Man I would love to work for a company like that. I don't know why more people don't set their startups like that.
If ya'll are looking for a remote security engineer from Europe hit me up. :)
For those numbers I'll walk the servers into the customers myself.
So the extremely high salary is still a net positive compared to EU
With this in mind, it's just a good salary. Until they have competition squeezing them on margins it looks like an OK approach. At some point their board most likely won't agree with paying some people below market rates for important roles and other more fungible roles paying 2-3x market rates but while they can keep doing it, it's great free marketing.
Plenty of that in London unfortunately and our salaries are half.
>Healthcare
And not so much of that... despite paying tax for it anyway.
homes, etc is true though and we just need to build more inventory IMO. but there are tons of areas with affordable homes, they just aren't near the big cities like NYC or SF or LA
I took a base-pay cut to work at Oxide. Zero regrets.
I always find that a very naive point of view, of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side, who wouldn't. But I'm also aware that this is not how the world works in reality, there's different tax systems, different expense costs and we don't live in a global one-market world.
I find the strategy of defining different "zones", like most of the remote first / salary transparency companies much more realistic.
It's not about what you want, it's about knowing your value. If your work is worth a SF salary then that's what you should be getting.
Moving from Idaho to SF doesn't magically make you more productive. The company knows it's still getting more value from you than what you're being paid. They just want to keep more of that value for themselves whenever possible.
Have some respect for yourself and know your worth
Well the co-founders live in the Silicon Valley area, with their physical HQ being in Emeryville:
Nevertheless, I agree everyone looks at this problem from their own POV, however it should not be the norm to provide equal compensation for equal work.
I wouldn’t. I like cities and center of culture and human activity. And the stats generally show cities growing globally, so I’m not the only one.
While you argue it's naive and cite different tax systems and costs, companies are successfully adopting this approach even in high-cost areas like the Valley. It might be hard to argue that the world doesn't work like that in reality, given that it’s already happening.
While it may not be widespread, it doesn’t mean it’s without merit or unrealistic. After all, remember that today's 'unrealistic' could be tomorrow's norm! It's tempting to think that people in less expensive areas would be the main proponents of a uniform salary, but the reality is nuanced. Preferences are likely influenced by a variety of factors, not just cost of living.
Your later points about the differences between compensation at different company stages are well taken, however it could be difficult to assert how much this dynamic affects preferences given the practice is not limited to early stage companies and equity vests often fail to yield returns.
In addition, your suggestion that only people in poor places want egalitarian salaries, could be seen as disrespectful of other people, because it seems to ignores the totality of an individual while preferring to try to reduce them to simplistic motivations. In that way, it’s also considered abusive. And can also be seen as disrespectful of others experience, and maybe arrogant: "Only people in poor areas want such naive, unrealistic salaries."
Looking deeper, this aspect of your comment, combined with its narrow focus on a single explanation, might be interpreted as your attempt to express your personal frustrations at your own salary performance, or justify and rationalize why you may not be making more. This might occur because you may find it easier to view something you don't have as unrealistic and naive, rather than the result of choices you could change.
In short, while you mention that egalitarian salaries and enthusiastic support of them is naive and unrealistic, it could be argued that the view espoused in your comment is naive and unrealistic because: it lack awareness of complex dynamics; ignores the totality of an individual while preferring to try to reduce them to simplistic motivations, and dismisses real practices as unrealistic, which might also be seen as out of touch. Overall, your views unfortunately could be interpreted as narrow and an expression of personal frustration, instead of a reflection of underlying real dynamics.
To conclude, while it's likely there's some truth to the correlation you propose, it's also likely true that even if some correlation exists, location is not the only factor at play. People may have various salary preferences, independent of their location, just as the value they provide is also independent. Finally, indeed, your view could be expressed more respectfully of others.
Anywho, it's understandable you may have that perspective, given what your background might be. Yet it's always good to remember that you can adapt your view over time, can grow and can include more data to expand that awareness of reality which you value! :)
The egalitarian way where a business can divide the share of revenue that is allocated for salary equally, no matter the role. This makes sense from a philosophy of everybody being a team and contributing equally to the results of the company. It can foster an esprit de corps and and a sense of fairness. On the negative side it could encourage companies to have more burdensome measures of fairness and contribution, and lead to resentment towards colleagues who don't pull their weight.
Then there's the other method, where a value-based salary is allocated to each employee taking into account their experience, ability and effort. Crucially, however, this salary is not adjusted for location. That's the case to which I was speaking, specifically, even tho the type used by 0xide is clearly the egalitarian one.
That's the labor theory of value (see: Smith, Marx), which in theory sounds meritocratic but it can't really be measured or assessed.
In reality compensation either becomes a function of power, social currency and negotiation skills, which is the general norm in professions, or you have an institutionalized, perhaps even democratic process to determine salaries. Both of these variants generate overhead and are only approximations to what anyone would see as fair.
The variant here where everyone gets the same, generous piece of a pie seems refreshingly simple and honest. I would also assume that it attracts the right kind of people, who are intrinsically motivated (at least after the threshold of a very high level of comfort is reached.)
But for senior engineers at these companies, 200k is pretty competitive with the base salaries offered at those places
Yes it is somewhat of a stumbling block, but I'm betting they are getting extremely high quality employees who are doing it for the passion and not just for the money.
