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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)

#81

Post by wskinner »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #42
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone was paid the same as the CEO, at many startups everyone would quit.

Fair, but perhaps they’d also work as hard as the CEO if they were paid the same and had equal preferred founder shares instead of common shares. Also, when was the last time you heard of employees with equity getting a secondary to take money off the table vs founders getting to do so? It’s not the disparity per se (because at some point, there is a demarc between the population willing to sleep on the floor and eat…

At VC-funded tech companies, founders typically have common stock just like employees.

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

#82

Post by jedberg »

tempestn wrote: post #67
firstlink wrote: post #48

> Oxide not only offers the best healthcare plans we could find, but we also pay 100% of monthly premiums – a significant benefit for those with dependents. I confess I read TFA just to see when the other shoe would drop, and there it is: compensation varies depending on number of dependents. Yes it's hidden from the paycheck but insurance premiums are absolutely part of compensation. Yet the author openly praises th…

I can't tell if this is satire. Are you suggesting that they should pay higher salaries to single people because they likely won't use the healthcare plan as much? Should younger and healthier people also be paid more?

> Are you suggesting that they should pay higher salaries to single people because they likely won't use the healthcare plan as much

Netflix does. Or at least did. They set aside money for insurance, and paid out whatever you didn't use as cash. People with spouses could just opt for the cash.

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

#83

Post by hnav »

rvnx wrote: post #54
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #27

"Everyone paid same as CEO" seems great as a morale boost at a startup of 23 employees. Even if it's not a lot, startups are often not flush with extra cash and equity is the main incentive to join one rather than a tech giant. I like the mature "this may not scale and it doesn't have to for now" admission.

191'000 USD / yr "even if it's not a lot" ?

Not a lot for total compensation for a software engineer with non-zero tenure in the bay area. For a point of comparison an SFPD officer starts at 105k and gets up to 145k before overtime and this is pretty average in the bay.

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

#84

Post by ivraatiems »

addisonl wrote: post #69
ivraatiems wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone gets the same amount of equity as the CEO" would be a morale booster. "Everyone gets paid the same as the CEO" is at best a nice-to-have.

For 99.9% of the population, being paid the same as the CEO is a moral booster.

That's because 99.9% of the population work for a CEO making millions of dollars a year, not $191k at a startup.

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

#85

Post by lowkey_ »

firstlink wrote: post #48

> Oxide not only offers the best healthcare plans we could find, but we also pay 100% of monthly premiums – a significant benefit for those with dependents. I confess I read TFA just to see when the other shoe would drop, and there it is: compensation varies depending on number of dependents. Yes it's hidden from the paycheck but insurance premiums are absolutely part of compensation. Yet the author openly praises th…

How in the world is this discriminatory compensation?

Let's simplify and say that: everyone at the company, and their families, are entitled to 100% of monthly premiums covered.

Someone choosing not to use that benefit as much as someone else by having fewer dependents is not discrimination.

It's like saying "I don't have a gym membership, I'm not using the wellness benefit each month, this is discrimination and others are getting paid more than me!"

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

#86

Post by seniortaco »

Salary is not the same as compensation.

If we look at Amazon, they do something very similar as they have a salary cap which most employees hit at L6. They can then say 'Even the CEO hits this same salary cap' when in reality the former CEO was the wealthiest person in the world.

Oxide is clever in being provocative here but this is part of a totally normal compensation model.

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

#87

Post by rtpg »

ivraatiems wrote: post #43
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #27

"Everyone paid same as CEO" seems great as a morale boost at a startup of 23 employees. Even if it's not a lot, startups are often not flush with extra cash and equity is the main incentive to join one rather than a tech giant. I like the mature "this may not scale and it doesn't have to for now" admission.

"Everyone gets the same amount of equity as the CEO" would be a morale booster. "Everyone gets paid the same as the CEO" is at best a nice-to-have.

Everyone’s different but money pays rent in ways equity doesn’t, so especially for more junior people the money is a massive benefit.

In practice I think that motivated people are fine with non-wild salaries, but with early stage stuff it’s way too common to see people try to use equity as a replacement for salary. Your employees stressing out over money will cause them to perform less well.

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

#88

Post by nrp »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #55
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone was paid the same as the CEO, at many startups everyone would quit.

Has this ever happened in real life?

We’re trading anecdotes here, but in all of the Series A and earlier startups I’m familiar with, the Founder/CEO is the the lowest paid person in the company. I would assume that non-Founder CEOs being hired in would typically be the highest paid individuals though.

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

#90

Post by ivraatiems »

epolanski wrote: post #75
ivraatiems wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone gets the same amount of equity as the CEO" would be a morale booster. "Everyone gets paid the same as the CEO" is at best a nice-to-have.

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?
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