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Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

open.bufferapp.com

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Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#51

I have a feeling you will regret this soon. There are certain benefits in having a firm salary structure sponsored by a transparent system, but the loss of flexibility will hurt in ways you haven't experienced. Also, letting everyone know what their peers make can cause disgruntled employees.

You mean it can cause employees asking for comparable pay

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#52

Seems unwise to have a CEO co-founder be the highest salaried employee at a startup. That person's equity position is probably at least an order of magnitude higher than the other employees. As an investor or employee, I'd find this alarming. http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/peter-thiel-best-predictor-... Call me old fashioned, but I think co-founders should be paid living expenses + 25%, even in a series-A funded st…

>> co-founders should be paid living expenses + 25%, even in a series-A funded startup

It's risky to comment without knowing the specifics of Joel's situation. But it seems that his $158k salary isn't outside those bounds if he lives in e.g. San Francisco or NYC. Hard to know someone's living expenses without drilling way into their personal financials, and again this is not unreasonably high.

Thiel, from the link you posted:

>> What’s the average salary for CEOs from funded startups? Thiel was hesitant to answer, but eventually said “$100-125k.”

That was in 2008. Adjust for rent inflation, and that should square the numbers for you.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#53

Let's say I'm a competitor, and I find that Niel (randomly picked) is someone I want to hire. All else being equal, I offer him $100k (website says he's making $88k). He comes to his boss to say "I like it here, can you match it?" What does his boss do? Especially, if he's valuable to the company... What if I have a very specialized skill that doesn't fit nicely into your matrix? Let's say market pay for my skill is…

You know, you're making a good case for techies publishing their current salary/day rate. In a sellers' market disclosure should drive prices up.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#54
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think it would have been more than enough to simply explain the formula and provide some anonymized examples. On another note, I am quite surprised at how underpaid some of their positions seem. Senior iOS engineer barely cracking 100k in a very expensive market...

Yeah, that's pretty ballsy. Seems like they're exposing themselves to unnecessary poaching risk. And what do they do in that situation? What if someone has a competing offer and they want to keep them around? Offer a bonus?

If they are paying well then they are actually discouraging poaching

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#55
Excellent concept - but one major Caveat. Why in the world would you publish it for all the world to see?

Keep it internal to the company - you have an expectation of privacy from your employer and this post just ruined it completely.

I hope they got written signed releases from every one of those folks whose private info they broadcast to the world.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#56
post #49

Let's say I'm a competitor, and I find that Niel (randomly picked) is someone I want to hire. All else being equal, I offer him $100k (website says he's making $88k). He comes to his boss to say "I like it here, can you match it?" What does his boss do? Especially, if he's valuable to the company... What if I have a very specialized skill that doesn't fit nicely into your matrix? Let's say market pay for my skill is…

I would assume your real reason for objecting is that you employ people and like the information asymmetry that lets you pay someone less than they could get

Another way would be to look at it from the perspective that I don't want to be backed into a corner. One of the things that I hated about working at a big company was the "compensation matrix"--you plug your factors into a matrix and the formula told you what you were worth. To a company, some people are worth more than others: "work ethic" is a tough one to plug into a matrix.

I don't find that there's a lot of information asymmetry, at least as an engineer. Beyond a first job, is there really that much? I know what I made at my last job, I know approximately what I'm worth, and I argue from there. If a company won't pay me what I think I'm worth, I look elsewhere.

Every situation is unique: how desperate is the company, how desperate is the employee, how many roles will a person fill, how many intangibles does the person come with (i.e. work ethic, contacts, what-have-you)...

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#57

This sounds like absolute hell > Every internal email sent between any 2 people on the team has a certain list cc’ed that is accessible for everyone: For example if 2 engineers email with each other, they cc the engineers list, if it’s people on our customer support team they have a support email list cc’ed. Stripe was a great inspiration for this. (More about this) Openness and transparency and honesty are great. Bu…

And that's completely ignoring the shitstorm of emails one would recieve on any given day. Email is a drain on productivity and this seems like it would make it even more so. Having access to conversations between parties is nice but please don't send me meaningless emails all day long.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#59

This sounds like absolute hell > Every internal email sent between any 2 people on the team has a certain list cc’ed that is accessible for everyone: For example if 2 engineers email with each other, they cc the engineers list, if it’s people on our customer support team they have a support email list cc’ed. Stripe was a great inspiration for this. (More about this) Openness and transparency and honesty are great. Bu…

It's not so bad. As a one time academic employee, my salary was published openly by law.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#60
post #52

Seems unwise to have a CEO co-founder be the highest salaried employee at a startup. That person's equity position is probably at least an order of magnitude higher than the other employees. As an investor or employee, I'd find this alarming. http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/peter-thiel-best-predictor-... Call me old fashioned, but I think co-founders should be paid living expenses + 25%, even in a series-A funded st…

>> co-founders should be paid living expenses + 25%, even in a series-A funded startup It's risky to comment without knowing the specifics of Joel's situation. But it seems that his $158k salary isn't outside those bounds if he lives in e.g. San Francisco or NYC. Hard to know someone's living expenses without drilling way into their personal financials, and again this is not unreasonably high. Thiel, from the link yo…

Sure, that's a generalization. There are tons of exceptions where my generalization doesn't apply. But that isn't the core of my argument- its a postscript.

The math the company has laid out says that CEOs should be paid more than any employee in a company, even if they are founders and have a controlling equity stake. I'm simply saying that if I were an investor or employee, I would find that concerning.

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