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The boss who put everyone on 70K

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Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#61

Post by adrianhon »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #54
numlock86 wrote: post #45

Oh, that story. I remember it. A lot of the high-performers left shortly after that. It was all triggered by some lawsuit in the first place anyway. The "give everyone the same salary" was like a compromise to weaken the lawsuit while at the same time to make a positive impact on media.

Yeah, I'm really surprised more people aren't bringing up the lawsuit aspect of it (and the accusations of domestic abuse) while saying he's a 'nice guy.' https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-gravity-ceo-dan-pric... . https://www.hundredeightydegrees.com/investigation/2018/2/27... .

Those links are broken, probably because they were copy and pasted from the comment rather than from the hyperlink. Here are the correct links:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-gravity-ceo-dan-pric...

https://www.hundredeightydegrees.com/investigation/2018/2/27...

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#62

Post by wyager »

fsloth wrote: post #24
wyager wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no skin in the game, so you should discount your (displayed) confidence a bit. Obviously if paying more money was a guaranteed way to increase net productive output, the people with skin in the game who think about this every single day would do it. > This is how investments are usually supposed to work, you put money in, and reap profits. You are using cargo-cult reversed-causality reasoning. Just because y…

I think your reasoning is too atomic. Think about the call center worker who was stressed out. How well will he respond to out of script situations when he's stressed? When he's in top shape, fully emotionally invested in his work? What about his colleagues? In out of script situations he likely needs the selfless assistance of other employees. How well will this interaction go if the persons are co-operating in a fr…

“This is how investments are usually supposed to work” is absolutely cargo cult reasoning and doesn’t make any sense.

Cool list of reasons to pay people more - I guarantee you that every HR department in the universe has thought of them, as well as a countervailing list of reasons not to.

If you see that everyone with money on the line is doing something different from what you propose, your response should not be “wow those people are dumb”, but “my model is probably not accurate because I’ve only been thinking about this for the duration of a low-effort HN post”.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#63

Post by eru »

draugadrotten wrote: post #51
eru wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they could also build more homes. But Seattle has somehow decided they don't want that.

when building homes, you also need to build roads, sewers, power plants, hospitals, schools... it's not just about a few houses.

Sure. Oh, and you want to be building higher.

That allows you to save a bit on the roads and sewers on a per capita basis.

Power plants are usually handled by the market already.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#64

Post by wyager »

watr wrote: post #33
wyager wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no skin in the game, so you should discount your (displayed) confidence a bit. Obviously if paying more money was a guaranteed way to increase net productive output, the people with skin in the game who think about this every single day would do it. > This is how investments are usually supposed to work, you put money in, and reap profits. You are using cargo-cult reversed-causality reasoning. Just because y…

> You are using cargo-cult reversed-causality reasoning. Just because you put money into something doesn’t mean you should expect to get more money back out. If I dig a big hole in the ground and throw wads of cash into it, I don’t expect market returns. You should just read the article again. It does actually mention the changes that were observed after the 70k minimum. Talent retention and employee satisfaction goe…

> You should just read the article again.

I wasn’t responding to the article. I was responding to a comment. You should just read that again.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#66

Post by uk_programmer »

fsloth wrote: post #30
domlebo70 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well would you pay 10 dollars a liter to fill your car up, when you can get perfectly good fuel for $1.50 a liter?

There is a difference between a team of people, and the set of people working individually. An extreme example - there is a reason a SEAL team is called a team . This is the problem with wage discussions. People equate a measurable commodity like gasoline to the number of hours worked at a specific job. Sometimes this is a sufficient analogue, but often times reward mechanisms are more complex than that. There is a g…

I am a contractor and I would expect to be paid the market rate for my skillset. The market rate for a .NET developer in the UK is about £350-400 a day (outside of London) in the UK. An Angular JS developer gets between £450 and £500. Thus at the moment (despite not being fond of it) I am (re-)learning Angular JS in my spare time so I can go for these higher paid roles. The same is generally true for the salaried market.

I appreciate there is a bit of a difference with a team of people. But generally how else are you going to gauge the compensation of any individual reliably other than market rate?

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#67

Post by sarbaz »

primitivesuave wrote: post #12
travbrack wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Inflation calculator says 70k in 1950 is worth 754k today. Edit: I did the calculation backwards. Thanks to everyone who pointed that out.

By the other interpretation of $6500 dollars in 1950 (roughly equivalent to 70k today), it would be much higher than the average family income of 1950 of $3,300 and put you in the top 10-20% of earners, which is probably not as far as 70k gets you today.

GP's point wasn't about inflation but about growth. So for a rough estimate you should be looking at the rate of GDP growth rather than the rate of inflation. Since GDP per capita grew 30x since 1950, you should be comparing the 70k wage to a family income of approx 100k.

If you look at inflation only, that is equivalent to saying that workers should have gained absolutely nothing from technology and efficiency gains made in the past 70 years. But obviously we know that workers are far more productive today than they were in the 50s, and the extra productivity per worker is reflected in GDP.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#68

Post by NohatCoder »

mikorym wrote: post #50
angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse. Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year. Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education. I am not against free…

I believe that the story is similar a lot of places in the world. At least in Denmark, stories of researchers spending more time seeking grant money than doing research are not uncommon.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#69

Post by oblio »

luckylion wrote: post #25
primitivesuave wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the other interpretation of $6500 dollars in 1950 (roughly equivalent to 70k today), it would be much higher than the average family income of 1950 of $3,300 and put you in the top 10-20% of earners, which is probably not as far as 70k gets you today.

Comparing family income 1950 with a single income in 2020 though. Have two incomes of that size in a family, and you'll be at 140k, which will put you in in that range.

I'd agree with you, but. In 1950 the average family was very likely to live on a single income, the husband would be the earner and the wife a housewife.

I'd be curious to see the numbers for my assumption, though.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#70

Post by fsloth »

uk_programmer wrote: post #66
fsloth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between a team of people, and the set of people working individually. An extreme example - there is a reason a SEAL team is called a team . This is the problem with wage discussions. People equate a measurable commodity like gasoline to the number of hours worked at a specific job. Sometimes this is a sufficient analogue, but often times reward mechanisms are more complex than that. There is a g…

I am a contractor and I would expect to be paid the market rate for my skillset. The market rate for a .NET developer in the UK is about £350-400 a day (outside of London) in the UK. An Angular JS developer gets between £450 and £500. Thus at the moment (despite not being fond of it) I am (re-)learning Angular JS in my spare time so I can go for these higher paid roles. The same is generally true for the salaried mar…

"But generally how else are you going to gauge the compensation of any individual reliably other than market rate?"

If you were a business owner, what would be the correct referral market rate if the people whose compensation you are gauging is a tight knit team with years of experience on your specific business and customer needs?

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