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What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

letsencrypt.org

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Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#111

Post by rrdharan »

ryandrake wrote: post #96
zachlatta wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not actually making $250k each. Keep in mind that this includes employer taxes and benefits, which add up very quickly.

OK, so $200k in salary then. Still stupendously good. WOW! Maybe there _IS_ something to all these "I know this guy who's brother's roommate makes $300K at Google" threads. It just seems so unbelievable.

I'm surprised that there remains so much disbelief regarding these figures. There are a plenty of people at large software companies in Silicon Valley who are paid well north of $300k.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Senior-Staff-Softwar... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Dropbox-Engineer-Salaries-E... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Facebook-Staff-Software-Eng...

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#112

Post by dstroot »

Offering an alternative viewpoint. Many seem to be focused on the cost/FTE. The alternative view is that if this was a business then $3m a year to run it is "peanuts" for the services provided. In fact I prefer the for profit model. I'd like them to charge for each account/cert to cover their costs.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#113

Post by imsofuture »

jedberg wrote: post #105
berns wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: A bunch of people are saying "why not remote". I think they are in fact mostly remote, but they still have to compete with SV wages because really good people command those wages whether they are here or not. This doesn't make sense. In the case of remote workers it's the San Francisco workers that have to compete with global offer/demand because nobody cares how much you are paying for housing.

It doesn't make sense but it is true. If you're really good, someone will make you an offer for an SV salary, and now everyone needs to compete with that. Besides, it's only fair. Your value shouldn't be tied to where you live per se. It's true that people in some areas make less because they have fewer options in their area, but for a high caliber person, they have plenty of options whether they move their physical…

Yes, exactly. Remote is incidentally a way to save some money on salaries, but mostly it is a great way access a much larger pool of talent.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#115

Post by dragonwriter »

ryandrake wrote: post #109
jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

> To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary I don't think people are _complaining_ about it, just expressing surprise/shock. It's one thing to read the anonymous "I know a guy who's brother's roommate makes $300K at Google" comments that you have to take with a grain of salt, but another thing to see an actual company's data. Eye opening for sure.

$200K per person staffing budget isn't $200K per person salary. Benefits, employer share of payroll taxes, and other things that don't show up in top-line salary are in there. You are a lot bigger cost to your employer than your gross salary.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#116

Post by zeveb »

jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

I think $200K/person is fine, but I do quibble with this:

> They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley

Why? Why compete for talent in Silicon Valley when there are people all over the country who'd love to work on something like this? I can get why they might prefer not to do remote teams (it's a challenge), but there are cities like Seattle, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Houston — all of which have folks quite capable of building this.

In fact, for some folks not being located in SV is a huge plus!

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#117

Post by EugeneOZ »

nappy-doo wrote: post #49

Fascinating. Everyone here is complaining that 2M for 8 employees seems steep, but I think this seems really cheap. Admittedly, I work at Google, but we bat around the number of 400-500k per employee when discussing them here. 250k/ in SV seems really reasonably priced in comparison.

Maybe SV is not the best place then. Especially when they are working remotely. One thing is to make money and pay salary as you want, and another one is "we want such salaries, please donate".

But don't get me wrong, I'm going to subscribe for monthly donation to them. They save a lot of my time monthly.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#118

Post by Swizec »

djsumdog wrote: post #102
Swizec wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Silicon Valley and I would love a $250k salary. But I also didn't graduate college and incur the immigrant tax. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What I'm saying is, not everyone gets $250k and the MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME in San Francisco is $90k. If you're not making that much, don't sweat it, you're likely way above median either way. Edit: to clarify further. As an Engineer with a reasonably-employed girlfriend, I still get to liv…

As others have pointed out, with benefits, taxes, etc the actual salary is going to by way under that. But I don't see why you're getting downvoted either. The income inequality in places like SV and Seattle/Redmond is insane. People working "normal jobs" struggle to get by and often have to commute further and live way outside the city just to survive. It gets even more ass-backwards because public transport hubs ar…

> And to rant a little more, a high end engineer that would cost $200k in Washington/California (maybe NYC too) would start at 50k euro in Berlin. They'd top out around 70k euro at the most. Even for really highly skilled positions, Germany tends to have way less income inequality and flats are also way more affordable for everyone.

Which is why I moved to the States in the first place. I may have fallen from the top-ish of the pile to the bottom-ish. But the glass ceiling is waaaay higher.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#119

Post by mrb »

To Let's Encrypt: if you guys took bitcoins as donation I would give $10 in an instant. The friction of filling out this long Paypal form is just too high for $10... http://i.imgur.com/oZZWeuG.png (And, no, I don't have a Paypal account.)

Make it easy to give, and you will receive more donations!

Edit: I am not the only one who wants to donate BTC! Bitcoin was the number one request asked last year: https://twitter.com/letsencrypt/status/581177744152784896

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#120

Post by jerf »

ryanobjc wrote: post #93
MustardTiger wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Being in SF" is a silly excuse. There is no reason for them to be in SF.

Except the people already were there, and they want to stay there. The imaginary high caliber people who can do this in a low cost of living place are exactly that: imaginary.

Pull open your brower's cert store and have a good look around. I suspect you'll discover that the majority of people who can run a certificate authority don't live in Silicon Valley.

It's hard work. It's challenging work. It's been screwed up a few times, yes. But it's not the sort of thing that's so hard that only five people in the world can do it correctly or something, though.

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