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0 pointsrtpg9mo ago0 comments

Back when my salary was shitty I cared about the money a lot.

I still like the money and the number going up. But now that it’s above a certain multiple of what I consider a “comfortable” life, I’m not worrying as much.

Would for change your job for an extra 500k a year? Surely right? An extra 50k? An extra 5k? An extra 500 dollars a year?

Theres some mental calculus that includes everything. Some people will just take “offer with most money” every time. Hell of a lot of people don’t.

I do think that C suite folks might not have the right vision of what “normal/comfortable” is for employees though. So they might offer a low number thinking it’s actually a “comfortable to live with at this stage of life” number and then get confused why they can’t recruit good talent and think people are obsessed with money.

First offer has gotta be within the ballpark of the right number if you don’t want your interviewee to immediately come back to you with a much higher number!

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bobsomers9mo ago

> I still like the money and the number going up. But now that it’s above a certain multiple of what I consider a “comfortable” life, I’m not worrying as much.

I agree, but that number for most people is not the $207k/yr Oxide is paying.

For most people that number is likely north of $500k, if not single digit millions.

abustamam9mo ago

I used to think (like 10 years ago) that $100k a year was all the money in the world and I'd be able to own a nice house and drive a nice car in Cali.

Now my household income is double that, and I'm not a homeowner (I admit I do rent a nice house in a Norcal suburb) and because of remote work I'm not too concerned about the car I drive (but my wife does drive a Tesla), and after emergency fund savings, retirement, bills, and helping family out, my wife and I are still somehow still paycheck to paycheck.

I'm not sharing this to complain, merely to just express that yeah, $207k in California can be comfortable, but it's not to the "worry not about money."

$200k salary for a single person living in the Midwest? That person can probably retire early in a few years.

rtpgOP9mo ago

Yeah my point is that it’s comfortable enough.

If you are growing your emergency fund then you aren’t really living paycheck to paycheck right? You’re putting money off to the side. Tho perhaps you’re not putting aside much for, like, travel.

Plenty of smaller startups not hitting that level, especially when they’re lean. And I think up until this raise Oxide was lean!

(To be honest given this finding raise I could see a salary increase for oxide across the board, to help with that)

abustamam9mo ago

That's true, but I still consider 3-6mos emergency fund to be a basic necessity, since living in the startup world you never know when you may need to use it.

A while back I interviewed for a startup that was asking me to work from 6am to 8pm for about 75% of what I make right now working regular 9-5 at a different startup. It was super early stage so that level of commitment was understandable but I can't imagine very many engineers with families willing to take that much of a paycut. But that's the name of the game, right? When you're early stage you can't afford to pay much but you need your product done yesterday. Thats probably why most startups fail. Cheap quality talent is hard to come by, at least stateside. Offshore developers can be cheap and amazing (someone living in India making $100k USD would probably be considered royalty) but if you don't have someone from that part of the world to vet the devs it could end up being more expensive in the long run.

Kirby649mo ago

> Now my household income is double that, and I'm not a homeowner (I admit I do rent a nice house in a Norcal suburb) and because of remote work I'm not too concerned about the car I drive (but my wife does drive a Tesla), and after emergency fund savings, retirement, bills, and helping family out, my wife and I are still somehow still paycheck to paycheck.

“Paycheck to paycheck” isn’t really accurate if you can contribute to retirement, emergency fund savings, and give additional money to your family. Far from it. You could pull back on any or all of those contributions and have extra slack. Also, presumably you’ll eventually have enough emergency fund and that slack will be available soon.

abustamam9mo ago

That's fair. I think what I'm trying to get at is that the typical suggested middle class American budget is exactly that — save a bit for emergency fund, save a bit for buying a house / home repairs, save a bit for an annual vacation. Maybe not giving money to family, but charity in general. Considering that a middle class family in CA would not be able to do all of these. I don't think I'm commenting on the salary itself; rather, the cost of maintaining status quo is rapidly outpacing middle class. A teacher on a middle class salary would be able to do all of these on a single income just a few decades ago. I shouldn't need to earn triple the median income to do that.

rtpgOP9mo ago

> For most people that number is likely north of $500k, if not single digit millions

I think if your kind of comfortable is needing to clear 500k or million in comp a year then you aren’t not in scrappy startup mode! This is fine but money out the door is money that then needs to get raised in early rounds

I dunno, I do think oxide for basically everyone who joins is asking for them to get pay cuts but I would really hope that people would still at least putting some stuff into savings.

And like … even if the equity is variable if people are getting even a bit of equity, that might end up as something in the end.

Saying this I think with the recent raise the comp could be made higher just to make the buffer even better. There’s definitely an opportunity cost

mbreese9mo ago

That heavily depends on where you live and your life situation (young kids? older kids? No kids?).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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bobsomers9mo ago

> I still like the money and the number going up. But now that it’s above a certain multiple of what I consider a “comfortable” life, I’m not worrying as much.

I agree, but that number for most people is not the $207k/yr Oxide is paying.

For most people that number is likely north of $500k, if not single digit millions.

abustamam9mo ago

I used to think (like 10 years ago) that $100k a year was all the money in the world and I'd be able to own a nice house and drive a nice car in Cali.

I'm not sharing this to complain, merely to just express that yeah, $207k in California can be comfortable, but it's not to the "worry not about money."

$200k salary for a single person living in the Midwest? That person can probably retire early in a few years.

rtpgOP9mo ago

Yeah my point is that it’s comfortable enough.

Plenty of smaller startups not hitting that level, especially when they’re lean. And I think up until this raise Oxide was lean!

(To be honest given this finding raise I could see a salary increase for oxide across the board, to help with that)

abustamam9mo ago

That's true, but I still consider 3-6mos emergency fund to be a basic necessity, since living in the startup world you never know when you may need to use it.

Kirby649mo ago

abustamam9mo ago

rtpgOP9mo ago

> For most people that number is likely north of $500k, if not single digit millions

I dunno, I do think oxide for basically everyone who joins is asking for them to get pay cuts but I would really hope that people would still at least putting some stuff into savings.

And like … even if the equity is variable if people are getting even a bit of equity, that might end up as something in the end.

Saying this I think with the recent raise the comp could be made higher just to make the buffer even better. There’s definitely an opportunity cost

mbreese9mo ago

That heavily depends on where you live and your life situation (young kids? older kids? No kids?).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse