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Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

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Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#321

Post by tsss »

jobvandervoort wrote: post #126
tsss wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure because remote.com is so outrageously expensive that only people earning 100k and more can afford it.

We tend to be the most affordable employer of record with quite some margin. Paying contractors is free through us.

One of my colleagues works remote from another country and you were going to charge him $600/month. That's more than $7k per year, a good 10% of the gross salary of a senior developer in Germany. For that much money our company can contract a tax accountant just for him many times over.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#322

Post by sgerenser »

cletus wrote: post #111
marvin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US have significant employer tax? A data point from Norway: Employer tax of 14% of pre-tax salary is paid by employer. Employer also has to pay 2-13% (dependent on individual negotiation) of pre-tax salary for retirement savings. These are both part of the cost to the employer, and are rarely considered part of "total compensation". So employers have to pay an extra 16-27% of each person's salary in addition…

OMG I hate this kind of dishonesty by governments (and companies). There should be no "employer taxes". That's money that otherwise could be going to the employer so all taxes and the like should be reported coming out of the employee's salary. Example: the US has 6.2% Social Security taxes levied on both the employer and employee. This should be reported as 12.4/106.2 = 11.7% of the employee's income. BTW companies…

Agreed up until the last part. The standard deduction is progressive, it provides a much bigger benefit to lower income earners than it does to mid/high income earners.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#323

Post by ffggvv »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #317
ffggvv wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

theyre actually that much better IMO. the bay area has unbelievable talent.

Isn't that because the companies that attract that talent and pay those salaries are there, though? I don't doubt you, but also there's nothing about the geography of the SF bay that gives people more talent. The only reason I can think that a company wouldn't start elsewhere, or decide to move to save on costs while hiring the same talent level (who presumably wouldn't mind lower TCO) is the network value of existin…

id say yes.

and companies that want to compete with them do have to pay competitive wages. regardless of location. IE snapchat pays more than FANG despite being in LA, where wages are generally lower for tech companies, because they want to compete with FANG. Same with some companies in seattle etc.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#324

Post by steverb »

ProblemFactory wrote: post #291
steverb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A radio play is around 9.5 cents per play. Assuming there are no royalty splits, then that would be 11 plays to earn a dollar. I think royalties of 1 to 3 cents per stream are completely reasonable. Subcent royalties are just platforms taking advantage of the content creators. Which is why most artists see all the streaming platforms as merely a way to advertise for live shows and merch. That's the only way to really…

A radio play is also tens of thousands of listeners. Compared to that, Spotify pays many orders of magnitude more than radio.

Fair enough.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#325

Post by steverb »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #289
steverb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And somehow terrestrial radio stations, which have no subscription base manage to make it work. As I said in the comment above, artists are free to NOT put their music on Spotify if they don't think it's a good deal, but regardless streaming services are only commercials for artists. Spotify is far from the worst offender. :-)

But on radio, 1 play is listened to by many people. That's equivalent to many streams.

Fair enough

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#326

Post by oblio »

cko wrote: post #236
nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

What country is your friend's employer based in? I'm America living in Romania soon to apply for developer jobs and I see time zone and residency status as potential obstacles.

You poor soul, American living in Romania? How did this mishap happen? I'm guessing it was because of your (presumably Romanian) partner? :-)

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#327

Post by alisonkisk »

2W2 wrote: post #290
nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

I already only do 10 hours of work per week in this pandemic WFH. No one seems to notice. I’m L6 at google. Why not double down and get two “full time” jobs. I’ve heard from my friend in BoA that he works less than 1 hour per day. TC: 800k

How does one get TC 800K ($?) at Google L6? Did you get hired during a stock price collapse?

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#328

Post by brailsafe »

JackPoach wrote: post #118
brailsafe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has told me that as an employee with no direct stake in the company, you should do little more than the minimum it takes to do what you're hired to do, and put all extra energy into literally anything else, like reducing your responsibility per dollar earned and total allotment of work hours. Anything else is a bad deal for you, but a great deal for real stakeholders. I say this, because most of the tim…

I get what you are saying, but the fact that your company doesn't give a shit, shouldn't mean that you automatically don't give a shit about a company. Giving a shit is a great trait IMO. If your country doesn't give a shit about you, should you not give a shit about your country? Or your relatives? Or parents? Or children. I am perfectly fine not giving a shit about many things, but I do care about other things pass…

I agree, but also wasn't advocating for not giving any shit, more so not going "above and beyond" in what is ultimately a relationship that's transactional in nature, or maybe just beyond. Everyone loves someone who takes pride in their work and does a great job, but investing yourself in the company in a way they they won't reciprocate doesn't seem wise. Investing in that way in your actually family, your own business, or your community seems different.

Another way I'd phrase this is not to not give a shit, but to not give more than a shit.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#329

Post by rajacombinator »

nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

FAANG caliber engineers can easily generate millions in profits for companies, and it’s not easy to find them. Downward pressure on salaries is not happening any time soon.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#330

Post by kshacker »

jld wrote: post #287
jb775 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's people scattered all over the country making 2x-3x rates that could have been earning 6x, but moving to San Fran or NYC was never a feasible option. The 6x companies will offer them 4x, settle on 4.5x, and both parties are happy. It will inevitably drive down the 6x pay, but drive up the 1x-3x pay. However, the companies will be the real winners though unless there's some type of coordination between all empl…

In a world where employees need to show up to 6X Co HQ everyday to work, the cost of living and the cost of hiring is directly linked (6x). But in a world where people can work anywhere, salaries will be disconnected from housing costs and we may see a lot of 6x companies happily slide lower. It will come down to how many employees meet the 6X Co's hiring bar and how good 6X Co is at turning new hires into productive…

Great points and I will add:

It is easy for a thousand engineers to train in Bay Area and move elsewhere.

But could another locale train a thousand engineers to be ready to employed in the Bay Area companies?

In many cases, the value (initial value) comes from assimilating in the culture and while a lot of bigCos could still make people work in Bay Area before sending them home, the challenge is for these locations to evolve to be capable themselves.

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