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Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

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Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#121

Post by alkonaut »

I'm not sure I'd want that kind of money... I mean I would but I wonder what kind of expectations you could put on someone who makes $1M at a "normal" desk job?

Would it be expected that I had a wife that didn't work so I wouldn't have to take care of sick kids all the time? Would it be ok to work 9-5?

I'd be happy to take the money but it feels a bit like there are hidden assumptions about what you are actually compensated for, once you get into these obscene levels of compensation.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#122

Post by SwellJoe »

unkown-unknowns wrote: post #95
SwellJoe wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a contractor for a while at a company that was pretty much entirely great developers, but they had one guy who had more experience than nearly everybody else put together (he was in his 50s, and had worked on all sorts of cool things in his career), who was also more productive than anyone else. The founders of the company knew he was their top producer, and so they gave him whatever he wanted (within the…

> [...] were also bug contributors. It's also worth nothing [...] I think you have a couple of typos here. Probably you meant to say "big contributors" and "worth noting".

Typos happen. I fixed /bug/big/ (I guess at the same time you responded), but didn't see "nothing" until after my edit link went away. You are correct in your interpretation.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#123

Post by charlesdm »

walshemj wrote: post #115
charlesdm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an employee, you generally can't optimise much. Perhaps you can take some basic deductions, but that's in. If you take two people earning $1M a year, the employee will in most jurisdictions (both relative and absolute) pay significantly more in taxes than the self employed person.

At the $1M you have much more options to optimise your tax eg in the UK ESI and VCT's become practicable investments which they would not really be at say $70k Just being able to max out your Pension and ISA at $27k is a big win for those earning enough - basically you can put £20k a year beyond the reach of CGT and Dividend Tax per year

VCTs are generally high risk, though. You might not want to make investments that way, even if you're on £1m a year. Same applies to SEIS and EIS.

And while putting £20k a year in your pension pot is nice, it's hardly a massive saving on £1m.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#124

Post by hasenj »

KGIII wrote: post #112
hasenj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think using AI to make clickbaity titles is still sigh-worthy.

In theory, it doesn't have to be evil. In theory, it could be good to attract users to information that benefits them and increases discoverability for that purpose. In theory...

The same thing can be said about spam. It could be good to be able to send useful information to users right to their inbox while avoiding being detected as "spam".

In reality it's mostly just dark pattern marketing.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#125

Post by omphalos »

fiblye wrote: post #61
moneytalks wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and that's what's so depressing about it. As engineers, wouldn't it be cool if the most valuable thing we could do was building tools that are inherently valuable instead of valuable because of the tool's ability to connect users with someone who wants to buy their attention? You know, build some software that doesn't make you feel like a pimp.

Your first problem there is monetizing it. If nobody can pay for it, nobody is going to get together to make it.

Money isn't the only motivation someone can have. People write lots of open source code for free, for example.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#126

Post by paganel »

ryankupyn wrote: post #64

The thing that surprises me is that, after paying these engineers seven figures, they're still sticking them in open plan offices (as far as I can tell from the photos). Though I do know some people who can work effectively in that environment, it would be interesting to compare ever-so-slightly-cheaper engineers + a less-distracted work environment.

There's also this image (https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i2FW30Wmwe2...) of some of their programmers doing work on their laptops which they hold, well, in their laps. After 10+ years of programming for a living I can't imagine myself typing code with elbows hanging in the air, I need to rest them on a desk while pressing the keys.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#127

Post by KGIII »

hasenj wrote: post #124
KGIII wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, it doesn't have to be evil. In theory, it could be good to attract users to information that benefits them and increases discoverability for that purpose. In theory...

The same thing can be said about spam. It could be good to be able to send useful information to users right to their inbox while avoiding being detected as "spam". In reality it's mostly just dark pattern marketing.

Well, maybe we could use the news to make more people aware of it and help mitigate human behavior? ;-)

But, yeah, it can be used for nefarious purposes. In fact, it probably will be. Hidden under that will be good uses.

I suspect there's going to be constant innovation. There are people who thought that personal transportation was a solved problem back when we rode animals. These days, we are looking at an EV revolution and SDV somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Along the way, it hasn't been a solved problem, even though it looked like it was.

I guess that's what I've been clumsily trying to say.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#128

Post by drawkbox »

freshhawk wrote: post #117
moneytalks wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and that's what's so depressing about it. As engineers, wouldn't it be cool if the most valuable thing we could do was building tools that are inherently valuable instead of valuable because of the tool's ability to connect users with someone who wants to buy their attention? You know, build some software that doesn't make you feel like a pimp.

Sex work is way more honest.

And porn and games always lead the way on innovation.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#129

Post by walshemj »

charlesdm wrote: post #123
walshemj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the $1M you have much more options to optimise your tax eg in the UK ESI and VCT's become practicable investments which they would not really be at say $70k Just being able to max out your Pension and ISA at $27k is a big win for those earning enough - basically you can put £20k a year beyond the reach of CGT and Dividend Tax per year

VCTs are generally high risk, though. You might not want to make investments that way, even if you're on £1m a year. Same applies to SEIS and EIS. And while putting £20k a year in your pension pot is nice, it's hardly a massive saving on £1m.

You can put more than 20k into pensions its 20k for ISAs -though you do have to watch the max limit imposed by Red Osbourne

yes but if your on £1M a year you can risk 20-50k on EIS and VCT's don't foe get you get some very nice tax perks for VCTs (which are collective investments) et all unless your a rock star and snorting all the £ up your nose

And moving dividend paying equites into an ISA is decent tax saving esp for higher rate tax payers.

Re: Paying top employees the highest salaries in the market

#130

Post by fetbaffe »

ryankupyn wrote: post #64

The thing that surprises me is that, after paying these engineers seven figures, they're still sticking them in open plan offices (as far as I can tell from the photos). Though I do know some people who can work effectively in that environment, it would be interesting to compare ever-so-slightly-cheaper engineers + a less-distracted work environment.

Optimal size of team in one room is about 2 - 3 members. Any outside disturbance is likely to affect all team members.

Trying to explain this to management can be very frustrating because they don't understand that coding is a focus intense task. And it does not matter if you cite research. Coincidentally, management usually have their own rooms.

Some links in Swedish with Google Translate

Worse working environment in open office landscape (2014) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Opening office landscapes causes stress (2015) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Open office gives higher sick leave (2008) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Opening office landscapes leads to overtime (2014) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

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