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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)

#161

Post by steveklabnik »

jedberg wrote: post #142
bcantrill wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity has been purely formulaic based on arrival at the company. And speaking personally (though I don't think that I'm an outlier at Oxide in this regard), this is the best team I've ever had the pleasure of working with -- extraordinary in its breadth and depth.

Interesting. Have you ever had a candidate turn down the offer because the equity was too low? Do you have any issues getting senior people to join with this comp plan? I'm just thinking for senior people, do you have trouble getting them in the door? Like, would you be willing to work at Oxide at the equity levels you're offering today?

I took a pay cut to work at Oxide. Coming up on year 3. No regrets.

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

#162

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

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.

Surely I'm not the only one who would settle for comfortable?

I have no interest in being rich, personally.

Not trying to pass judgement on anyone, just genuinely curious how common it is in SV to be unhappy with an income that would make you comfortable, but not rich.

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

#163

Post by nebula8804 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #129
nebula8804 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I make 150k in LA, with 3 kids, and am the primary income earner. It kinda depends on where you live, LA is a big place with a hugely varying cost of living. I live in the suburbs and it's enough. If I lived in Venice I couldn't afford rent.

How about Echo Park. I wanna be around people somewhat near my age range to help stave off(but not eliminate) my crippling depression.

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

#164

Post by xref »

dang wrote: post #153

" 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...

I notice the editorialized headline still stands as of now, when usually it is reverted to the actual article title. Is there a reason this case?

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

#165

Post by bcantrill »

jedberg wrote: post #142
bcantrill wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity has been purely formulaic based on arrival at the company. And speaking personally (though I don't think that I'm an outlier at Oxide in this regard), this is the best team I've ever had the pleasure of working with -- extraordinary in its breadth and depth.

Interesting. Have you ever had a candidate turn down the offer because the equity was too low? Do you have any issues getting senior people to join with this comp plan? I'm just thinking for senior people, do you have trouble getting them in the door? Like, would you be willing to work at Oxide at the equity levels you're offering today?

We have a process that really requires applicants to develop their own high conviction[0]; it would be unsurprising if candidates for whom compensation is disqualifying never actually applied to Oxide.

In terms of candidates in process who did not matriculate over compensation: prior to writing this blog entry, we had had one candidate drop out over compensation (the lesson we learned was that our compensation had been shared too late in the process with the candidate). Amazingly, after we published this blog post we also had one candidate drop out over compensation (albeit earlier in the process). That one was enlightening because the candidate had read the blog entry but had assumed it was false (?!) and that everyone was actually making secret signing bonuses. Finally, we had one candidate who had simply too much equity as their existing employer to leave. This candidate was absolutely miserable at work, they were disgusted by the company they worked for (and they loved Oxide!), but simply couldn't walk away from the equity, which was vesting quarter over quarter with more money than their parents had made over decades. This was causing real angst for the candidate, even though I assured them that their decision was very understandable!

Finally, your last question is the most important one, because we have always endeavored to build the team that we wanted to be on. For me personally, yes, I would emphatically be willing to work at Oxide -- would that they would have me!

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xtofg-fMQfZoq8Y3oSAKjEgD...

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

#166

Post by seattle_spring »

xvector wrote: post #145
seattle_spring wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about this article or thread is taking about total comp. It’s talking about specifically base salary. ~$200k is in-line with plenty of companies’, even large ones’, bands for L5 FTEs.

Pre-IPO stock is vapor money.

Ok. Regardless, you're not going to get a cash offer at a startup that rivals the "today" dollar value of a publicly traded company offering RSUs as compensation. Whether the risk is worth it to you or not is a different and unrelated discussion.

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

#167

Post by dang »

xref wrote: post #164
dang wrote: post #153

" 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...

I notice the editorialized headline still stands as of now, when usually it is reverted to the actual article title. Is there a reason this case?

We edit the title if the thread is salvageable, but in this case the comments were so skewed by the editorialized title that I just buried the thread.

Titles are by far the biggest influence on discussion so this rule is pretty important. There are borderline cases, but I don't think this was one.

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

#168

Post by MuffinFlavored »

panick21_ wrote: post #150
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #3

How many "non-privileged" companies (tech or not) can't charge the margins tech can (due to whatever market they're in/competition/"that's just the way it is"/customer's wouldn't pay those prices) which enables them to do stuff like this?

First of all, tech isn't always high margin. Second, there are many types of companies that 'could' do this. And even if you are not a 'privileged' company (whatever that is) you can do the same scheme with lower salary.

> Second, there are many types of companies that 'could' do this.

What's the lowest margin a company could most likely have to be able to pay all of it's employees $200k/yr?

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

#169

Post by vineyardmike »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #131
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.

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…

> Is there something I'm missing? Is rent in the valley $80k a year or some bizarro world number?

Kinda yea.

The average rent in the bay is around $3500, but for a house that is big enough for a family (eg. 3br, garage, etc) you're probably north of $6k. Don't forget, in America, you have to consider healthcare and other costs that may not be priced equally in Norway. The bay also has more expensive food, gas, and other daily expenses etc than the much of the rest of the US.

For example, I pay ~5k a month for a 2Br unit with a garage, at roughly 1k sqft.

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

#170

Post by tennisflyi »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #78
btheshoe wrote: post #4

Very interesting approach to gaining a comparative advantage in the labor market: pay everyone less.

This is significantly more than a lot of people who will read this thread makes. Might want to check your obviously insane amount of privilege. I hope to make this much annually sometime before I die, but I am not totally confident I will get there.

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