I'm not sure why I get this pay boost but I'm going to shut my mouth about it and keep my fingers crossed
Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
111–120 of 200 posts
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience the social safety net doesn’t really matter for highly skilled workers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. In terms of violence you’re statistically unlikely to be the victim of violent crime in the US as an upper class white collar worker.
It's unfair, but I'm of the opinion US healthcare is much better if you have the means to pay for it. Look at all the top surgeons and hospitals in the world for everything from neurosurgery to cancer treatment. They're all in the United States. The median level of care might be much better in Europe but they are behind when it comes to cutting edge treatments, rare diseases, and so on.
I'm an American living in the UK, and I've had to do medical tourism to the US. What I needed wasn't available outside the US at any price.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#113> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...
> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.
What will the enlightened Spaniards pay you to kick a ball for Real Madrid?
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
North of $70K is still a ways away from $100K+ and I'd love to see which companies we're talking about here because that's not the news that reaches me from Spain. Rather the opposite.
70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US though and is a pretty comfortable salary in Europe. Even if life is a little more expensive in Europe, you don’t need as much emergency savings as in the US.
> 70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US
Where in the US? It's a massive country with a huge regional variation in cost of living.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#115They're not paying $80k, they're paying $80k plus an equity lottery ticket that hopefully has a chance of being worth millions.
what is the proportion of YC startups that have had successful exits where the _employees_ received millions from their equity grants?
I would expect that the first engineering employee of any of YC's "Top Companies" would have equity >$1M at time of exit.
There are currently ~350 Top Companies out of ~4000 all-time investments https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/yc-top-companies-feb-2023
So conservatively, 9%.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?
> It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go? What you're forgetting is that taxes differ quite a lot from country to country. That, and cost of living is a factor too. If food and housing costs half as much, then even though you're paid less, you're not really poorer for it. I think many American developers are…
From what I read on the internets, housing is also absurdly expensive in London, Lisbon, NYC, Toronto, Vancouver, Shanghai etc. Adjusting for the local level of salaries of course. So not sure what your point is?
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unfair, but I'm of the opinion US healthcare is much better if you have the means to pay for it. Look at all the top surgeons and hospitals in the world for everything from neurosurgery to cancer treatment. They're all in the United States. The median level of care might be much better in Europe but they are behind when it comes to cutting edge treatments, rare diseases, and so on.
I'm an American living in the UK, and I've had to do medical tourism to the US. What I needed wasn't available outside the US at any price.
Yes. American health "care" is the best. Problem is with the "administration" that for basic stuff, there is crazy price gouging and no free market competition. It is ridiculous that you have to involve insurance in every visit to a doctor AND it's tied to your employer being able to provide something.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also between jobs / when unemployed / being laid off?
Pretty much, yea. You easily make enough money to pay for COBRA. Then if that runs out you can get (an admittedly bad) plan from the marketplace. But it all comes back to point (1) - the amount you make more than makes up for it.
"Pay for COBRA"
Yes but COBRA can cost upto 102% of the cost which was mostly covered by your employer before. Now that you are laid off, you have to pay the whole thing (sometimes employers are nice to still cover when they lay you off but mostly they don't). For a family of 4, it can easily be $2500/Month depending on the state you live in.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US though and is a pretty comfortable salary in Europe. Even if life is a little more expensive in Europe, you don’t need as much emergency savings as in the US.
> 70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US Where in the US? It's a massive country with a huge regional variation in cost of living.
The EU is also vast with huge variations. I think it’s a general, average comparison.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#120> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like Portugal/Spain).
lol, you have no idea what you’re talking about