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Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

oxide.computer

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Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#101

Post by wmf »

ivraatiems wrote: post #90
epolanski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the letter addresses this perfectly: equity depends on risk you take, the earlier you joined the more you get seems very reasonable.

Except that undermines some of the core points of the letter. They talk about transparency, but are still being quite opaque. They talk about teamwork, but as employee 50, how am I supposed to feel like I'm on the same team as employee 10, when he stands to make several times more than I do if we succeed?

Isn't this the case in every startup?

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#102

Post by jedberg »

lowkey_ wrote: post #95
jedberg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting that they should pay higher salaries to single people because they likely won't use the healthcare plan as much Netflix does. Or at least did. They set aside money for insurance, and paid out whatever you didn't use as cash. People with spouses could just opt for the cash.

As a founder, I honestly wouldn't have expected this to be legal. AFAIK, startups aren't allowed to co-mingle salary + healthcare benefits like that. E.g. you're breaking the law if you reimburse someone's healthcare plan directly or allow them to expense a health expense, even if you classify that as additional income for them, as opposed to having a dedicated HSA account. Do you have a source? I'd be super interest…

Why wouldn't it be legal? The allocate $10,000 pretax dollars per year for health care (this was 10 years ago, it's probably more now). You select whatever plan you want. They pay the premium. They then pay you the rest as taxed compensation.

It's legal for companies to pay your health plan with pre tax dollars. Basically they just set your salary a few bucks higher each month for whatever the difference is.

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#103

Post by zamnos »

nebula8804 wrote: post #53
alfalfasprout wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... $190k sounds a lot except in any HCOL area (SF, NY, LA, Seattle, heck even Portland has skyrocketed) it's going to feel very tight with three kids.

190 isn't enough for LA? I was thinking of moving there while making ~120k. Granted I have no kids or anything but I thought 120k could make it in LA?

Plenty of people do. $190k's just this ridiculous "from first principles" logic game on how much money you need to "survive" there, but it really means "not panic over money or going hungry and bank a little in an emergency fund and a retirement account" level of living, and not "If I eat ramen for a week I can afford the concert ticket" level of subsistence.

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#104

Post by seattle_spring »

RobotToaster wrote: post #47

I'm guessing they don't have offices that require employees like cleaners, or those are conveniently contracted out so don't technically factor into this?

For any startup I’ve worked for, cleaning is provided by the building. So yeah, I’m sure they’re contractors. It’d be silly to have someone as a full time FTE just to clean up after ~20 employees. In fact, the company in OP looks to be mostly remote.

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#105

Post by paxys »

mmcclure wrote: post #100
paxys wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-depth treatment AKA skipping the discussion

Not in the way you're accusing them of. > I assume they are all giving every employee the same % of equity as the founders? No? And then in this latest comment, you're again clipping off the part that pretty succinctly addresses your original question. > ...but in short, equity compensates for risk – and in a startup, risk reduces over time: the first employee takes much more risk than the hundredth So, connecting th…

Say two employees join the company today – one with 30 years of industry experience and another right out of college – would they get the same equity? What about someone joining as a VP and another one a support tech? According to the founder they should all get the same, because they are taking the same amount of risk. But is that really the case? What about bonus targets? Commissions? And all other forms of compensation?

My guess is the answer to all of them is no, and stock comp, bonus etc. all vary wildly based on title, job description, location, industry experience and all other standard criteria used industry-wide. And if that's the case then despite the standard $190K base salary the actual comp distribution among their employees is going to look exactly like that at other companies despite all the PR.

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#106

Post by [deleted] »

paxys wrote: post #60
mmcclure wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some will say that we should be talking about equity, not cash compensation. While it’s true that startup equity is important, it’s also true that startup equity doesn’t pay the orthodontist’s bill or get the basement repainted. We believe that every employee should have equity to give them a stake in the company’s future (and that an outsized return for investors should also be an outsized return for employees), b…

> As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-depth treatment AKA skipping the discussion

[deleted]

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#107

Post by xsmasher »

tempestn wrote: post #67
firstlink wrote: post #48

> Oxide not only offers the best healthcare plans we could find, but we also pay 100% of monthly premiums – a significant benefit for those with dependents. I confess I read TFA just to see when the other shoe would drop, and there it is: compensation varies depending on number of dependents. Yes it's hidden from the paycheck but insurance premiums are absolutely part of compensation. Yet the author openly praises th…

I can't tell if this is satire. Are you suggesting that they should pay higher salaries to single people because they likely won't use the healthcare plan as much? Should younger and healthier people also be paid more?

Some companies ONLY pay for the employee's health care premiums, and the premium for dependents comes out of their pocket.

In this case employee AND dependent premiums are paid by the company, so you could say that single people "get less." They get $500 worth of health insurance instead of the $1000 that other employees get.

(Not making a judgement on GP's argument, just adding context.)

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#108

Post by bcantrill »

epolanski wrote: post #63

I'm baffled at the comments here. I think all do nothing but confirm the very first sentence: "Compensation: the word alone is enough to trigger a fight-or-flight reaction in many". There's literally nothing you can say about it without floods of negativity.

I am SO baffled. First, this post is two years old -- and has been discussed on HN several times[0][1], but the tenor of the comments here now is just so... vitriolic. I would like to do a blog post on an update on this (the dollar figure is now $191K as the blog post indicates, but the number of employees is now 60) and in particular reflect on some of its many surprising ramifications (all positive), but honestly some of the unhinged comments here have me questioning the judgement of that. Am I the only one seeing a changing tenor here at HN?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26348836

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26683510

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#109

Post by seattle_spring »

chernevik wrote: post #61
firstlink wrote: post #48

> Oxide not only offers the best healthcare plans we could find, but we also pay 100% of monthly premiums – a significant benefit for those with dependents. I confess I read TFA just to see when the other shoe would drop, and there it is: compensation varies depending on number of dependents. Yes it's hidden from the paycheck but insurance premiums are absolutely part of compensation. Yet the author openly praises th…

Pretty small shoe.

Some people unfortunately are career victims, looking at every possible corner of a situation for which to be offended.

Re: Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup)

#110

Post by seattle_spring »

jchonphoenix wrote: post #9
slap_shot wrote: post #6

> the three of us live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Steve and I each have three kids; we knew that the dollar figure that would allow us to live without financial distress – which we put at $175,000 a year Putting aside the fact that is terrible way to determine the rate of pay for anyone, let alone every single person in a company - how on earth did they come up with such a lower number for such a high cost of…

I'm curious how they make this work in sf unless they own a home or bought a long while back.

It’s so, so fascinating how distorted some folks’ views on money are on HN. There’s also a guy who pops in threads like this and insists that $250k in the Bay Area is “basically poverty.” It only becomes difficult to live on if you insist on private schooling, full-time daycare, BMW-level cars with private parking, etc.
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