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

A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 280 posts

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#121

Post by Daishiman »

eps wrote: post #72

Do you know what happens when Paul McCartney gives to charity and charity leaks his name? He cancels the donation. That's how you do good deeds when you genuinely want to help people and not pull a little PR on a side. If this guy wanted to help his under-40K employees, there were multiple ways to do it (a) quietly (b) without pissing off other people who worked for him. I don't know if it's a poorly throught through…

This is ridiculous. Any change in pay structure is going to cause someone to get the short end. Who doesn't want more money? Who doesn't have getting less?

One thing's for certain: there's a whole bunch of people who are butthurt about lower class people getting more money. Wonder what that reflects about them...

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#122

Post by hanspeter »

kdamken wrote: post #62

Something I hadn't seen discussed with much clarity is what happened to the employees who were already making 70k+? If I was working there making that much, would I see a similar percent increase? If not, then I'd be pretty angry about the situation and would probably leave as well. I think part of it is that what you get paid is mostly based on your experience and skill set, as well as what you bring to the company.…

So you would leave for another job paying you the same? You would actually leave just to find another job, where your colleagues were payed less?

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#123

Post by Daishiman »

dmitrygr wrote: post #44

The departure of most values employees is not surprising. In their place I'd do the same. I want no part of working in a place where salary is based 100% on politics and 0% on merit. curious all the quitters said the same thing (if you read the article)

Merit-based salaries is bullshit.

Salaries are based on what the market will bear. Employee performance is extremely hard to quantify, and there's not reason to believe that this changes that aspect of the equation too much.

Seems like people in the US have completely forgotten that collective bargaining was a key piece to advancing workers' rights.

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#124

Post by zck »

scarmig wrote: post #89
a3voices wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They're expensive because there's not enough high rises that would provide tons more housing space.

Which has more high rises: Buffalo or NYC? I'd argue you're mostly getting cause and effect backwards: places end up with lots of high rises because they're the most economically productive localities. Obviously at the margin another high rise will lower prices a bit , but the rate at which we'd be able to build them in SF sans restrictions would at most keep prices stable year-on-year. Which isn't nothing, but it's…

>...the rate at which we'd be able to build them in SF sans restrictions would at most keep prices stable year-on-year.

Do you have any citations for this? It's unexpected to me. What's the limiting factor?

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#125

Post by Daishiman »

paulhauggis wrote: post #112
buerkle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it was foolish is a bit too soon to declare; he already is getting more business. And that's harsh to say "give it some forethought". I didn't read anywhere in the article about how much time he spent thinking over the decision.

Paying everyone this amount of money just isnt practical and wont really help the employee in the long run.

You don't really know that. You're essentially talking out of your ass while this guy is walking the walk.

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#126

Post by Kalium »

zorpner wrote: post #118
Kalium wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal here. Yeah, there really is a need to toss "liberal" in there. More liberal dense cities seem to have this problem much worse than dense less-liberal cities. Qualifier: American cities. Some of it tends to be due to liberal reflexes (participatory democracy at all levels, favoring small local groups of activists over people who stand to profit, etc.) that backfire writ large. Add in a distrust of markets, and…

You have a serious confounding factor in that urban density correlates highly with liberal political views, at least in America.

This is true. We can separate out which cities have liberal views from which cities have put liberal urban planning policies in place.

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#127

Post by hanspeter »

a3voices wrote: post #66
swyman wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people care about things other than what's immediately in front of their faces on a day-to-day basis

True but paying people more than necessary in a lot of ways contradicts his role as CEO.

You can't say so without looking at the bottom line. Henry Ford did the same and it worked out quite well for the company.

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#128

Post by techbio »

gohrt wrote: post #43
apsec112 wrote: post #29

Talking about "cost of living" in a place like Seattle, as if it were an ordinary economic issue, masks the real problem, which is that liberal US cities have made it very difficult to construct new housing. If a million families want to live in a city, and the city only allows half a million houses to be built, then a lot of people are going to be forced out. It's not a question of economics, it's a simple question…

There's no need to toss "liberal" in there. Dense cities tend to have rent-control, and Dense cities tend to have people with policies generally referred to as "liberal" (to the extent that "liberal" means anything. But NIMBYism and status-quoism is not just a liberal issue, and "not changing the neighborhood" is right in line with the definition of "conservative", which means a preference for how things already are…

"Where young, hopeful people want to strike out to do something new."

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#129

Post by kitwalker12 »

ekanes wrote: post #8

Interesting. He would have done well to have read The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, which conveys nicely that much of being a CEO is realizing that when you think you're talking to person X (about their salary, etc), you're also sending messages to everyone else in the company. You have to keep everyone in mind, all the time.

exactly the same thing I thought of while I was reading this. he got the first part about being open right though.

Re: A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared

#130

Post by MaysonL »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #54
austenallred wrote: post #27

While I have no idea whether this will work (or if it's a good idea), the most interesting part of all of this, to me, is the backlash from people calling it "unbridled Socialism." I'm still not sure how a CEO of a profitable company electing to pay his employees more becomes a political debate. If it fails, perhaps it's a failed experiment in Capitalism? It's not like anyone is forcing the business owner to do this.…

> the backlash from people calling this "unbridled Socialism." It depends on the CEO's reasoning for paying the employees more. If he paid them more for economic reasons, reducing turnover, or incentive pay for increased performance, or a retention bonus or something like that then it's capitalism. If he paid them more because he's moralising about society, or out of pity, or fear of some kind of social backlash, the…

How about calling it unbridled Christianity?
Post reply on HN