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Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
71–80 of 348 posts
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#72It’s actually like the golden age of Wall Street. The companies here are collecting the smartest people in the world to improve their Ad click rate and camera filter.
The talent also believe they are making the world better place but the truth is just few people care about the REAL problem in the REAL wold.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#73Here are some options, but notice how controversial they are: 1. Employ younger, inexperienced people and train them 2. Import immigrant developers 3. Hire people in different geographies As an alternative, why not: 1. Hire older workers 2. Hire the unemployed American workers 3. Hire in America? Well, because it costs more? Does it? I don't know, I am just trying to open up the conversation here. Edit: made language…
Yes, it costs more.
So then the two optional responses are:
1. If the startup doesn't have the money to pay more, what should it do?
2. If a startup decides not to opt for any of the options, and the competitors do, what should it do?
-- Note: the competitor can be in India, for example.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#74If you are a startup and are trying to compete head to head with Google / FB / Amazon / Apple / Microsoft for the same people, you are going to have a really hard time recruiting. But there are plenty of great engineers that don't want to work at those companies for various reasons. There are plenty of great engineers that want to work remotely and don't have that option at the large companies. There are also plenty…
>But there are plenty of great engineers that don't want to work at those companies for various reasons. There are plenty of great engineers that want to work remotely and don't have that option at the large companies. They don't have that option at startups either, because the startups all want people who'll be at the office 18 hours a day with "team spirit". I think this article is useless. Startups are only for pe…
> Startups are only for people who are under ~25 (maybe 30), have no families, are willing to spend all their waking hours pursuing someone else's dream, and think they're going to make bank doing it and are willing to take that gamble.
OR those over 55 whose kids have left school, have mostly paid off their debts, already achieved a few things and have the experience, strength of character and financial stability to look their 23 year old CEO in the eye and say "sorry, I'm busy this weekend" when necessary.
Rapid exit focused startups are no place for those in their 30's and 40's. I say this as someone who spent their 30's and 40's in startups but survived.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. For both of our companies [1][2] we pay a fair salary plus a quarterly bonus on top of that based on what we can give (based on the company's quarterly profit results). We also offer remote retreats (so far Cape Town, Thailand, Martinique, Spain and Skiing in the Alps) and the biggest contributor to everyone's satisfaction is that we let everyone work from where ever they want and as much as they want as l…
I'm always curious about companies who talk about "caring about things other than just money". Maybe I'm missing somethings but if you are a for-profit company by definition you care about money, any claims other wise feel like marketing.
Never said we don't care about money. But we care also about other things than just money. And that a lot more than most other for-profit companies out there.
There's nothing wrong with making a profit either. The more profit we make the better. But it's important to decide what you do with that profit. And I much rather pay for our employees to join me for a week of skiing in the Alps than buying myself a Ferrari.
I don't want to make this look like marketing (as you already mentioned), but if you're really curious I talked a bit about it just recently on this podcast: https://mobilejazz.com/blog/our-ceo-stefan-klumpps-interview...
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered alternative comp mechanics? For example, I know it may sound unorthodox, but short work weeks is an awesome perk and worth a lot IMO. Other things like guaranteeing to ship engineers off to a conference per quarter of their choice and paying for a day and night of travel expenses + a day off so they can explore the destination is pretty cool too. How does your company handle IP assignment also for…
I would trade at least $15k/year for a four day work week.
That would be a no-brainer for sure!
At $75k/year $15k for a day off a week would be roughly "break even" on the hourly rate trade off.
Someone on $100k taking a pay cut to 4 days would see their time valued at an increase in hourly rate. Since you're getting 15% less money in exchange for 20% less time.
Broad brush strokes on the math there but you get the picture.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. For both of our companies [1][2] we pay a fair salary plus a quarterly bonus on top of that based on what we can give (based on the company's quarterly profit results). We also offer remote retreats (so far Cape Town, Thailand, Martinique, Spain and Skiing in the Alps) and the biggest contributor to everyone's satisfaction is that we let everyone work from where ever they want and as much as they want as l…
I'm always curious about companies who talk about "caring about things other than just money". Maybe I'm missing somethings but if you are a for-profit company by definition you care about money, any claims other wise feel like marketing.
I think the distinction isn't making money as that's necessary to keep the doors open, it's more about corporate motivations. Some firms want to be a unicorn and some like where I work are more focused on building a business we all want to work at. While both are motivated, there are different buy in strategies with the employees. We have great growth, but we regularly turn down clients because they're not a fit for our team. I realize this isn't as feasible in all areas of expertise.
There definitely is a bit of marketing though and too much talk of culture is usually a good red flag.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#78The way the article frames the $350k competitive salary as a "problem" for startups is backwards.
If you're a businessman, you build a business that works with the prevailing pricing that's out there. That includes prices for everything such as raw materials, office rent, AWS/GCP cloud costs, government taxes & fees, and yes, high programmer salaries.
Complaining that your startup is "hurt" because AWS egress transfer fees are too high, or office sq footage $ is too high, or programmers cost $350k is counterproductive.
To think like a businessman, one has to turn that around: how do I build a more valuable business that can pay the high costs of the San Fran office and the $350k salary?
E.g., Jeff Bezos in 1994 isn't going to handicap himself because Microsoft was paying $100k salaries. Google in 1998 can't blame the difficult recruiting on Cisco and Sun Microsystems paying $100k salaries.
Either build up value in the business and/or include the high programmer salaries in the numbers when you ask VCs for money.
The other option, as other sibling comments noted, is to attract programmers who will work at a discount. Brian Acton & Jan Koum applied to Facebook and were rejected.[1] They are obviously not the worst programmers in the world and many of their caliber won't get $350k from Facebook/Google. See if you can hire overlooked programmers like them. Some will also work for a discount because they value the startup's equity or other intangibles. A startup entrepreneur has to hustle and make compelling propositions to these programmers.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp#2009.E2.80.932014
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#79Sounds like the market is telling startups that early engineers are worth more than 0.1% of stock options.
Yep, I think people are starting to realize that unless you are (a) a founder with 20-30% equity or (b) an early employee at one of the few startups that successfully exits for >$1B without any down rounds, your equity most likely will not be worth more than $100k. If your equity is only a $100k bonus after 7 years, it doesn't make as much sense monetarily to take a pay cut to work at the startup.
My friends and I discuss this all the time. There are always people trying to get us (software engineers) to join various startups around town/country, but the comparatively low salaries coupled with the exceptionally low possibility that any offered/granted equity will be "worth it" some day leads almost all of us to follow more traditional routes with companies that can pay us today, not MAYBE tomorrow.
Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. For both of our companies [1][2] we pay a fair salary plus a quarterly bonus on top of that based on what we can give (based on the company's quarterly profit results). We also offer remote retreats (so far Cape Town, Thailand, Martinique, Spain and Skiing in the Alps) and the biggest contributor to everyone's satisfaction is that we let everyone work from where ever they want and as much as they want as l…
I'm always curious about companies who talk about "caring about things other than just money". Maybe I'm missing somethings but if you are a for-profit company by definition you care about money, any claims other wise feel like marketing.
To me the big non monetary currency is time.
Average US commute time is about half an hour [1], add to that another 15 minutes on each side for context switching and "settling in" and it's an easy 10 hours a week at least you're saving.
Remote work isn't for every job or person, but the financial difference would need to be significant to drag me back into an office.
1 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/25/how-m...