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Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

oxide.computer

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Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#61

Post by steveklabnik »

setheron wrote: post #53
steveklabnik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bay Area is expensive, but I assure you that many families with kids live on less than $207,264. That said, everyone has their own personal requirements, and startups aren't for everyone. Around a quarter of the company, last I checked, lives in the Bay area, so while we obviously miss out on some good people who want more money, we haven't had an issue with finding enough people who are happy with the compensati…

I disagree based on my own personal experience of raising kids in California but they are all young and I'm paying quite a lot for preschool :P I'm also carrying a mortgage as I'm younger which is ~30-40% of my take home pay. Total tangent: 2024 Jujutsu was my favorite tool to learn and your posts helped me learn it. Thank you.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/how-much-mone...

> the [SF metro] area’s median household income [was] roughly $120,000 [in 2022]

That, being the median, includes a lot of folks who make less.

> Total tangent:

Awesome, so glad to hear it! You're welcome. I wish I could find more time to continue writing V2...

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#64

Post by __jonas »

michaelt wrote: post #23

> One of the more incredible (and disturbingly frequent) objections I have heard is: "But is that what you’ll pay support folks?" I continue to find this question offensive, but I no longer find it surprising: the specific dismissal of support roles reveals a widespread and corrosive devaluation of those closest to customers. The easy way to "pay everyone the same amount" when you sorta don't want to is to outsource…

Not sure what you're saying, are you implying Oxide is doing this?

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#65

Post by VladVladikoff »

As someone who is unfamiliar with your product could you maybe explain to me what your company sells? I looked for a while at your website, and it seems like you sell server hardware, however, when I go to the products section, it talks of demos etc, which sounds more like you sell cloud hosted systems. I don't see any way to find the prices or order the hardware itself. Very confusing website.

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#66

Post by schneems »

lbotos wrote: post #54
abxyz wrote: post #48

I like it a lot and their thoughtfulness about it but it's a little hollow when they're spending investor money. I'd like to see how this model evolves once they're off the vc teat: when there's a bottom line to answer to, does the dynamic shift? Everyone has an on-site chef when the money vc hose is on. Valve's flat structure was exciting because it wasn't 3 vc's in a coat larping as a business, it was an actual pro…

> Support, no matter how valued and important to the organisation it is, is never worth $200k/year on the output of 1 person. I... think you are thinking more "Customer Support Representative" (how to reset a password) and not Support Engineering . An engineer that can talk to customers, find bugs, and fix them, is not worth $200k? One of the Oxide Support engineers was (still is) an INSANELY strong performance engin…

To add: I saw job listings recently posted on bsky and was enjoying how well written they were. The support engineer role description asked that they be able to fly to a customers site at short notice. That’s a whole other level of on-call right there.

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#67

Post by steveklabnik »

serhack_ wrote: post #62

OT: how does anyone buy their cloud? Is it only available as a public alpha/beta with remote control? I might have a client interested into this, but needs to have some guarantees that their data remains on-premise.

> how does anyone buy their cloud?

https://oxide.computer/contact

> Is it only available as a public alpha/beta with remote control? I might have a client interested into this, but needs to have some guarantees that their data remains on-premise.

You are purchasing hardware. You put it on-premise. Our software gives you a cloud-like deployment model, but it's not going anywhere other than your rack.

Happy to answer any other questions, even if they're off-topic :)

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#68

Post by steveklabnik »

latchkey wrote: post #63

The post I want to see is: "Oxide's revenue model: how is it going?" Looking on the website, I just see "try a vm and play with us", I'm super curious how this translates to sales. Updated: s/rent/try/

> I just see "rent a vm and play with us",

To be clear, you cannot rent anything from us: you are buying a rack-scale system.

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#69

Post by steveklabnik »

zem wrote: post #60

I looked at the careers page and could not see any administrative roles - I wonder it they pay the same for these (very impressive if so) or outsource those roles to staffing agencies.

I don't believe we have any traditional dedicated administrative staff at the moment. We're certainly not outsourcing any kind of employees, to my knowledge. (EDIT: I'm told we do currently outsource accounting, I don't interact with that part of the business so I wouldn't know about it, heh. We do have one dedicated finance employee but that's a recent hire.)

Re: Oxide’s compensation model: how is it going?

#70

Post by lbotos »

ec109685 wrote: post #41
lbotos wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why sales people get instantly rewarded with cash comp while everyone else on the team might wait years for a potential liquidity event. Because sales people also do not make money if they don't sell? What's your counter proposal on how they should pay and attract top sales folks? I know some sales folks who would love to have $200k base with no variable component: The bad ones. Every salesperson that I've ever wor…

You could say the same thing about paying everyone a flat salary that you attract the middling ones. And no way all salespeople are worth all the commission they are paid as all times. You think the quality of Anthropic’s salespeople had much to do with them crushing their numbers as Claude exploded? Even the most incompetent salesperson could sell their service if it’s currently the best model out there. While that…

> You could say the same thing about paying everyone a flat salary that you attract the middling ones.

This depends on where your flat salary lands right? 200k base pay for remote is a very good salary for most of America.

The hiring process will weed out the middling ones.

> You think the quality of Anthropic’s salespeople had much to do with them crushing their numbers as Claude exploded?

You are right -- a rising tide raises all ships.

> it’s dumb that non-salespeople can’t participate in that abundance.

I think most people can't stomach the risk of the variability. Or else they'd become sales people :D

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