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Golden Handcuffs

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Re: Golden Handcuffs

#61

Post by joshuamorton »

akarma wrote: post #14
PLenz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just reinventing unions but without the employee's ability to input via collective bargaining.

If you're ambitious, this doesn't hurt your ability to join Coinbase and grow quickly, which is an important factor in the tech industry and its appeal of opportunity. A union would. This offers a more level playing field for employees to begin their time at the company without stringent rules around who can get promoted and when and other red tape. Seems like a great decision.

> A union would.

This claim is disputed by, like, many unions. Tenure based promotions/compensation is one, but certainly not the only approach that unions use.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#62

Post by majormajor »

kemitche wrote: post #46
choppaface wrote: post #4

The C-level to IC comp ratio is still way too astronomical. If a VC is telling you he feels there’s a better way to comp, he has a financial interest in ensuring your loss. Do not support investor-focused comp models like backweighted vesting (Amazon) or outright fraud like a start-up giving you a stock offer with no percentage or no 409A. Employees deserve high-quality equity on par with investors. The OP’s suggesti…

Did Amazon return to back-weighted comp? The offer I received two years ago had comp that shifted from "cash focused" to RSUs over 4 years, and had equivalent cash value over the 4 years. Obviously, by year 3/4 when comp was mostly/all RSUs, the stock could have gone up or down significantly. Given that the year 1 cash could be used to buy stock if I really wanted, it didn't seem an unreasonable approach to comp to m…

I saw the same in an offer from them a few years ago, but some less experienced acquaintances seemed to be getting offers without the cash component in years 1 and 2.

I wonder if it has to do with cases where their "salary ceiling" would otherwise make the offer wildly uncompetitive for experienced people.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#63

Post by trompetenaccoun »

akarma wrote: post #17
the_jeremy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like it will just result in those who can be underpaid being hired at lower levels. If a hiring manager really wants someone and they can't pay them more, they can hire them at a higher level. If decisions are made by the higher-leveled ICs, then it seems like even more decisions will be made by white men under this culture.

> If a hiring manager really wants someone and they can't pay them more, they can hire them at a higher level. Yes, this is how it should work! Their role will then involve a higher level of responsibility and expected output that they better be prepared for, and they'll be compensated more for that. It makes much more sense than people getting higher/lower compensation for the same level of responsibility and expect…

Exactly. I find it incredible that there are so many comments defending shady behind-closed-doors negotiations. Maybe a lot of the HN demographic are the type of people who benefit from this but for everyone getting a sweet deal there's someone else getting paid less. This is a step in the right direction, if you're actually worth so much more you can prove it and work your way up. No one should get a high salary off the bat just because they were able to impress the bro from HR during the interview. Companies should be competing for talent on an open market. They don't tell you salaries upfront because they want to pay you as little as they can get away with.

At all jobs I worked in my life I got paid more than most coworkers who were often even more dedicated to their jobs than me. At one company, the less I cared about being productive and the more I complained, the more leeway and compensation they gave me. It was like in Office Space.

Not that I refuse free money when they hand it to me, but that's obviously an unfair system. It's not a smart policy from the shareholder's perspective either, this is simply bad management and leads to lots of employees feeling treated unfairly.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#64

Post by pvarangot »

choppaface wrote: post #4

The C-level to IC comp ratio is still way too astronomical. If a VC is telling you he feels there’s a better way to comp, he has a financial interest in ensuring your loss. Do not support investor-focused comp models like backweighted vesting (Amazon) or outright fraud like a start-up giving you a stock offer with no percentage or no 409A. Employees deserve high-quality equity on par with investors. The OP’s suggesti…

To add more fuel to the fire, in most if not all of the companies that switched to 1-year grants last year some director positions and all executive positions are still on four year grants.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#65

Post by 908B64B197 »

nineplay wrote: post #23

I've talked to two FAANG-level recruiters recently about remote openings, which are all the rage now. One was willing to give a base-salary range but absolutely refused to provide any comp information beyond that. Signing bonus? Equity? "We are still working out those numbers for remote employees, we'll negotiate when we give you an offer" The other - everyone at the same level at the same location gets the same comp…

Anything other than the rate at the main campus is not a serious offer.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#66

Post by boldslogan »

qdog wrote: post #29

The problem is unless you hold onto the stock, you are not tied to the long-term growth of the company. I think this is really trying to optimize to keep only the high performers without having to have a traditional stack ranking system. Interestingly, I recall the Google article about the highest performing teams not being made up of the highest performing individuals, but the best communicators. No one seems to be…

one thing i think about, is hiring entire teams or groups at least of two to three instead of poaching just one person from a competitor/etc.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#67

Post by joshuamorton »

908B64B197 wrote: post #65
nineplay wrote: post #23

I've talked to two FAANG-level recruiters recently about remote openings, which are all the rage now. One was willing to give a base-salary range but absolutely refused to provide any comp information beyond that. Signing bonus? Equity? "We are still working out those numbers for remote employees, we'll negotiate when we give you an offer" The other - everyone at the same level at the same location gets the same comp…

Anything other than the rate at the main campus is not a serious offer.

Why? Say you live in or near Atlanta, the rate paid to (on site) employees in Atlanta is less than the rate paid to (on site) employees in SF (I think this is true for pretty much every FAANG).

Why should a remote employee in Atlanta make more than an onsite one?

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#68

Post by pvarangot »

seasoup wrote: post #9

This is a plan that is much worse for employees, being presented as if it were better. At least be honest about feeling like you are paying employees too much equity up front and want to pay them less.

Not also pay them less. It turns out that for the average person sometimes this four year grants when fully vested are enough to retire or to switch to a job that pays less but has better WLB.

They are paying people less because they want to keep them in the "golden handcuffs" for longer. The way it's painted by this particular VC is particularly gross.

Also executives usually keep the upside potential. So as an engineer if because of your work the company skyrockets and becomes 8x more valuable over the year you share 0% of that upside, while executives cash in. On the downside, as an engineer you can just leave because the market is very fluid, truth is you don't need job security from your employer if you are a good software engineer. If/when that changes probably compensation will go down enough so that this mega-grants are not going to be a problem anymore. They are just counting pennies.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#69

Post by pvarangot »

qdog wrote: post #29

The problem is unless you hold onto the stock, you are not tied to the long-term growth of the company. I think this is really trying to optimize to keep only the high performers without having to have a traditional stack ranking system. Interestingly, I recall the Google article about the highest performing teams not being made up of the highest performing individuals, but the best communicators. No one seems to be…

> the highest performing teams not being made up of the highest performing individuals, but the best communicators

Not saying this may not be like, true in the ontological sense... but as an experiment it's shitty because they measure performance by how good you are at communicating what you did and what impact it had.

Re: Golden Handcuffs

#70

Post by kelnos »

joshuamorton wrote: post #67
908B64B197 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything other than the rate at the main campus is not a serious offer.

Why? Say you live in or near Atlanta, the rate paid to (on site) employees in Atlanta is less than the rate paid to (on site) employees in SF (I think this is true for pretty much every FAANG). Why should a remote employee in Atlanta make more than an onsite one?

> Why should a remote employee in Atlanta make more than an onsite one?

Not more, but why shouldn't they be paid the same if they're doing the same work?

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