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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)

#151

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #135
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez, how much freaking money are programmers paid in SV that they'd be unhappy earning $191k? I live in probably the most expensive country on Earth, Norway, and at that wage I could work for 10-15 years, and with some smart, fairly conservative investing, assuming good times in the markets I could easily get retired at 40-45 if I wanted to. Granted I live and generally prefer a very frugal lifestyle even when I am…

I pay $3k per month for a 1 bed flat which comes out as 20% of my household income - I don’t feel poor out here with a postdoc wife and my own salary that’s not FANG. Life in a nice part of Palo Alto. The HN bubble is a bubble, I wouldn’t worry about it.

What's the square footage on that flat, if you don't mind, and is it detached? Just trying to get an idea of the market.

Still ~half my bizarro world number though, hot damn.

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

#152

Post by eyelidlessness »

acover wrote: post #65
eyelidlessness wrote: post #17

> The truth is that companies pay people less in other geographies for a simple reason: because they can. We at Oxide just don’t agree with this; we pay people the same regardless of where they pick up their mail. So, look. I completely agree with this, and it’s an admirable ideal. If I were in a position to make this kind of decision, I’d make the same decision or one that looks a lot like it. But if you’re anticipa…

This is a really interesting perspective. People from poor countries should be paid less so they can't be rich relative to their neighbors. Are rich people so destructive to neighborhoods?

> should be paid less

Please reread what I posted and recognize that I did not remotely suggest this. I expressly supported the policy, and want to add a frank recognition of its trade offs because its absence seemed important in the post.

> Are rich people so destructive to neighborhoods?

Disproportionately large influxes of money into a local economy cause distortion to the incentives of that economy. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the individual people with said money or their individual impact, and often it doesn’t.

The reason I think it should be part of the discussion is specifically because decisions like this don’t tend to account for externalization. If 100 companies like this are fully equitable internally, that’s awesome! But if their impact is pricing people out of housing, that sucks! If you care mostly about the former, that’s cool! I care about both, and I want to include both in the conversation.

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

#153

Post by dang »

"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

#155

Post by tomandrews88 »

bcantrill wrote: post #139
tomandrews88 wrote: post #114

I’m basically reading this as “If you’re exceptionally good at what you do, don’t work here”

I should let this comment go answered, but I simply can't: this team is packed with folks who are exceptionally good at what they do -- it's an extraordinarily inspiring team to be a part of.

Then they’re voluntarily limiting their income to be at a company they like. Nothing wrong with that.

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

#156

Post by eyelidlessness »

paxys wrote: post #91
eyelidlessness wrote: post #17

> The truth is that companies pay people less in other geographies for a simple reason: because they can. We at Oxide just don’t agree with this; we pay people the same regardless of where they pick up their mail. So, look. I completely agree with this, and it’s an admirable ideal. If I were in a position to make this kind of decision, I’d make the same decision or one that looks a lot like it. But if you’re anticipa…

There are many valid arguments in favor of location-based pay, but the one you are bringing up – that people in poorer regions shouldn't be paid the same as rich ones because then they'd have more spending money than their neighbors and that would be bad – isn't one of them.

> shouldn't be paid the same

Okay this is only the second response I’ve gotten to but we’re batting 1000 on misrepresenting what I was very careful to not say, and contradicting what I was very careful to say. I understand my comment is likely to elicit some debate but I’m hoping not every response is like this.

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

#157

Post by bb88 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99
ivraatiems wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because 99.9% of the population work for a CEO making millions of dollars a year, not $191k at a startup.

$191k is a HUGE wage for A LOT of people. If you're scoffing at that you need to realize you're living in a bubble. Outside of Silicon Valley that's even a huge wage for a dev.

... But not in the bay area. It would make you comfortable, but not rich.

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

#158

Post by eyelidlessness »

mstipetic wrote: post #49
eyelidlessness wrote: post #17

> The truth is that companies pay people less in other geographies for a simple reason: because they can. We at Oxide just don’t agree with this; we pay people the same regardless of where they pick up their mail. So, look. I completely agree with this, and it’s an admirable ideal. If I were in a position to make this kind of decision, I’d make the same decision or one that looks a lot like it. But if you’re anticipa…

I’m trying to understand - what’s your point here?

My point is that it’s important to recognize the external impact of decisions alongside the internal, particularly if you’re making decisions on principle and evaluating them on that metric.

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

#159

Post by eyelidlessness »

lozenge wrote: post #68
eyelidlessness wrote: post #17

> The truth is that companies pay people less in other geographies for a simple reason: because they can. We at Oxide just don’t agree with this; we pay people the same regardless of where they pick up their mail. So, look. I completely agree with this, and it’s an admirable ideal. If I were in a position to make this kind of decision, I’d make the same decision or one that looks a lot like it. But if you’re anticipa…

Encouraging everybody to move to CA for a higher salary is also a distortion. The only way to have no effect is for your company not to exist at all.

Sure, but I didn’t suggest having no effect. I suggested there are external effects and they should be part of the analysis. I even went further and suggested I would not do anything differently under the circumstances.

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

#160

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

bb88 wrote: post #157
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$191k is a HUGE wage for A LOT of people. If you're scoffing at that you need to realize you're living in a bubble. Outside of Silicon Valley that's even a huge wage for a dev.

... But not in the bay area. It would make you comfortable, but not rich.

Yeah, but they are talking about 99+% of the population here, so I assume that's not just the bay area, or we're really in a bubble.
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