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Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

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Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#71

Post by s1artibartfast »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #65
School-Cotton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. They are both neoliberal, just with different market conditions.

Workers getting a large share of a company’s revenue, much of which is in the form of fractional ownership of the company sure sounds quasi-socialist to me! It doesn’t matter that market conditions led to this compensation scheme (as opposed to direct political intervention); what matters is the end result.

That's not what the terms socialism and capitalism mean. They describe the process, not end result.

You can have full blown worker coops in the capitalist system, the question is if they are state mandated or not.

The definition of socialism isn't any sytem with a good outcome for workers.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#72

Post by Traubenfuchs »

School-Cotton wrote: post #67
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #16

Yikes. Those are (central) European numbers, but we get free insulin, free dentistry and free brain & heart surgery, several mandatory weeks of paid time off and months of notice period. I guess the 100k or even 200k, or 300k starting meme finally died at a time of record inflation no less.

Other than the months of notice period, American tech workers get all of those things.

Also between jobs / when unemployed / being laid off?

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#73

Post by hoffs »

oezi wrote: post #48
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

More like people just don't want to leave their life behind... Those listed things are like the bottom of the reasons

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#74

Post by Ancalagon »

dagw wrote: post #7

They're not paying $80k, they're paying $80k plus an equity lottery ticket that hopefully has a chance of being worth millions.

what is the proportion of YC startups that have had successful exits where the _employees_ received millions from their equity grants?

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#75

Post by peyton »

mschuster91 wrote: post #52
nolok wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know this website but for France it says 38k€/year on average. Which means they're not using the total salary but the post employer's taxes. I'm using France for reference, and approximate number for the sake of explanation: for 100€ cost to the company, 40€ is employer's taxes, 20€ is employee's taxes. We call 20+40 = 60 the "gross" salary, and 40 the net salary, we never talk about the 100 when negotiating…

On top of that come Europe's minimum vacation requirement of 4 weeks (although in practice, most are at anything from 24-30 days / 5-6 weeks), the unlimited sick days and numerous national holidays. Also, we have mandatory contributions for pension, social security, healthcare and (in Germany) workplace accident and elderly care insurance. All of that needs some form of accounting on the employer's side that drives u…

That’s also how it works in the US. The numbers are just bigger.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#76

Post by brtkdotse »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #17
mindondrugs wrote: post #11

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Plenty of senior folks in Spain making $100k+. In Barcelona, you can make north of $70K easy; even for non-senior devs. I agree with OP. The salary is way too low for a senior European developer to consider because taking a US job means that there are no employment pr…

> European developer to consider because taking a US job

Nitpicking, but this is technically not possible. The US company has to have a EU presence or the developer needs to be self employed and invoice the US company

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#77

Post by zht »

bilsbie wrote: post #18

So these employees are giving them 100k-400k of venture capital in the form of discounted labor. But they get nowhere near the respect an investor of that amount would get. Asking to sign onerous ndas. Doing fizz buzz on a whiteboard. Etc. One time I refused to sign an nda for an interview and the founder basically blew a gasket. Spent half the interview talking about how bad it was I wouldn’t sign it.

Why didn’t you just leave lol

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#78

Post by 908B64B197 »

pjerem wrote: post #61
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North of $70K is still a ways away from $100K+ and I'd love to see which companies we're talking about here because that's not the news that reaches me from Spain. Rather the opposite.

70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US though and is a pretty comfortable salary in Europe. Even if life is a little more expensive in Europe, you don’t need as much emergency savings as in the US.

Tax system in Europe is also a lot more complicated with many loopholes.

In Belgium, almost every white collar job has a company car included, since it's much much cheaper than for an individual to buy one.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#79

Post by [deleted] »

mindondrugs wrote: post #11

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#80

Post by aiunboxed »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #28
mindondrugs wrote: post #11

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

I think it is not as simple as that. There is cost of living and demand supply levers as well.

There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

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