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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)

#171

Post by panick21_ »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #168
panick21_ wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As I pointed out, the point is not the exact number.

And margin is just one of many factors that sets the avg salary. Margin also depends on what the avg salary is. Some companies have low margin because they have to pay so much salary.

And of course Oxide is making no profit at all, so their margin is nothing.

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

#172

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

vineyardmike wrote: post #169
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…

> 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 ot…

I guess there's a lot of things I take for granted that Americans have to pay for. I have to pay about $30 for a GP or specialist appt. And about $30 monthly in meds. That's 2 scrips that are completely free and one generic off-label that's completely out of pocket.

And that's it. Overnight admissions to more or less any health institution is completely free of charge(dental care is a whole other ballgame though, it's not socialised very much yet for adults, though slowly getting there). Similarly if I had kids, future tuition would not be an issue since Norwegian universities don't have tuition.

Thinking about it more it wouldn't be possible for me to live as frugally as I do in the US. Not without sacrificing health care.

To put my frugality in context:

Rent is ~$1K/mo(including electricity and fiber internet), which is about 60% of my income(or rather, 60% of 1/12 of what I earned total last year after taxes. It's complicated since I only take short-term consultancies through friends if they look fun. Most of the time I don't work, except on passion projects). That rent gets me a ~50sq. meter basement apartment on the outskirts of oslo, right on the edge of a beautiful river valley in an affluent neighbourhood. Apartment is nice, the juxtaposition of suburb and wilderness is ideal for my outside cat, who has a cat flap and is almost entirely independent if I fill his bowls once or twice a day. I still manage to afford good pet insurance, and a little saving headroom which I split 50/50 into a rainy day fund and fairly risky(but tiny amounts, so it doesn't feel so scary), cheap stocks. 4x so far. I save half my stock returns and reinvest the rest.

I buy dry foods in bulk, perishables at a discount. My annual transportation budget is about $300(public or legs only).

I guess you could say if SVers are in a high cost, high income bubble, I exist in the opposite cut every cent because I like the challenge and I hate working bubble. So I get pretty flabbergasted sometimes when exposed to the numbers floating around the SV bubble.

Mind you Oslo is the most expensive part of Norway in terms of property; I could go rural and probably decimate my rent but I'm too urban for that.

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

#173

Post by _-david-_ »

RobotToaster wrote: post #47

I'm guessing they don't have offices that require employees like cleaners, or those are conveniently contracted out so don't technically factor into this?

They somewhat address that point by just saying they will figure it out later.

>Some will say that this narrows the kind of roles that we can hire for. In particular, different roles can have very different comp models (sales often has a significant commission component in exchange for a lower base, for example). There is truth to this too – but for the moment we’re going to put this in the "but-this-can’t-scale" bucket.

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

#174

Post by bcantrill »

dang wrote: post #167
xref wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a really interesting observation. I was trying to figure out when the tenor of the comments was so hot (especially relative to the two previous times this piece has been discussed on HN), and it didn't occur to me the title may very well have played a role -- but on reading the comments here (and especially, the fixation on the number), that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for burying the thread; there was more heat than light on this one for sure!

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

#175

Post by dang »

bcantrill wrote: post #174
dang wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a really interesting observation. I was trying to figure out when the tenor of the comments was so hot (especially relative to the two previous times this piece has been discussed on HN), and it didn't occur to me the title may very well have played a role -- but on reading the comments here (and especially, the fixation on the number), that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for burying the thread; there was more h…

> especially, the fixation on the number

Oh yes! - that's a whole other level to this. pg figured that out 15+ years ago*:

If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Excessive specificity has almost a hypnotic effect on the mind, and group effects compound that.

* not quite - looks like some time between March 2009 (https://web.archive.org/web/20090324091356/http://ycombinato... - no number rule) and July 2009 (https://web.archive.org/web/20090712034454/http://ycombinato... - number rule). Someone should make an Internet Archive binary search service...

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

#176

Post by malborodog »

ivraatiems wrote: post #90
epolanski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the letter addresses this perfectly: equity depends on risk you take, the earlier you joined the more you get seems very reasonable.

Except that undermines some of the core points of the letter. They talk about transparency, but are still being quite opaque. They talk about teamwork, but as employee 50, how am I supposed to feel like I'm on the same team as employee 10, when he stands to make several times more than I do if we succeed?

Presumably then you'd have the opportunity to swap some of that comp for equity (buy shares). That would be my way of balancing it, anyway.

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

#177

Post by malborodog »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #172
vineyardmike wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ot…

I guess there's a lot of things I take for granted that Americans have to pay for. I have to pay about $30 for a GP or specialist appt. And about $30 monthly in meds. That's 2 scrips that are completely free and one generic off-label that's completely out of pocket. And that's it. Overnight admissions to more or less any health institution is completely free of charge(dental care is a whole other ballgame though, it'…

The entire living arrangement you describe would have to change pretty radically if/when you had a spouse and kids... That's basically the rub with all this.

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

#178

Post by TheHappyOddish »

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.

The article specifically says it would put you in the top 5% of earners in the US.

How many people who live in this area are in said top 5%?

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

#179

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

malborodog wrote: post #177
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there's a lot of things I take for granted that Americans have to pay for. I have to pay about $30 for a GP or specialist appt. And about $30 monthly in meds. That's 2 scrips that are completely free and one generic off-label that's completely out of pocket. And that's it. Overnight admissions to more or less any health institution is completely free of charge(dental care is a whole other ballgame though, it'…

The entire living arrangement you describe would have to change pretty radically if/when you had a spouse and kids... That's basically the rub with all this.

True. Luckily for me I have no interest in children or cohabitation!

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

#180

Post by lsj0627 »

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'm sorry for any trouble I caused here. I have no affiliation with the company, but just came across this company/its post and thought "Interesting! I wonder what HN readers will think."
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