Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market • Hacker News Board

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#61

Post by fiblye » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:36 AM UTC

moneytalks wrote: post #50

sdfgelgh43oito3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

news aggregation, and the selective targeting of individuals for advertising might just be the most powerful social influence today. Wins elections even...

Yes and that's what's so depressing about it. As engineers, wouldn't it be cool if the most valuable thing we could do was building tools that are inherently valuable instead of valuable because of the tool's ability to connect users with someone who wants to buy their attention? You know, build some software that doesn't make you feel like a pimp.

Your first problem there is monetizing it. If nobody can pay for it, nobody is going to get together to make it.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#62

Post by thisisit » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:39 AM UTC

Just wondering how much of this will actually cause a toxic work environment. Sure the people hired will have top talent but do they actually work well together? And are they comparatively paid? Because people will compete on salaries with each other causing the environment to go bad a bit.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#63

Post by HeavenFox » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:47 AM UTC

On the one hand, as an engineer, it feels good to be paid top salary. On the other hand, I feel kinda sad Toutiao is the company that's doing it. They have a pretty bad rep for stealing content without compensating the content owner, sometimes even without attribution. Heck, they have stolen my post before without me seeing a single dime of that two billion dollars…

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#64

Post by ryankupyn » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:50 AM UTC

The thing that surprises me is that, after paying these engineers seven figures, they're still sticking them in open plan offices (as far as I can tell from the photos). Though I do know some people who can work effectively in that environment, it would be interesting to compare ever-so-slightly-cheaper engineers + a less-distracted work environment.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#65

Post by kibwen » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:18 AM UTC

orarbel1 wrote: post #38

wmeredith wrote: post #12

Top talent... selling advertising... for a news aggregator. Sigh.

"Top talent... selling advertising... for a news aggregator. Sigh" Google? Facebook?

Channeling that old quote: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#66

Post by saimiam » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:19 AM UTC

fiblye wrote: post #61

moneytalks wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and that's what's so depressing about it. As engineers, wouldn't it be cool if the most valuable thing we could do was building tools that are inherently valuable instead of valuable because of the tool's ability to connect users with someone who wants to buy their attention? You know, build some software that doesn't make you feel like a pimp.

Your first problem there is monetizing it. If nobody can pay for it, nobody is going to get together to make it.

I've posted this on HN before but we at Datajoy are trying to solve the problem of consuming without paying which lets ad platforms treat us as the product: https://datajoy.us/fupm.html.

Use it, block ads, pay for content...sleep better?

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#67

Post by closeparen » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:19 AM UTC

johnvonneumann wrote: post #15

dexterdog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but you are not remotely considering taxes.

At $3M a year, taxes are probably the least of your earthly worries. And also, you probably make enough to get a good tax accountant.

You cannot put away $2.5m while making $3m. At best you'll take home $1.5m.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#68

Post by sanxiyn » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:20 AM UTC

abrichr wrote: post #32

Is there an English language equivalent of Toutiao? If not, why?

Prismatic was similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_(app)

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#69

Post by jaredklewis » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:32 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #65

orarbel1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Top talent... selling advertising... for a news aggregator. Sigh" Google? Facebook?

Channeling that old quote: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Channeling a reaction I once heard to that old quote: "Well better than what the best minds of the last generation did: devise more powerful ways to kill communists."

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#70

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 5:38 AM UTC

jaredklewis wrote: post #69

kibwen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Channeling that old quote: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Channeling a reaction I once heard to that old quote: "Well better than what the best minds of the last generation did: devise more powerful ways to kill communists."

Ads kill communism.