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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

#211

Post by snuxoll »

wyager wrote: post #194
mattmaroon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

You're overestimating their final salary. Per-employee expenses are usually almost the salary all over again. Payroll taxes are a real bitch. It's probably closer to $110-$120k salary per employee.

"Payroll tax" (more appropriately known as the employer-side of the FICA tax) is only 7%, it's really not what I would qualify as "a bitch". My wages are 80% of my total compensation (my employer provides a nice breakdown of insurance costs, 401(k) match, etc), factor in 7% of my wages going to FICA and their total cost to employ me with my total compensation package is ~125% of my annual salary.

I also make a fairly lower wage than the industry average since I'm not in SV, insurance rates don't increase proportionately with salary so if this is what I'm seeing at $75K/yr then at $200K/yr gross these employees are most certainly seeing at least $150K/yr in their salaries.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#214

Post by vostok »

optimuspaul wrote: post #188
jedberg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

that is ridiculous, do you have evidence to back that statement up?

If you consider anecdotal evidence then I have received, with no negotiation, similar (statistically identical) offers in low cost of living areas and high cost of living areas.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#215

Post by ceejayoz »

imron wrote: post #183
ceejayoz wrote: post #133

If any LE staff are in here, I'd happily chip in on a Patreon.

You can donate directly, either once off or recurring monthly - https://letsencrypt.org/donate/

I'd rather avoid PayPal, and I like Patreon as a central clearinghouse for monthly donations.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#216

Post by rabidrat »

hiddenkrypt wrote: post #151
jakewins wrote: post #136

I wish there was a way to donate money towards a fund - like, give $100USD, that goes into some index fund, and then LetsEncrypt withdraws $3.50 (as per https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Safe_withdrawal_rates ) a year until the sun burns out. I'd much rather spend my money knowing its a small ways toward making this kind of thing self sustainable.

You could set such a thing up yourself. It's basically a trust. Put your money in the index fund, and have a process to automatically withdraw the safe amount and donate it. Now build a product around that idea, and be the next patreon. I heard of this great company that'll help you get ssh certs for free.

I've thought about this extensively, and it's actually not that easy to set one up yourself. For one thing, the overhead required to administer a trust is non-zero, and would be prohibitively expensive (non-sustainable) for a small amount. The barest minimum endowment is at least $10k, and possibly $100k. Best case, you find a way to align the trust with a university, who adds it to their portfolio and administers the funds according to your/their goals.

This also presumes that there are public investment instruments which can get a reliably positive rate of return. In today's economy, it's difficult to get even a few percent reliably. Some places are toying with negative interest rates, even (which means that passive investments are deflationary).

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#217

Post by mmkx »

sophacles wrote: post #125
jimktrains2 wrote: post #32

"Hardware/Software" and "Hosting/Auditing" seem to be weird things to lump together. I wonder what software they pay for.

Hardware and software are both capex. Hosting and auditing are both opex. Makes sense to me.

Doesn't to me. Staffing/Auditing/Legal/Administrative are up to 2.7MM of their 3.0MM expenses. The way they grouped things is very deceptive.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#218

Post by nixgeek »

artimaeis wrote: post #100
dublinben wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is almost certainly necessary for them to have dedicated hardware in neutral datacenters. They can't just run their infrastructure on AWS or Google.

Maybe there's something very obvious I'm missing - but why? If their environments are not bare-metal then moving from a virtual solution to a cloud one seems fairly simple. If they are bare-metal then it hardly seems necessary for issuing certs - but if you have more insight I'd love if you'd share it!

Security sensitive workloads are often not virtualised because it opens them up to "What are the other virtual machines doing?".

There've been a number of Xen and KVM issues over the years, including a couple which may have resulted in a bad actor having access to the hypervisor (and thus, all its guests). Attacks like Rowhammer also play in this space.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#219

Post by vostok »

pc86 wrote: post #139
jedberg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make sense but it is true. If you're really good, someone will make you an offer for an SV salary, and now everyone needs to compete with that. Besides, it's only fair. Your value shouldn't be tied to where you live per se. It's true that people in some areas make less because they have fewer options in their area, but for a high caliber person, they have plenty of options whether they move their physical…

> Your value shouldn't be tied to where you live per se. If that was the case people wouldn't make $200k in SV, $75k in Omaha, and $9k in Phuket for the same job.

I have direct experience with getting offers in an area with cost of living similar to Omaha. With no negotiation, the pay was the same as in the high cost of living area where I chose to live.

I don't have direct experience with Phuket, but I've heard of friends who get paid US level contract rates in similar areas.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#220

Post by wyager »

snuxoll wrote: post #211
wyager wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overestimating their final salary. Per-employee expenses are usually almost the salary all over again. Payroll taxes are a real bitch. It's probably closer to $110-$120k salary per employee.

"Payroll tax" (more appropriately known as the employer-side of the FICA tax) is only 7%, it's really not what I would qualify as "a bitch". My wages are 80% of my total compensation (my employer provides a nice breakdown of insurance costs, 401(k) match, etc), factor in 7% of my wages going to FICA and their total cost to employ me with my total compensation package is ~125% of my annual salary. I also make a fairly…

Not in CA. http://www.adp.com/-/media/Compliance/2016%20Fast%20Wage%20a...
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