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Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

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Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#151

Post by pc86 »

659087 wrote: post #146
pc86 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn't the key to happiness, however it lets you get rid of a lot of the bullshit of life. And that bullshit of life is what's making the majority of unhappy people unhappy. Yeah if you hate your spouse, don't have friends, don't have hobbies, etc, adding a few zeros to your bank account won't change that. But there are plenty of people who are unhappy largely because of the stress around the financial side of t…

> Money isn't the key to happiness, however it lets you get rid of a lot of the bullshit of life. Wealth brings with it plenty of other bullshit to make up for the bullshit you lost when you first obtained it, though.

Of course it does but the impact on your life is minimal in comparison. Compare "I need to pay this financial adviser thousands a year to handle my medium and long term financial goals" with "I need to make $500 for a car repair appear out of thin air or I'll be forced to walk to work in the middle of the winter, and if I miss work I'll be fired in which case the money problems will increase tenfold."

While I've never been rich, I've been objectively poor and I've been comfortable, and the difference in mental load is unbelievable if you haven't experienced it.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#152

Post by conanbatt »

tinbad wrote: post #127
conanbatt wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea to match salary to cost of living is economically ridiculous, but I want to share a couple of personal experiences and ideas. > As the article so nicely points put, the work you're doing is exactly the same regardless of where you do it from. Charge accordingly. First of all, a remote employee is not worth the same as one in the office. For 2 engineers of the same capacity, any employer or coworker would rat…

I don't agree with your premise of "remote workers being worth less (even if slightly) because there's less efficient collaboration". The last part is only true because most of today's organizations and processes are organized this way. Objectively, there's very little (outside of the individuals ability/willingness to work) that can't be optimized for remote work using modern technology. I've been working remote for…

> The last part is only true because most of today's organizations and processes are organized this way. Objectively, there's very little (outside of the individuals ability/willingness to work) that can't be optimized for remote work using modern technology.

Only the most important one: communication.

Its like saying you dont need to meet someone in person before marrying them, because all you need to know can be asked on an email or a skype call..

> I've been working remote for many years now and even many large enterprises I have worked for recently have adopted tools needed for working remotely efficiently (easy video/chat/screen share, collaborative productivity tools etc.). At this point, my impression it's mostly mental barriers (managers!) that stall any progress in this area.

I have been mostly a remote worker and I'm positively confident in-office working is more productive than remote, the same way going to the gym is more effective than working out at your home for the whole. There are exceptions and deviations, but the generality is true. Thats my model, but reality also matches with that idea: othterwise remote companies would be eating in-office companies, but they arent.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#153

Post by antisthenes »

lallysingh wrote: post #132
kriro wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see something like "true salary" where people can enter the actual hours they work, vacation days they get and salary (+ taxation as an option). If I compare on a per hour basis and factor in vacation time quite a few good looking US salaries become a lot less attractive for say a French software developer who is working a 35h workweek. It's especially interesting if you compare "boring" development j…

I made total $220k/yr at ~40hrs w/4 weeks vacation a year w/base of 140k at a prior job. This was typical.

You can't just write "typical" and not explain.

Typical for what? SF? Your company? CA? For people with your level of experience?

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#154

Post by 659087 »

pc86 wrote: post #151
659087 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money isn't the key to happiness, however it lets you get rid of a lot of the bullshit of life. Wealth brings with it plenty of other bullshit to make up for the bullshit you lost when you first obtained it, though.

Of course it does but the impact on your life is minimal in comparison. Compare "I need to pay this financial adviser thousands a year to handle my medium and long term financial goals" with "I need to make $500 for a car repair appear out of thin air or I'll be forced to walk to work in the middle of the winter, and if I miss work I'll be fired in which case the money problems will increase tenfold." While I've neve…

Relationships (both romantic and otherwise) can become incredibly complicated when your wealth goes beyond comfortable. I'd say that's more than a minimal impact. Human nature tends to show its ugly side when you have a lot of something others want or feel like they deserve more than you.

That's another reason why I don't really understand the instagram bragging thing. It's like these people are actively trying to create bullshit for themselves.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#155

Post by TomMarius »

dte22 wrote: post #69
TomMarius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For employment yes, consultant or contractor (which you probably will be if you're remote) can make double or more. 100 USD/hour is Prague, Czech Republic-level rate for a skilled consultant.

for these rates, how long would the contract be?

You mean in Prague? I don't have experience (by choice) with projects that span more than a year. I prefer to do several short term projects (~3-6 months) at a time.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#156

Post by [deleted] »

31reasons wrote: post #86
TomMarius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For employment yes, consultant or contractor (which you probably will be if you're remote) can make double or more. 100 USD/hour is Prague, Czech Republic-level rate for a skilled consultant.

Depends on what contracting work you are doing. The average web/mobile dev can't charge that much anywhere in the US. Company that I work for itself (an app dev company) does not charge more than $120/hour/dev to their SF clients.

[deleted]

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#157

Post by majani »

flexie wrote: post #46
jasonkester wrote: post #2

Well done. Personally, as a remote developer, I always make a point of billing at my "Bay Area Rate", even though I've never lived there. There was a point, early in my guy-on-the-beach-with-a-laptop era where I would cut my bill rate in half while working from the beach with a laptop. Clients were happy about that, and it more than paid for beers and thatch huts. Then one time I tried not cutting my bill rate in hal…

Basecamp is selling all over the world. What should their salary level be like? Bay Area because that’s where a lot of the larger tech companies are situated? Washington State (Microsoft, Amazon)? Copenhagen (where one founder, DHH is from)? Sudney where one major competitor, Jira, is from? I’d say whatever the market is that they hire in. If you wanna pay above market rate, by all means do that. If you can attract e…

Arbitrarily high salaries are often more of a retention play for existing employees than anything else. Note how strong the disclaimer was at the end that they're not hiring.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#158

Post by wolco »

RHSeeger wrote: post #53
welly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it? Given a situation with two developers working remotely with exactly the same skills, experience and knowledge on the same project, but one works in India, the other one works in the Bay area. Can you give me one valid reason why the developer in India should get a penny less than the developer in the Bay area? And that the cost of living is less in India than in SF is not, in my opinion, a valid reason. You…

> Can you give me one valid reason why the developer in India should get a penny less than the developer in the Bay area? You can reverse that question to help answer it. Can you give me one valid reason why the developer in the Bay area should get a penny more than the developer in India? One of the reasons the Bay area developer is paid more is because it costs so much to live there that they need to make more to p…

One reason would be similiar timezone. Without knowing the candidate details language, experience and knowledge might be better on the indian side but if the hq is based in sf than the native employee will have more value.

Salary levels aside I have been part of a company based in sf that had money issues so the indian side took over with local financing and closed all worldwide offices and moved r&d to india. Which made sense because the future customer base was in india.

Location and connection to customer base matter. I guess less so for developers compared to the product manager.

Re: Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

#159

Post by j4kp07 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #101

I think this is a great idea, but it has its risks. The risk I would worry about is that a person would adjust their life style 'burn rate' to their salary. Then, when they lost their job there isn't any other job in the area that will pay them what dhh was paying. So now they have to scale back in a radical way. Can they? Will they? What is perhaps a similar challenge that I do have direct experience with are people…

This is Lifestyle Creep and you have to take responsibility for your own decisions.
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