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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?

#201

Post by rcarmo »

steveklabnik wrote: post #76
VladVladikoff wrote: post #65

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.

Sure thing! > it seems like you sell server hardware, We do! > which sounds more like you sell cloud hosted systems The server hardware we sell has a cloud-like interface. That is, you don't administer individual computers in the rack, you treat it as one big pool of resources that you can use. We handle the details. I wrote a lengthy comment a few years back that has more detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

You forgot the in-depth accountability for every piece of the design down to third-party firmware auditing and vetting - I see that kind of vertical integration of the whole stack (including hubris, but also the tight validation of the hardware) as the key thing :)

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

#202

Post by throwaway2037 »

lbotos wrote: post #70
ec109685 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

    > You think the quality of Anthropic’s salespeople had much to do with them crushing their numbers as Claude exploded?
This raises an interesting point. I think B-to-C sales for small amounts (ignore car sales for a moment) is very different than B-to-B sales where the amounts are normally 10-1000x larger than B-to-C. It is much easier to distinguish the great from good from mediocre, etc. To be more specific about Anthropic, the B-to-C sales team is probably more of PR & marketing to build hype around the product. However, the B-to-B sales team is trying to sell contracts to large corporations for 100s or 1000s of new users. Again: The scale of economic impact is incomparable, especially when deciding how to compensate staff.

Also, in my personal experience, the best sales really shine when there is an economic downturn, but they manage to outperform everyone -- existing and new accounts. Or, in the words of Warren Buffett: "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

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

#203

Post by [deleted] »

sunshowers wrote: post #99
sshine wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They inevitably are, because anyone who has a service subscription is doing this. Because doing every single thing in-house is a different, more extreme value. I'd love to be a $207k/mo. lunch lady.

We all do our part, but our CEO is ultimately responsible for dish duty at the office.

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by jmrjmr »

steveklabnik wrote: post #84
clarkmoody wrote: post #46

One thing I've been listening for in the podcasts is a discussion of equity. I'd love to get the company's perspective on equity, options, liquidity, etc. The Silicon Valley Way (tm) of using stock options to "juice" compensation while injecting large amounts of risk and drama into the employee's tax returns is certainly something I'd like to hear Bryan's (and Oxide's) take on.

I can tell you that we receive options pretty much like any other startup. Early exercise is a nice perk.

Are the options grants as transparent (internally) as the cash?

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

#205

Post by cross »

steveklabnik wrote: post #123
IshKebab wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly. You really think they are paying their cleaners and receptionist $200k?

What receptionist? (I'm actually not sure if we hire a cleaning service for the office, actually...)

We don't. When I'm there, I see it addressed as a communal responsibility. Not to be facetious, but the way it's done is a bit of a microcosm of Oxide itself: everyone just chips in and does parts of it as needed. I even filed a ticket to get a push-broom last time to make sweeping the floor easier.

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

#206

Post by jwr »

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…

> An engineer that can talk to customers, find bugs, and fix them, is not worth $200k?

I always watch these kinds of discussions on HN with interest, because depending on what is being discussed, one of two viewpoints dominates:

* If we are discussing salaries, of course people deserve compensation, and good work is worth a good salary.

* If we are discussing software cost, HOW DARE THE DEVELOPER ask for subscription pricing, and everything should really be a $5 one-time purchase.

BTW, a very good point in the thread above is that the company is spending VC money.

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

#207

Post by tg76402 »

theoryofx wrote: post #27
bcantrill wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to go into it in more detail, but the salient points are in the piece: sales folks are eligible to make more -- but can also make less. This is in keeping with the way enterprise sales is done more or less everywhere: sales is different from every other company activity in that it is very quantifiable. I don't think that there's a whole lot more to say about it?

"this is in keeping with the way enterprise sales is done more or less everywhere..." For non-sales roles you're doing things very differently than (most) everywhere else, which is why it seems like a compromise to give in to an 'industry standard' model for enterprise sales. The fact that sales is quantifiable doesn't explain why sales people get instantly rewarded with cash comp (+ equity) while everyone else on th…

That's because the folks who are buying enterprise technology (aka the economic buyers) for a solution that can potentially cost millions of dollars know if the person attempting to persuade them to do so belongs in that room or not. That is a skill learned over years of negotiation, contracts and legal reviews and executive messaging.

You have to have been in those rooms to acquire the skills that make for successful executive salespeople, and their variable comp is a requirement or you wouldn't be able to staff the team.

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

#208

Post by sebstefan »

You can get most of the benefits of this without the downsides with profit-sharing

The downside is 200k is not enough to compete with the silicon valley for top engineers, but enough to compete with everyone for support, designers etc

The upsides are the ones they listed: getting rid of the bad incentives that yearly reviews bring, focusing people on what really matters (success of the company)

With profit sharing you design per role how much of a share of the profits one should get and everyone in the same role is paid the same. It's not tied to your output, your yearly review, nor your experience and the only way to make it go up is switch roles or make the company grow

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

#209

Post by jbiggley »

lolinder wrote: post #161
plorkyeran wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that's unusual about sales is that it's the only metric that anyone's ever found that's (mostly) an exception to Goodhart's Law. Companies would love to pay a lot more people on commission if you could find a way to calculate commissions that gave the desired incentives.

It's not really that it's an exception to Goodharts Law, it's that Goodhart's Law only applies to measured proxies. If the goal of a company is first and foremost to make money, then sales is the only organization within the company that can be measured exactly according to the primary goal of the company rather than a proxy. Goodhart's Law still applies to the extent that companies have other goals and sales's incen…

> If the goal of a company is first and foremost to make money, then sales is the only organization within the company that can be measured exactly according to the primary goal of the company rather than a proxy.

This feels culturally accurate but also reductive. The best sales teams cannot sustainably sell a product that fails to have product-market fit. Likewise, the best product requiring a sales-led GTM will fail if sales teams are not able to understand and articulate the value.

A compensation imbalance between customer-facing and non-facing roles builds an imbalance of power dynamics within a company that will ultimately destabilize the culture and success of a company.

I don’t have a perfect answer, only observations.

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

#210

Post by numpad0 »

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…

"Let's remove all fire extinguishers from campus buildings!" vs "We can't appraise extinguishers as worth $50k each quarters", the reasonable PoV must be somewhere inbetween.
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