Oxide pays all employees $191,227 (Bay Area startup) • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by eddsh1994 » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #184

eddsh1994 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

750 if I remember right! It’s in what I can only describe as a holiday resort looking apartment block, with a dog park, swimming pool, and fire pit area.

That actually sounds really nice at that price point. 750 is a pretty damn big one bed(room?) apartment for sure, and with the perks, prime location and presumably high end building standards, the price seems very reasonable. Probably similar to what I'd have to fork out for a much more central apartment in Oslo, at a similar size and standard.

True but Oslo is a real city, Palo Alto is similar to the suburbs. I'm moving to Stockholm in the summer and much prefer the look of housing out there!

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

#192

Post by lsj0627 » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

abathur wrote: post #45

Probably projecting, but I imagine this is being posted in light of this thread under a comment by Bryan from the other day under an SVB post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35128789

I was actually completely unaware of Oxide's or Bryan's existence until yesterday - I had no clue they were both known on here, let alone so popular!

I'm just an HN user who was browsing jobs, found this one that listed the exact salary (with this link to their philosophy) - I had never seen this approach before and wanted to hear what HN felt about it.

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

#193

Post by lsj0627 » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #108

epolanski wrote: post #63

I'm baffled at the comments here. I think all do nothing but confirm the very first sentence: "Compensation: the word alone is enough to trigger a fight-or-flight reaction in many". There's literally nothing you can say about it without floods of negativity.

I am SO baffled. First, this post is two years old -- and has been discussed on HN several times[0][1], but the tenor of the comments here now is just so... vitriolic. I would like to do a blog post on an update on this (the dollar figure is now $191K as the blog post indicates, but the number of employees is now 60) and in particular reflect on some of its many surprising ramifications (all positive), but honestly s…

Hey Bryan - it's me, again (the poster).

The transparency is great and is clearly a value-add for candidates, IMO.

But the salary simply does not compete with HCOL Startup Senior+ Engineers (around 20- 40% lower than Staff level).

That said, Oxide is in a unique class of startups that can still hire strong talent despite this pay deficit (whether due to an exceptional product, team, technical challenge, or other rare attribute). I know a Software Engineer who just took a 25% pay cut to join a construction analytics SaaS startup because he has heard his brother (a Surveyor) complain specifically about problems this company's solving!

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

#194

Post by acover » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 8:31 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #152

acover wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

You suggested exactly that.

Your counter argument to equal pay for equal work was location based pay prevents distortions in local prices.

Most countries want as many rich people as possible. Progressive taxes seem much more effective at combatting inequality.

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

#195

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

lsj0627 wrote: post #187

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...

Thanks for explaining! For future reference: would it have been OK if the post had the same title, but I left the URL box empty and placed the URL in the Text box along with a few sentences for context?

Good question! The answer is no—text posts are actually penalized to prevent that scenario—they're downweighted by default, and don't have live links by default. From the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html:

Q: How do I make a link in a text submission?

A: You can't. This is to prevent people from submitting a link with their comments in a privileged position at the top of the page. If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit it, then add a regular comment.

On HN, the idea is that submitters shouldn't have any special right to frame the story for others. They're welcome to express their opinion, of course, but it should be done in a comment, because then it's on a level playing field with everyone else's opinion.

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

#196

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

lsj0627 wrote: post #180

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."

It's ok! Your good intention is clear and you didn't cause trouble.

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

#197

Post by lsj0627 » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 2:02 AM UTC

hdisllcn wrote: post #126

sidlls wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're an extreme outlier, then. Most Bay Area software salaries are going to cap out around $190k - $230k range, except at FAANG or FAANG-like companies.

I don’t think this is accurate (and it is not in my experience) levels.fyi puts the median salary for _juniors_ at 180k and the 90th percentile at 230k. The data is obviously imperfect but on average it’s fairly accurate. My personal experience also aligns with this. Senior is around 300-500k and Staff/Manager can get extremely silly.

For startups, Levels.fyi is not a useful resource.

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

#198

Post by eyelidlessness » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 2:49 AM UTC

acover wrote: post #194

eyelidlessness wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ha…

You suggested exactly that. Your counter argument to equal pay for equal work was location based pay prevents distortions in local prices. Most countries want as many rich people as possible. Progressive taxes seem much more effective at combatting inequality.

> You suggested exactly that.

I not only didn’t, I stated exactly the opposite.

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

#199

Post by darthrupert » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

That's the kind of pay that would make people very rich in some parts of the globe, and upper-middle class in many parts of Europe. Admirable of them that they want to create new rich people in poor places.

I wonder how the workers whose relative pay is much lower think about this.

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

#200

Post by panick21_ » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

lsj0627 wrote: post #192

abathur wrote: post #45

Probably projecting, but I imagine this is being posted in light of this thread under a comment by Bryan from the other day under an SVB post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35128789

I was actually completely unaware of Oxide's or Bryan's existence until yesterday - I had no clue they were both known on here, let alone so popular! I'm just an HN user who was browsing jobs, found this one that listed the exact salary (with this link to their philosophy) - I had never seen this approach before and wanted to hear what HN felt about it.

Interestingly Steve Jobs Next did it for a while.