Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The boss who put everyone on 70K

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 381 posts

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#101

Post by Jestar342 »

benibela wrote: post #97
angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

On the other hand, having money makes me less productive, since I spend more time caring about the stock market. Like yesterday alone my long ETF lost 2000€ worth, and I bought a short ETF for balance, which went up 200€. Should have bought the short ETF earlier, but I was at work. Here I am actually losing money by going to work

I'm not sure there is a violin small enough to play your sad tune.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#102

Post by o-__-o »

pritovido wrote: post #73
angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

That is a consequence of procrastination, which is the consequence of anxiety, which is the consequence of barely meeting ends. Basically in order to be productive under those circumstances you have to ignore reality, which can be problematic for the people around you. But at the same time everything is relative on your perception of reality. We spend today 50-100 times more energy per person that people 100 years ag…

>you have to ignore reality

my mum has not been financially stable for over a decade. in this time she has been starting to "reset" what she finds acceptable. just recently she had to downsize her house and she has already focused on only what I can describe are ways to spend money to avoid reality. she recently listed a train of things she wants to do to her new house that sounds like she wants to stay there for the rest of her life. when asked about the conflict between staying and her next year goals is met with internal strife. she couldn't accept the fact that she needed to use what little money she had to lift herself out of her situation. instead she put priority on installing a dishwasher in her 600sqft apt to help the next person.

your brain is the greatest troll ever to exist

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#104

Post by o-__-o »

sokoloff wrote: post #85
chrisseaton wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that? It can be true that everyone is on at least 70k, and some people are on more. It can't be true that everyone is on 70k, and some people are on more. If you're on 80k then you aren't on 70k are you?

If you're 5 and asking "how many months have 28 days?" and insisting the answer is "all of them", you are technically correct. In that extremely limited sense, this headline could also be correct.

today i learned that a lot of people on HN don't have kids. you learn to be very direct in communication to avoid misunderstanding like this (which is very common!)

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#105

Post by maxerickson »

benibela wrote: post #97
angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

On the other hand, having money makes me less productive, since I spend more time caring about the stock market. Like yesterday alone my long ETF lost 2000€ worth, and I bought a short ETF for balance, which went up 200€. Should have bought the short ETF earlier, but I was at work. Here I am actually losing money by going to work

I lose money in the couch all the time.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#106

Post by luckylion »

oblio wrote: post #69
luckylion wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing family income 1950 with a single income in 2020 though. Have two incomes of that size in a family, and you'll be at 140k, which will put you in in that range.

I'd agree with you, but. In 1950 the average family was very likely to live on a single income, the husband would be the earner and the wife a housewife. I'd be curious to see the numbers for my assumption, though.

Yeah, from what I understand, inflation-adjusted family income has remained largely stable for the lower 80% despite significantly more families having more than one income, which sounds plausible, given that more supply should decrease the price of labor.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#107

Post by 627467 »

There have been several CEOS who historically have paid themselves 1usd or very low salaries. They end up making up the difference in other parts of their comp packages. I suppose this boss is also the main shareholder so he benefits from productivity increase.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#108

Post by fsloth »

numlock86 wrote: post #45

Oh, that story. I remember it. A lot of the high-performers left shortly after that. It was all triggered by some lawsuit in the first place anyway. The "give everyone the same salary" was like a compromise to weaken the lawsuit while at the same time to make a positive impact on media.

But is it actually interesting why this started? As a purely economic experiment it's surely at least not a total failure as the company is still standing.

I'm not sure what value the "high performer" qualification has in this instance. They were the highest paid, but I don't think we have any guarantees to their actual output. If the CEO is an untrustworthy agent (as some of the stories make him out to be) how can we trust any of the valuations of his employees?

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#109

Post by eru »

sokoloff wrote: post #82
eru wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's usually less than 5x more. I don't really see your argument. The per capita expenditure should be the same or less. If really necessary, just charge real estate developers for it.

When the sewer and water service is under existing streets and needs to be dug up to support higher density housing, that project is enormously more expensive and disruptive to the locals.

In addition to what clarry said: do it piecemeal, and upgrade the sewers when you would be doing maintenance on them anyway.

Also: if necessary, do charge the developers, and use that to finance the upgrading work and perhaps some modest handouts to existing residents to compensate them for the trouble. (Perhaps have different parts of the city compete in an auction on who would accept the smallest handout to be upgraded first. Allow negative bids as well, in case some parts of the city positively want the upgrade.)

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#110

Post by lordnacho »

angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

Interestingly a fair few famous academics from earlier times were quite wealthy. I think they used to be called "men of letters".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish

This guy managed to get a measurement of G (the one from high school physics) in his basement IIRC.

Post reply on HN