Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#61

Post by refurb » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

samfisher83 wrote: post #53

The WSJ article doesn't seem right. Here are a list of the top paying companies by median income: Chimera Investment TESARO Exelixis Splunk Equity Commonwealth Agios Pharmaceuticals Incyte Corp Neurocrine Biosciences Inc The highest paying software company appears to be Splunk with 256k. There seems to be a lot of biotech companies that pay a lot.

There seems to be a lot of biotech companies that pay a lot.

Here is my theory why that is: first off, most biotech companies are started by very experienced people with impressive work histories, not by 22-year old drop outs.

Second, biotech start ups tend to pay very well, often similar or higher to the big biotech companies.

Third, the "virtual biotech" model is quite common with a small groups of leadership and everything else contracted out.

Combine all that and you end up with a pretty high median salary.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#62

Post by chatmasta » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #48

dqpb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this probably includes base salary, stocks, and bonuses. I don't think it includes health insurance and 401k.

Why not? It is an ask from feds, and they track insurance as a sort of income.

This document is for the SEC. The IRS already has the W2 form for every full time employee.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#63

Post by jdavis703 » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

mrleiter wrote: post #11

jdavis703 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure most companies would want to make median pay appear as low as possible when making SEC filings. Investors hate high labor costs.

I would agree in regards to SEC filings, but I'm not sure this comes from an SEC filing? Also, do you have to state median pay in such a filing?

You're right, I suspect this article is based off of new federal requirements that companies report employee vs. CEO pay disparities [0].

0: https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/Yes-median-...

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#64

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

mrleiter wrote: post #2

Just a quick reminder what median means in this case: You have a finite set of wages/pay - and $197,000 should be in the middle of this set. Meaning that half the wages at Alphabet are below, the other half above this wage. It is a rather robust measure, because it is insensitive to extreme values (like the arithmetic average would be), while also giving you a good overview, e.g. that 50% of all the wages are above $…

If the underlying data is normally distributed, then there's no difference between median and mean for a sufficiently large sample size. Which is why mu can be median or mean when calculating the probability density function.

It's safe to say salaries at FB, Apple, and Alphabet are normally distributed. Thus, reporting average or median doesn't matter.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#65

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #56

izacus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because you'll never come near these kind of offers outside a few cities in the world - no matter how good you are. Most of developers in the world aren't allowed to move to SV or Seattle and get those salaries.

You're mistaken. Just for a datapoint, I've never lived in the Bay Area (and haven't worked on-site for a dozen years), and I make a lot more than that as a developer. I am in no way unique. This is in fact what good devs make if we ask for it. Nomatter where we live. Incidentally, you're right that you generally won't receive an initial offer for that kind of money. You need to negotiate for it. That is sadly anothe…

Do you own your own business? It's definitely possible to earn that much when you run a successful website or app. But I have a really hard time believing developer salaries are $300k+ at companies outside of CA/WA/NY.

The national median is right around $100k.

Developers that earn significantly more than that have significant ownership stakes in the company, highly desirable skill-sets, or notoriety in the field.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#66

Post by jasonkester » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #65

jasonkester wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken. Just for a datapoint, I've never lived in the Bay Area (and haven't worked on-site for a dozen years), and I make a lot more than that as a developer. I am in no way unique. This is in fact what good devs make if we ask for it. Nomatter where we live. Incidentally, you're right that you generally won't receive an initial offer for that kind of money. You need to negotiate for it. That is sadly anothe…

Do you own your own business? It's definitely possible to earn that much when you run a successful website or app. But I have a really hard time believing developer salaries are $300k+ at companies outside of CA/WA/NY. The national median is right around $100k. Developers that earn significantly more than that have significant ownership stakes in the company, highly desirable skill-sets, or notoriety in the field.

At the moment, yes. In the context of my above reply, no.

Personally, I prefer to listen to the person who has tried a thing and declared it possible, rather than the person who has never tried that thing and declared it impossible.

Sadly, this thread (and others like it) fill up quickly with that latter group.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#67

Post by sanderjd » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #50

sanderjd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to report either median or average, both of which leave out a lot of interesting information. If people simply reported both values, it would go a long way to painting a more accurate picture.

Median is the only one you need a disclosure for. Mean is simply the compensation expense divided by the number of employees. But the mean salary doesn't really say anything, it'll always be higher than median and at a company the size of Alphabet you don't really get additional insights from that. Reporting median is a good step, most companies don't disclose that.

The difference between mean and median provides information. It's always safe to assume the distribution is right-skewed, but having both median and mean gives you a sense for how much.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#68

Post by bitcoinmoney » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #56

izacus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because you'll never come near these kind of offers outside a few cities in the world - no matter how good you are. Most of developers in the world aren't allowed to move to SV or Seattle and get those salaries.

You're mistaken. Just for a datapoint, I've never lived in the Bay Area (and haven't worked on-site for a dozen years), and I make a lot more than that as a developer. I am in no way unique. This is in fact what good devs make if we ask for it. Nomatter where we live. Incidentally, you're right that you generally won't receive an initial offer for that kind of money. You need to negotiate for it. That is sadly anothe…

which company (do you work for) and state do you live in?

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#69

Post by jellicle » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #64

mrleiter wrote: post #2

Just a quick reminder what median means in this case: You have a finite set of wages/pay - and $197,000 should be in the middle of this set. Meaning that half the wages at Alphabet are below, the other half above this wage. It is a rather robust measure, because it is insensitive to extreme values (like the arithmetic average would be), while also giving you a good overview, e.g. that 50% of all the wages are above $…

If the underlying data is normally distributed, then there's no difference between median and mean for a sufficiently large sample size. Which is why mu can be median or mean when calculating the probability density function. It's safe to say salaries at FB, Apple, and Alphabet are normally distributed. Thus, reporting average or median doesn't matter.

Uh, no, it is not safe to say that salaries are normally distributed, and they certainly aren't.

The salary distribution graph for a large corporation is likely to look something like this:

http://www.visier.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Graph-showi...

with a very, very, very long tail to the right representing the salaries of the CEO and senior executives. Depending on the corporation, there may be multiple humps ("salaries for Amazon warehouse workers" representing one hump, and "salaries for Amazon programmers" representing another, for example).

It's nothing like a normal curve.

Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k

#70

Post by FuNe » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

samfisher83 wrote: post #53

The WSJ article doesn't seem right. Here are a list of the top paying companies by median income: Chimera Investment TESARO Exelixis Splunk Equity Commonwealth Agios Pharmaceuticals Incyte Corp Neurocrine Biosciences Inc The highest paying software company appears to be Splunk with 256k. There seems to be a lot of biotech companies that pay a lot.

These are start-ups, right? The article is talking about Fortune 500 companies, not start-ups. Having said that the top 2 ones are pharmaceuticals. I wonder whether the fat salaries trickle down to their bioinformatics divisions.