Not an economist but my instinct is that if a housing stipend became widespread practice for startups in SF it would aid in inflating the market by making prices artificially low.
Pretty good perk for now though, I'd take it.
San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
71–78 of 78 posts
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#72The "Novel Ways:" 1) Housing stipend of $500/mo if employees live within a 10-minute walk of the office 2) A semi-annual retreat / hackathon where employees cook meals, hang out, bond, code, and present their projects 3) Plane ticket anywhere in the world that must be used between their 1 and 2-year anniversary at the company. I know of many companies that already do #1 and #2, but I suppose I haven't heard of this c…
Interviewed with their lead front-end engineer for a front-end engineering position. Everything was great then he asked me for my "story". I answered as best I could but I guess it wasn't what he wanted to hear so he re-iterated that he wanted to know if he would like working with me. I think that's great thing to determine but was put-off by the question-- I got the feeling I would be working with a bit of a tool. H…
why would a frontend lead talk salary with you?
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh boy, I just thought of a really good one: Some parents with young children find it difficult to get time to be alone in private while not exhausted. This can cause awful stress on a relationship. "Lunchtime" with a partner at home can make a big difference. This might not sound like a big deal to the pre-kid people, or those with tons of energy after the kids are in bed, but for some people this is a relationship-…
Lunchtime at home? Better hope you are not on lunch making duty at the office, it's company culture don't you know. You do want to be a team player don't you? Besides, how reasonable is it to expect to be able to raise a family in downtown SF? Surely if you want space, good schools, and room to grow an extra $500 in downtown rent terms isn't going to make that much of a difference.
Doesn't have to be every day. Doesn't have to be SF. And $500 makes $500 difference* no matter where you are.
Edit:
(* ok, maybe $300 difference after taxes.)
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other than obeying the law and paying taxes, he has no responsibility to the city. Why has it become so fashionable to project obligation onto others? The guy is creating 20+ jobs this year, what more would he need to do to fulfill this "responsibility to the overall city?"
Why has it become so fashionable to project obligation onto others? Why have people started talking about responsibility to your environment as if it's something new?
Where does someone's butterfly effect responsibility end?
If I create a startup and hire 20 people, and some of those 20 people like to eat some particular type of food for team lunches, and their presence at that eatery makes the lunch line longer for other patrons, do I have some obligation to apologize to those patrons for the long line?
If my 20 employees don't elect my $500 stipend to live within walking distance, what pennance would adequate for me to apologize to citizens of earth for the increased CO2 emissions from their driving and to the citizens of San Francisco for the extra 40 vehicle trips that would be foist upon the city? For good measure, he's paying people $500 a month extra to live within walking distance. For this, he gets a river of crap?!
At some point, companies employ people, those people get paid, those people spend their money consuming other items, but the company has no responsibility to apologize for that 3rd level effect consumption, IMO.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lunchtime at home? Better hope you are not on lunch making duty at the office, it's company culture don't you know. You do want to be a team player don't you? Besides, how reasonable is it to expect to be able to raise a family in downtown SF? Surely if you want space, good schools, and room to grow an extra $500 in downtown rent terms isn't going to make that much of a difference.
Doesn't have to be every day. Doesn't have to be SF. And $500 makes $500 difference* no matter where you are. Edit: (* ok, maybe $300 difference after taxes.)
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Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#76The "Novel Ways:" 1) Housing stipend of $500/mo if employees live within a 10-minute walk of the office 2) A semi-annual retreat / hackathon where employees cook meals, hang out, bond, code, and present their projects 3) Plane ticket anywhere in the world that must be used between their 1 and 2-year anniversary at the company. I know of many companies that already do #1 and #2, but I suppose I haven't heard of this c…
At some stage Government a both federal and local are going to wake up to all those benefits in kind that sv seems to hand out - as a way of raising additional tax with very little pain the hard working familiy's (tm tony blair) After all what voter is going to argue with clamping down on tax avoidance if it means that the increase in property tax isn't as big this year or that the federal government can use this add…
Not sure if you're suggesting that they will tax those benefits specially or if they'll raise general taxes to cover for the tax-avoidance of those benefits.
Either way, health care is the precedent here. Wage freezes in WWII resulted from FDR's Executive Order 9328[1] left employers in a lurch. The government had control of all wages, earnings, etc., and those wages were (basically) frozen by position. A tax man made $x, while an ad man made $y, no matter where they worked.
This put employers in a tough spot because, so long as incomes were the same everywhere, hiring was difficult because they couldn't raise wages to attract candidates, so they petitioned the government for an exemption on health care benefits, as a way of attracting new hires and competing in the market place. In competitive industries, as these benefits were given in lieu of free market wages, benefits became fairly lavish, and for competitive positions, health care benefits became the norm even after the wage freezes were eliminated, but the net result was that health care as a benefit grew 700% in a 20 year span.
The sum of all that of course is the system we have now, where health care is so broken as a system that we're going to 'fix it' with more of the same, but that's another discussion.
[1] - http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/19...
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
My name is Chris, also an engineer at ZenPayroll. We're not interested in a candidate's ability to write sorting algorithms, because those aren't the kind of problems we're solving. Our technical interviews are working on a problem with an engineer. We care a hell of a lot more about how you think than regurgitating Big O notation. We work in Ruby and CoffeeScript, but we've hired engineers without direct experience…
Do you have any evidence for the claims in The Value of Cultural Interviews? Because, to be honest, I looked at your Careers page and it made my skin crawl. Everyone looked the same, everyone was in the same age demographic, everyone had similar hobbies, you want to be their family (I have a family, thank you, and I work for you to do something interesting and to support my real family). More to the point (yes, I wor…
On the one hand, this is almost impossible to scientifically prove. You can't reproduce companies, as in building the same exact product with equally talented people where one has great cultural continuity and the other doesn't.
It comes down to the way you want to spend your time. If all you want is a paycheck, that's fine. Take the money, go do something else you feel is more important. I don't mean that we are a family in that we're trying to replace your actual blood relatives.
If you're spending 10 hours a day with a group of people, would you rather give yourself to a cause with a group of people you trust, believe in, who you genuinely want to see succeed beyond any selfish desires of your own, or a group clocking in for a paycheck? Ultimately, which situation do you think will make you happier?
I'm not asserting that it is what everyone wants, but these are our values. This is the type of company we want to build.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some stage Government a both federal and local are going to wake up to all those benefits in kind that sv seems to hand out - as a way of raising additional tax with very little pain the hard working familiy's (tm tony blair) After all what voter is going to argue with clamping down on tax avoidance if it means that the increase in property tax isn't as big this year or that the federal government can use this add…
Not sure if you're suggesting that they will tax those benefits specially or if they'll raise general taxes to cover for the tax-avoidance of those benefits. Either way, health care is the precedent here. Wage freezes in WWII resulted from FDR's Executive Order 9328[1] left employers in a lurch. The government had control of all wages, earnings, etc., and those wages were (basically) frozen by position. A tax man mad…
I know its one of the reasons the USA didn't end up with a German style insurance based health system in the late 40's early 50's.
Taxing the benefits is the fairest way to do it.
You could handle this by moving to a system similar to the UK PAYE - any benefits in kind are identified to the Tax man by your employer (via the P60 form) woudl simplify the federal tax system.