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What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

letsencrypt.org

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Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#121

Post by codyb »

jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

I thought it was totally reasonable considering the domain their work exists in (cryptography and security), the average salaries of professionals in our fields (especially in SF), and the overhead of benefits and taxes.

Really happy to see a member from EFF and another from Mozilla as well, two very respectable foundations in the fight for user and citizen privacy in the digital age.

I shall absolutely be donating in the future. (Especially since a 10 dollar per month donation is less than two ssl certificates at godaddy.

Love your work!

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#122

Post by koolba »

rmc wrote: post #101
koolba wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those who've deployed with Let's Encrypt, did you get a quarter's worth of value from their service? The certificate price isn't even the issue. It's the signup + auto-renew! Before LE came out, I would have paid $100 to not have to 1) Not go through the hassle of manually ordering certs and 2) Not having to log back into servers to periodically update them. I get both of those with LE ... the fact that it's fr…

How about donating $100 to Lets Encrypt then? :P

> How about donating $100 to Lets Encrypt then? :P

That'd require me getting a refund :P

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#123

Post by Swizec »

rrdharan wrote: post #111
ryandrake wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so $200k in salary then. Still stupendously good. WOW! Maybe there _IS_ something to all these "I know this guy who's brother's roommate makes $300K at Google" threads. It just seems so unbelievable.

I'm surprised that there remains so much disbelief regarding these figures. There are a plenty of people at large software companies in Silicon Valley who are paid well north of $300k. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Senior-Staff-Softwar... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Dropbox-Engineer-Salaries-E... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Facebook-Staff-Software-Eng...

Google has thousands of engineers. How many "senior staff software engineers"?

"This estimate is based upon 18 Google Senior Staff Software Engineer salary reports"

"This estimate is based upon 1 Dropbox Engineer salary report"

"This estimate is based upon 1 Facebook Staff Software Engineer salary report"

So we're looking at salaries of 20 engineers. There are how many thousand engineers in the Bay Area?

I don't think your data is statistically significant. I'm not saying these people don't exist. I'm saying they're not as common as these companies would like us to believe.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#124

Post by imron »

jcoffland wrote: post #91

This does not instill confidence in Let's Encrypt's longevity. It sounds like a cry for help. $250k may be a reasonable sum for an established company to pay it's employees but for a company to have that kind of burn rate with out having next years funding secured is scary.

Have you seen their sponsors page?

Multiply the cost of the various sponsorships by the relevant sponsors and I think you'll find they're doing alright.

That doesn't even take in to account individual donations either.

The point of this post was not just fundraising, it was because they believe in transparency and openness.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#126

Post by mattmaroon »

jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

$200k, including benefits, employment taxes, etc. is probably more like $150k in salary. It's not at all egregious for good programmers. I've had employees make near that in Ohio and have friends in the field who make considerably more.

Also it's a budget, so I suspect it's intentionally padded to a small degree.

While prices haven't converged on SV everywhere, it does have a ripple effect.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#127

Post by rrdharan »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
ryanobjc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the people already were there, and they want to stay there. The imaginary high caliber people who can do this in a low cost of living place are exactly that: imaginary.

I fully endorse Let's Encrypt right to hire people solely from SF, but if you think high caliber people don't live in low cost of living places, you're either uneducated or purposely disingenuous. EDIT: Source: I work on a fully remote team (>50 people) with teammates around the world who are high caliber people.

I think you can be more charitable in reading the GP's point; I certainly didn't interpret it the way you did or see it as a statement that high caliber people only live in SF or other high cost of living spaces.

It was a response to the claim that "there's no reason for them to be in SF" which is an odd assertion.

The point is that comparing an actual team with a purely hypothetical one is really just an exercise in imagination. These people exist, are competent, happen to live in San Francisco, and this organization has built a compelling product paying them what is likely lower than what they would earn at other employers in their region.

As I understand it nothing is preventing another service from emerging that competes with Let's Encrypt and has a better cost structure. It may also be reasonable to refrain from donating to / funding Let's Encrypt if you feel that they are poorly managing their finances, but even that to is more productive than simply stating "this team should not be in SF".

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#128

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
ryanobjc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the people already were there, and they want to stay there. The imaginary high caliber people who can do this in a low cost of living place are exactly that: imaginary.

I fully endorse Let's Encrypt right to hire people solely from SF, but if you think high caliber people don't live in low cost of living places, you're either uneducated or purposely disingenuous. EDIT: Source: I work on a fully remote team (>50 people) with teammates around the world who are high caliber people.

[deleted]

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#129

Post by mrweasel »

hughes wrote: post #34

The services of Let's Encrypt, let alone the cause they stand for, is well worth a small recurring donation. I think this is totally reasonable to pledge even $2/mo.

If companies that uses Let's Encrypt would chip in just 1/10th of what they'd pay for certificate from for profit providers, then Let's Encrypt won't be in need of donation anytime soon.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#130

Post by jedberg »

zeveb wrote: post #116
jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

I think $200K/person is fine, but I do quibble with this: > They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley Why? Why compete for talent in Silicon Valley when there are people all over the country who'd love to work on something like this? I can get why they might prefer not to do remote teams (it's a challenge), but there are cities like Seattle, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Kansas Cit…

As covered elsewhere, most of the team is remote. But they still get SV salaries because great people get those salaries no matter where they are.
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