is, there are probably a lot of men who would be attracted to a company policy like the one Ms Pao has proposed, and there are probably a lot of women who wouldn't be. It may turn out that there is a large pool of highly talented people who aren't good at negotiating salary but don't like getting paid less than their comparably talented coworkers, and that Ms Pao will get them to work for her. Other companies will get the people who are talented at getting paid more than their coworkers. Or not. It's up to her to decide if this is worth a try.