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The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

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Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#131

Post by lowercased »

sequoia wrote: post #109

It's pretty absurd of him to talk about how it's ridiculous that people are paid $50mil (I agree) then pivot and say that $120,000 per annum for a new grad is another example of "ridiculous comp." These things are not in the same ballpark, they are qualitatively different. I don't know the author but this is so bizarre it makes me question their analysis overall.

"Law firms went through this cycle twenty years ago."

The reference was to new law grads 20 years ago getting $120k jobs. That indeed was a high starting point for most recent grads from most fields 20 years ago.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#132

Post by lex-lightning »

danbruc wrote: post #77
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea here is that they did the work up front and then saved to accumulate wealth which they could spend later. Is that immoral to you?

Yes. If you work for 10 years and then just consume stuff for the rest of your life without lifting a finger, stuff for which other people work all day long to produce it while at the same time probably not enjoying a quality of life anywhere near yours, that is deeply unjust and I consider it immoral to desire such a life.

I would have paid double my taxes over my career if the US would spend it on elevating the poor. But asking me to not retire, to give away my savings to very few people? What, that’s not ethical.

What if I made a lot, but spend very little? Shouldn’t that weigh in, if your issue is consumption level?

What if in my early retirement, I go around lifting people up in non-monetary ways?

What if my job earned me a lot of money but was ultimately doing something I found socially harmful? I should continue working to the detriment of my mental health and against my principles?

We can elevate the poorest and decrease the amount of work the median/average person must do.

keyword references: degrowth, UBI

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#133

Post by giaour »

jjav wrote: post #123
n2d4 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company benefits are also a form of salary. If your company gifts you a free car, they have to tax it as such.

> Company benefits are also a form of salary. If your company gifts you a free car, they have to tax it as such. The company doesn't gift them a car. The company buys a car held in the name of the company and lets the person use it.

If used for personal purposes, that car at your disposal would still be a taxable benefit.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#134

Post by danbruc »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #105
danbruc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If you work for 10 years and then just consume stuff for the rest of your life without lifting a finger, stuff for which other people work all day long to produce it while at the same time probably not enjoying a quality of life anywhere near yours, that is deeply unjust and I consider it immoral to desire such a life.

Ok, so capitalism isn't your thing. Fair enough. I wonder where the limits are though. What if I save up and take a month off? Is that immoral? What about 6 months? A year? Or do I have to have some justification for it that you find acceptable (like having kids or mental health, etc?) Or is it just immoral to not be constantly working while other people are working?

To a first approximation, you work for one hour, you get to consume stuff that requires one hour of work to produce. I don't care if you work your ass off for some time and then retire early or if you work very little or very much as long as your consume at most a proportional amount.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#135

Post by JAlexoid »

FredPret wrote: post #27

What a tone-deaf article. - Salary is absolutely the key factor when people pick jobs. The difference between a fun hobby and a great job is that you get paid a lot to do the latter. - Here he's saying that companies should create a buzz around jobs; but having good feelings about your low-paid job doesn't help you nearly as much as just having lots of extra new wealth. - Saying that because high-end employees are fa…

> Salary is absolutely the key factor when people pick jobs.

For people with poor reasoning - yes. Most people think of ROI, especially after COVID. A finish carpenter runs at $150 per hour, but your career is limited by your physical abilities.

Going to a company like Bridgewater, where 50 hr workweeks onsite are expected, at $250k may be less valuable than going to Microsoft at $180k.

> I can't believe this character is actually advocating for lower salaries.

Did you spend any time understanding the article? The whole article is all about how certain companies only use salaries are something to draw and keep people in.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#136

Post by krupan »

nostrademons wrote: post #129

As with everything, TANSTAAFL. The danger with offering "marketing" instead of salaries is that it locks your company into valuing (and continuing to offer) the boon that got people to join it in the first place. Google (and HP before it) used to distinguish itself with "We take care of our employees, give you decent work-life balance and flexible working arrangements, and let you work on self-directed projects. We w…

FWIW, Google and HP back in their days did still pay among the highest if not the highest salaries. But you are right the ideals mattered a lot to the employees and it's really really hard for a company to maintain those high ideals for too long, but I think HP did it for around 40 or 50 years. Google for maybe 15? Different time periods though.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#137

Post by ghaff »

FredPret wrote: post #128
ghaff wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Salary is absolutely the key factor when people pick jobs. Eh. It's a key factor. Once you get beyond a certain point, many people take lots of factors into account for jobs that are not otherwise basically interchangeable.

A CEO picking between a $10m / yr gig and a $50m / yr one would have to have rather a lot of soft factors working in favor of the lower paid one to justify it.

Almost certainly a lot of that would be variable comp depending upon a bunch of things. And I could also imagine a $10m gig (especially with speculative equity) at a company with really exciting prospects could trump a $50m one for a stodgy company not going anywhere.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#138

Post by mc32 »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #75
mc32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need normal schools that teach teachers like we used to. There are teachers who know less math than students and speak less than perfect English. If you’re a teacher you should have some basic competency thresholds.

My wife (engineer) taught a class called 'Math for Teachers', which was designed to teach elementary school teachers basic math. Not how to teach it, just how to do basic math themselves. A significant number should have failed that class but the administration refused to allow her to fail teachers who were failing for 'reasons'. She quit the job.

Absolutely what I observed as well with SF school teachers. Some were good and knew basic math and basic grade school English but a good number spoke and wrote like dropouts.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#139

Post by achatham »

throwaway240412 wrote: post #86

> After a million dollars or so in salary, the absolute amount that a person is paid has no real impact on their life. They can't eat more meals in a day or wear more shoes. What matters to the manager is the relative amount. Take the now-defunct "American dream" of a single-income family with 3 kids living in a house with a backyard, say, in Silicon Valley and other places that have mobs paying more than $1 million…

But isn't that the "relative" point? A house in Santa Clara doesn't cost $1.4M because it's 3x better than a house in another state, or costs 3x as much to build. It's because there are a lot of other high-salary people in the area who need a house and not a lot of houses being built.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#140

Post by krupan »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #113
krupan wrote: post #88

Wow, people used to nearly worship Seth Godin, it's pretty refreshing to see a whole lot of disdain for this article here :-) I think there's something to his point about marketing. There probably is a way for companies to pay a little less but still attract the top talent by selling the job better. But then, why hasn't anyone figured this out and started doing it? Maybe financial workers, CEO's, laywers, and enginee…

> it's pretty refreshing to see a whole lot of disdain for this article here :-) This is Hacker News. World peace and Star Trek-style wealth and post-scarcity could be achieved and we'd still have an overwhelmingly negative Hacker News comment section nitpicking the way peace was achieved, or lamenting that life was better with poverty and the threat of war.

I'm pretty sure it was hacker news roughly 15 years ago that introduced me to Seth Godin. Or maybe it was Slashdot. Either way, there was a time when engineers were excited about starting businesses and were drinking up everything they could about marketing because we knew we sucked at it (and probably because PG told us to).
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