At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus(twitter.com)
twitter.com
At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/1520473199410135040
193 comments
Ive never really understood bonuses for engineers, just provide more base pay
I agree. My view is if I don't get 100% bonus, I'm leaving to find a company that will pay me 100%. It seems like a good way to lose your best engineers.
Since it's so hard to fire people, it's better for the company to have 50% of your salary as a bonus.
Even most people that are doing nothing can probably do nothing somewhere else for 100% or their salary.
If you do nothing at the company, they can pay you $0 bonus and hope you get mad and quit and go do nothing somewhere else instead.
Even most people that are doing nothing can probably do nothing somewhere else for 100% or their salary.
If you do nothing at the company, they can pay you $0 bonus and hope you get mad and quit and go do nothing somewhere else instead.
It's cheaper for the company, essentially trading mean for variance.
Bad years, you have a trivial pay cut (no to low bonus), good years people get money. If you have very high base pay, bad years you lose money.
If you're young, volatility is ok. If you're getting older and have kids, then you value certainty a bit more and want higher base pay, but you might make less money overall (say 2 dollars bonus is equal to 1 guaranteed dollar, but this is obviously highly dependent on the company/sector)
Bad years, you have a trivial pay cut (no to low bonus), good years people get money. If you have very high base pay, bad years you lose money.
If you're young, volatility is ok. If you're getting older and have kids, then you value certainty a bit more and want higher base pay, but you might make less money overall (say 2 dollars bonus is equal to 1 guaranteed dollar, but this is obviously highly dependent on the company/sector)
Part of the fun of the Web3 startup scene is that tokens can be liquid out of gate and are basically just a variable in a file to begin with, so trivial to make out of thin air for new hires. There's stories of 20-somethings getting 7 or even 8 figure pay days after 6 months work from a successful launch.
If they give a base pay increase, then they can't take it from you next year! This is how FAANG companies work, give you a lot of incentives in the form of one time bonus, so if they don't like you they will take most of your future compensation in the next year. They also keep you working as a dog to keep your total compensation from falling.
Hedge funds are an example of the bonus impact because most pay out the majority of their employees TC via bonuses and from what I've read tends to lead to a high stress work environment. I can understand how bonuses could be intended to be for incentives to deliver work and perhaps as golden handcuffs (RSU bonuses that require a couple of years to vest etc), but yeah there's pitfalls etc.
But the bonus is just an incentive mechanism. The question really is what things influenced the bonus award? Sensible things or not so sensible things? Did they tie the bonus to things that the company wanted or not?
No matter which measures you choose, as soon as you tie financial incentives to them, people will find ways to pervert what they're supposed to measure. That observation is so general that there's even a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
> But the bonus is just an incentive mechanism.
Sure. It's an incentive mechanism to be seen as better than your peers.
> The question really is what things influenced the bonus award? Sensible things or not so sensible things? Did they tie the bonus to things that the company wanted or not?
They tied the bonus to "being a top performer":
> Then tie the bonuses to some shadowy and illusory "peer review" system and watch the sparks fly.
But frankly any time bonuses are involved the risks shoot up exponentially. For instance sales are commonly highly bonus-based, and as a result at least in software they will promise any and everything to the client so they can close and get that sweet, sweet bonus, and let everyone else hold the bag when the client finds out there was only a very tenuous relationship between their promises and reality.
Sure. It's an incentive mechanism to be seen as better than your peers.
> The question really is what things influenced the bonus award? Sensible things or not so sensible things? Did they tie the bonus to things that the company wanted or not?
They tied the bonus to "being a top performer":
> Then tie the bonuses to some shadowy and illusory "peer review" system and watch the sparks fly.
But frankly any time bonuses are involved the risks shoot up exponentially. For instance sales are commonly highly bonus-based, and as a result at least in software they will promise any and everything to the client so they can close and get that sweet, sweet bonus, and let everyone else hold the bag when the client finds out there was only a very tenuous relationship between their promises and reality.
If you replace the word "bonus" with "promo", then you unfortunately get an eerily-accurate reflection of the state of FAANG companies.
Yep. The best time to get a promotion is as you interview. The second best time is now...at another company.
Thankfully, at a large company with plenty of hard problems to solve (and smart folks to work with), you can grow quite a lot whether or not the company chooses to recognize said growth.
Thankfully, at a large company with plenty of hard problems to solve (and smart folks to work with), you can grow quite a lot whether or not the company chooses to recognize said growth.
I worked at a company where promotion was not on the table. So I left. No matter how much work I did or how good I got, it would not get rewarded and people who wanted to get good and who I could learn from would also leave.
Rewarding people is hard. But you can't shirk from it unless you want people to leave.
Rewarding people is hard. But you can't shirk from it unless you want people to leave.
Good God yes.
Once my team owned a service that did X. Among it's functionality, it had an API that, as a side effect, stored some data that could be retrieved. Sadly, this service had no validation that the data being input made any sense in the context of what this service did.
A developer on a neighboring team had a big promo project on the go. As a simple hack, and as a way to save time, his project used our service as a basic key value store database. They already called this service for the correct functionality, so they had access keys. The stuff he was storing could be argued to kind of make sense, but as the owners of this service we said "no fucking way, we aren't your database". He escalated to management who knew he was going to quit if he didn't get his promo. They overruled and last I heard that service was still being used as that asshole's database. He did promise to fix it right after the project launched, but the second he had his promo he changed orgs.
For some reason, Amazon is full of this sort of terrible tech debt and they can't figure out why everyone has to be on terrible on call rotations.
Once my team owned a service that did X. Among it's functionality, it had an API that, as a side effect, stored some data that could be retrieved. Sadly, this service had no validation that the data being input made any sense in the context of what this service did.
A developer on a neighboring team had a big promo project on the go. As a simple hack, and as a way to save time, his project used our service as a basic key value store database. They already called this service for the correct functionality, so they had access keys. The stuff he was storing could be argued to kind of make sense, but as the owners of this service we said "no fucking way, we aren't your database". He escalated to management who knew he was going to quit if he didn't get his promo. They overruled and last I heard that service was still being used as that asshole's database. He did promise to fix it right after the project launched, but the second he had his promo he changed orgs.
For some reason, Amazon is full of this sort of terrible tech debt and they can't figure out why everyone has to be on terrible on call rotations.
The fast-paced "fail upwards" where you get a new job at a new FAANG every few months while leaving a trail of destruction in your wake astounds me, and I don't understand how it works and how companies keep falling for it.
There are a lot of excellent ex-FAANG programmers I've worked with, and a lot of terrible ones, and my experience is that usually the ones with the most prestigious titles show up, do 3 months of junior level work which we end up having to rip out later, and then leave to their next high-paying gig.
There are a lot of excellent ex-FAANG programmers I've worked with, and a lot of terrible ones, and my experience is that usually the ones with the most prestigious titles show up, do 3 months of junior level work which we end up having to rip out later, and then leave to their next high-paying gig.
Do people leave FAANG jobs every three months? I thought they stay there for three years to get promotions and then leave
They take three years to do the three months of junior-level work.
The ones who do 3 months of actual work get fired because their overperformance scares the boss. But less than 2 weeks of actual work and you're an underperformer. The sweet spot is probably the geometric mean of the two.
> their overperformance scares the boss
i just don't understand this at all - why would someone who is working for you be a threat? They cannot take your job - it's not like them being a good programmer would somehow make them a good dev manager or "boss".
i just don't understand this at all - why would someone who is working for you be a threat? They cannot take your job - it's not like them being a good programmer would somehow make them a good dev manager or "boss".
It's common for high performers to get promoted as a "reward" regardless of management ability.
This is entirely the fault of the FAANG hiring methods of which most managers at these companies are very proud because they provide such excellent “signal”.
But the upside is that it’s a competitive advantage for startups that intentionally build different hiring pipelines.
But the upside is that it’s a competitive advantage for startups that intentionally build different hiring pipelines.
> This is entirely the fault of the FAANG hiring methods
I would say it is more of a fault of compensation structures.
Why would one stay for 3 years and get very meh comp increases every year, when they can switch to another company and instantly get a 30-40%+ increase (up to a point). It is also somewhat disheartening to see new hires get paid significantly more than you are for the same level.
I would say it is more of a fault of compensation structures.
Why would one stay for 3 years and get very meh comp increases every year, when they can switch to another company and instantly get a 30-40%+ increase (up to a point). It is also somewhat disheartening to see new hires get paid significantly more than you are for the same level.
How is this his fault? Your service had poor validation or design and was used in ways it was intended to. You knew this but still didn't patch it?
Internal systems always have large gaping holes like that because if someone is misusing it, you can simply ask them to stop it. Most adults comply.
It’s an internal service, you don’t treat your co-workers as hostile actors.
At a large enough company you kind of have to... as this situation shows.
Reminds me of what they say about Formula 1 racing: The most important thing for a driver is to beat the other driver on their own team (there are 2 drivers per team).
And arguably this principle holds for most team members in any organization - since it’s only very few at the very top that actually get held accountable for overall team success.
And arguably this principle holds for most team members in any organization - since it’s only very few at the very top that actually get held accountable for overall team success.
I read a tongue-in-cheek blog post, maybe ten years ago, about “blame-oriented software development”: how to deflect blame from your code. The framing was amusing but the advice was good: extensive validation of input parameters and data, lots out logging, etc. Unfortunately, the blog post seems to have disappeared.
I won't downvote you.
When this terrible thing was done, we immediately realized we needed to add validation. We had thought that by limiting who could call through access controls, we'd never have a malicious user. So naive.
Sadly, at that point we couldn't add it because his awful project was running in production.
When this terrible thing was done, we immediately realized we needed to add validation. We had thought that by limiting who could call through access controls, we'd never have a malicious user. So naive.
Sadly, at that point we couldn't add it because his awful project was running in production.
No, this person was selfish and inconsiderate of their fellow employee. Employees are supposed to cooperate, not exploit one another for their own personal gain.
It's weird to have to say this, and some people probably think it's naive, but I stand by it.
It's weird to have to say this, and some people probably think it's naive, but I stand by it.
You can pretty trivially break into my house with some cheap tools off ebay and a YouTube video showing you how to pick the lock.
No one suggests I am at fault if you break into my house and steal my stuff.
No one suggests I am at fault if you break into my house and steal my stuff.
Money is clearly a factor, but I think a lot of it comes down to culture in the working group. Promotions mean status upgrades, and in a lot of these companies, status is actually important.
At least at Microsoft, there's a culture of where your title determines if you're a part of the "in group" or not. Not at least Senior? Forget about anyone outside your immediate working group taking you seriously, let alone deferring to your judgement on things. Not at least Principal? Put your ambitions aside, because you won't be allowed to make decisions that are actually important. There's exceptions to this, like if you're in charge of something nobody else thinks they understand.
As a result, this means that there's a lot of squabbling and weirdness around September. Especially in the Senior -> Principal jump, since that is also influenced a lot by department budget. There's also not any official acknowledgement of a good terminal level. Implicitly, that's the Senior band (and really the 2nd level within the band), because beyond that you're usually expected to do more than just be a wildly productive individual contributor. But everyone who's Senior eventually feels the pressure to somehow level up to Principal, because they have the expertise to make important decisions but their organization often won't allow them to be in the room where those decisions are made. Thus the backstabbing, jealousy, weirdness, and more.
At least at Microsoft, there's a culture of where your title determines if you're a part of the "in group" or not. Not at least Senior? Forget about anyone outside your immediate working group taking you seriously, let alone deferring to your judgement on things. Not at least Principal? Put your ambitions aside, because you won't be allowed to make decisions that are actually important. There's exceptions to this, like if you're in charge of something nobody else thinks they understand.
As a result, this means that there's a lot of squabbling and weirdness around September. Especially in the Senior -> Principal jump, since that is also influenced a lot by department budget. There's also not any official acknowledgement of a good terminal level. Implicitly, that's the Senior band (and really the 2nd level within the band), because beyond that you're usually expected to do more than just be a wildly productive individual contributor. But everyone who's Senior eventually feels the pressure to somehow level up to Principal, because they have the expertise to make important decisions but their organization often won't allow them to be in the room where those decisions are made. Thus the backstabbing, jealousy, weirdness, and more.
This is a perpetual problem for any organization with a hierarchy - and taking care to have successful off-ramps for those who want to continue to contribute without being forced into a management track is important.
It’s gotten better but there’s still limitations, and many people solve it by switching organizations- which has more costs than many realize.
It’s gotten better but there’s still limitations, and many people solve it by switching organizations- which has more costs than many realize.
A lot of companies boot you out if you don't get a promo. The idea is that you take the "worst" 10% of your workforce (where "worst" means not getting promos), and fire them, every year. Even if you have no desire in chasing the promo train for more money, you sort of need to play along, just to have a job in a year or two.
I believe what you are describing is called stack ranking and has fallen out of favor with tech companies. Microsoft at least used to do that (I think they don’t anymore).
It’s pretty useful if you’re an up and coming growth company paying higher than average comp as it ensures you’re continually snatching new employees from other companies.
The consensus I've seen is that it's useful for a year or two while you clear out the people who really need to go, but after that it creates perverse incentives and constant fear among employees, doing more harm than good.
I read that as it's useful for the startup that the established companies do it, not that it's useful for the startup to do it.
A better solution is to "just" be more thoughtful & honest about who (if any) needs to be fired (it sucks to fire people so a lot of managers put it off but really shouldn't, sometimes). I don't think there's a systematic/technocratic solution to a human/social problem like that, at least not one that doesn't have other massive downsides (like stack ranking).
Your hiring process should be good enough that firing is rare but nobody is perfect and if/when the situation arises (either due to a bad hiring decision or the situation changing) it's better to resolve it earlier rather than later.
Your hiring process should be good enough that firing is rare but nobody is perfect and if/when the situation arises (either due to a bad hiring decision or the situation changing) it's better to resolve it earlier rather than later.
Many companies should offer a quit/buyout alongside the performance plan - most employees who are on the fired path know they’re on it and pretending they’re not doesn’t help anyone really.
It was kind of a mix of stack ranking, fire X% on a periodic schedule, and up or out, you've got X years to get promoted or you'll be fired. Microsoft says they stopped stack ranking, but it's not clear if they did. Facebook says they don't force a ratings curve, but they did while I was there. Just because something has fallen out of favor and companies acknowledge that it's fallen out favor doesn't mean they don't do it.
I worked at Microsoft when stack ranking was “eliminated”. Groups still stack ranked (at least mine did) but they had more local control over the process and distribution rather than having to follow one company wide system. Old habits die hard.
Maybe it’s different now, but I doubt it. Any place that pays for performance has to differentiate rewards in some way.
Maybe it’s different now, but I doubt it. Any place that pays for performance has to differentiate rewards in some way.
Sadly it's only gotten more true over time. As FAANG growth slows, the internal politics grows. Bezos was right that having a 2 pizza team really is a recipe for success, larger than that you end up with internal infighting and stepping on top each other.
I can easily smash a whole pizza myself. So I’ve often wondered what size team this really is and why it’s not expressed directly.
FAANG is banking with uglier people and even more casual sexism.
6-7 figure bonuses for mid-20's, or the story of how we got a global financial crisis in '08. Seems to work wonders in tech too.
conflating symptoms and carriers here
Bonuses were not a symptom of the crisis, if you look at what products were at the heart of things like the Lehman Brothers collapse, who created, traded and sold them, and what incentives they had individually, you'll see that those bonuses go right to the heart of the problem.
The smartest piece of advice I ever got on bonuses: they are part of your salary that your employer reserves the right to discretionarily not pay you. I consider bonuses of absolutely no account in a comp package. If they are given, I happily accept. If not, I have no disappointment. I give the company my diligent efforts because I care about my responsibilities and my colleagues regardless. A carrot on a treadmill isn't going to change that.
You say that now, but once you actually are in such a position and you realize that you could pay off your college debt plus your mortgage in 2-3 years, things might change in your mind.
At the companies where the bonuses could reasonably be that high, I'd probably rather have stock options - because those are contractually mine.
When you count on that bonus that came last year it could mean that mortgage goes under.
Making a lot of money is great until it doesn't come for whatever reason.
Making a lot of money is great until it doesn't come for whatever reason.
By 'paying off your mortgage' I obviously meant repaying the principal plus interest in full, not meeting your regular payments.
It should go without saying that you shouldn't take out a mortgage where you can't afford the regular payments out of your regular income. Banks are very unlikely to grant you such a loan anyway.
It should go without saying that you shouldn't take out a mortgage where you can't afford the regular payments out of your regular income. Banks are very unlikely to grant you such a loan anyway.
Yearly bonuses can carry a large amount of risk for the time and work invested, especially if you've traded base salary for it (which could go into investments). And the bonuses are not as transparent or regulated as even risky investments. The real problem with them is the year long bet. Do it quarterly or monthly, and I'm all for it.
There are situations where it definitely makes sense, like if you're pretty secure without the bonus, you're friendly with the people deciding the bonuses, the base salary is high enough, there is some guaranteed minimum bonus, and you don't burn out trying to attain/maximize it.
Ultimately, you can't get away from the fact that some financial health is at the whim of persons within the company and frankly they just aren't going to care as much about it as you do. It's very much a gamble instead of a solid investment.
There are situations where it definitely makes sense, like if you're pretty secure without the bonus, you're friendly with the people deciding the bonuses, the base salary is high enough, there is some guaranteed minimum bonus, and you don't burn out trying to attain/maximize it.
Ultimately, you can't get away from the fact that some financial health is at the whim of persons within the company and frankly they just aren't going to care as much about it as you do. It's very much a gamble instead of a solid investment.
that’s gambling, not wages.
That’s not a problem in California because it’s not possible to buy anything to get the mortgage in the first place.
So all houses are cash only?!
They are if you’re competing with someone paying cash. But that doesn’t matter either, the question is if there’s any for sale in the first place.
Nah.
A buyer can easily outbid an all cash offer.
In fact, if you offer 100% over asking price you’re almost guaranteed to win ;)
A buyer can easily outbid an all cash offer.
In fact, if you offer 100% over asking price you’re almost guaranteed to win ;)
Good luck explaining to the bank why you want to borrow 2x what the home is actually worth. When you need a mortgage you’re limited by what the bank’s appraiser thinks the home should sell for.
Sure but because that’s true they’re a way for the company to possibly pay quite a bit more.
As someone on the other side of the table who has to make comp decisions, I honestly want to pay the team as much as we can afford while being careful to maintain the financial health of the company. I really do, the more I pay people the more likely they are to feel rewarded and go the extra mile and not quit.
But that can be scary, since you can’t lower comp as a manager, that’s not really possible. If you’re overconfident you can end up in a genuine crisis.
So I pay as much as I know I can afford, and then as a period closes I can look back and pay the extra that I can now be sure I can afford since the results are in.
It’s a mechanism to help me pay the maximum the business can afford. It’s in place to help the team make the most money possible.
Clearly not every situation will be like this. Clearly somehere there’s someone dangling bonuses as a cynical way to exploit people.
But it’s unfair to dismiss the concept out of hand. Especially in volatile lines of business or very fast growing companies.
As someone on the other side of the table who has to make comp decisions, I honestly want to pay the team as much as we can afford while being careful to maintain the financial health of the company. I really do, the more I pay people the more likely they are to feel rewarded and go the extra mile and not quit.
But that can be scary, since you can’t lower comp as a manager, that’s not really possible. If you’re overconfident you can end up in a genuine crisis.
So I pay as much as I know I can afford, and then as a period closes I can look back and pay the extra that I can now be sure I can afford since the results are in.
It’s a mechanism to help me pay the maximum the business can afford. It’s in place to help the team make the most money possible.
Clearly not every situation will be like this. Clearly somehere there’s someone dangling bonuses as a cynical way to exploit people.
But it’s unfair to dismiss the concept out of hand. Especially in volatile lines of business or very fast growing companies.
I can't say I outright dislike anything you're saying, and I do understand your position. My key issue however is that I need to risk assess and budget my life just as you need to do your business. I simply can't do that on the basis of a bonus. It might give me the chance to take a more luxurious vacation or pay down a debt a little faster than I had anticipated, which is wonderful, really, but it's like an inheritance: I have next to no control over it and can't plan my life that way. Lesser comp. that I can plan for gives me control of my life that I'd rather have instead. Stock options are where I'd rather take the risk, because that's a longer haul that I can plan and adjust for with well worn investor metrics, and more importantly, I don't lose and can exercise when it works for me.
I'm the exact same way, base pay plus vacation time are the most important factors. Bonuses are usually up to some percentage and realistically they're never even close to the full amount that's ostensibly promised.
Just a good way to proverbially crack the whip.
Just a good way to proverbially crack the whip.
This depends on the comp structure. What you described is true for the old-school 15% performance bonus. This is usually a performance tool and allows finer punishment/encouragement than "fired on the first mistake"/"promoted on the first success". However, there are firms that do profit-sharing and it is not 15% of your base but multiplies of the base. Many people find it hard to ignore.
A tech company in Bellevue Washington with a "shadowy and illusory "peer review" system" - this is Valve we're talking about, right? (fits his Twitter bio)
Just coming to say that - he's not the best at keeping things secret lol.
There's a difference between keeping a secret, and avoiding legal trouble by not specifically naming an employer.
Is Valve really going to file a lawsuit against him and argue in court whether this actually happened or not? They're not. Do they even have grounds to file a lawsuit? Likely not, American courts aren't that sympathetic to libel claims.
But let's assume for a minute that what you're saying has some merit. Maybe Valve does have grounds to sue. And maybe they're interested in suing. In that case, is this lousy attempt at being coy helpful? It's clear from his bio that he's only worked at one such company. So it's abundantly clear to everyone who he's working for.
In reality, this pattern ("worked for a large software-advertising company with a double O in it's name") is fucking annoying. It's designed to make the reader curious and more likely to read the rest of what's written. It's similar to clickbait in that sense. And I wish to God it would stop. I'd request people to please just name names, or keep it yourself.
But let's assume for a minute that what you're saying has some merit. Maybe Valve does have grounds to sue. And maybe they're interested in suing. In that case, is this lousy attempt at being coy helpful? It's clear from his bio that he's only worked at one such company. So it's abundantly clear to everyone who he's working for.
In reality, this pattern ("worked for a large software-advertising company with a double O in it's name") is fucking annoying. It's designed to make the reader curious and more likely to read the rest of what's written. It's similar to clickbait in that sense. And I wish to God it would stop. I'd request people to please just name names, or keep it yourself.
American civil system is not based on merit or reason. Anyone can file for any reason, any decent lawyer can make some claims that will require you to argue against, else they be automatically defaulted to true and you lose. It doesn't matter if the big corp wins or not, the toll it takes on you is threat enough.
This isn't about civil disputes anyways. No employer wants to see a prospective new hire trash talking their previous company. Doesn't matter if it's deserved or not, it's seen as a liability.
This isn't about civil disputes anyways. No employer wants to see a prospective new hire trash talking their previous company. Doesn't matter if it's deserved or not, it's seen as a liability.
Hahaha yeah you know what start with this exact preamble next time you're a plaintiff telling the judge why you deserve money. "The American civil system is not based on merit or reason." I would say it is in fact based on both of those, but more than anything on judgment.
Whether the US civil system itself is based on merit or reason, the problem is that employers have all the resources and can play parliamentary procedure ad nauseam--even in the rare cases where the good guys win, they'll file appeals and motions while refusing to pay the judgment. Not to mention, they know which judges can be corrupted, and they also have PR resources and will rape the shit out of anyone who even mildly embarrasses them.
I was against you up until the "rape the shit out of...". That got real real, real fast. It is by all means the intention.[1] Almost happened to me in a setting that wasn't employment, I had to do all these defensive maneuvers like getting out of America to make sure I got a trial[2]. I am not a judge of any court, to a small extent just the court of public places, but I find merit and solid reasoning in your case.
[1] You know what, one employer definitely did that, apparently bribed my lawyer to get them to drop the case, got that vibe from the lawyer. Yeah, I thought I could argue with you at the very beginning, but no longer.
[2] Extradition from a country of which you are a citizen requires a real trial, like that takes years, America will let me go to prison without trial but Chile will not let America do that without any kind of extradition trial at all. A lawyer congratulated me on this defensive maneuver.
[1] You know what, one employer definitely did that, apparently bribed my lawyer to get them to drop the case, got that vibe from the lawyer. Yeah, I thought I could argue with you at the very beginning, but no longer.
[2] Extradition from a country of which you are a citizen requires a real trial, like that takes years, America will let me go to prison without trial but Chile will not let America do that without any kind of extradition trial at all. A lawyer congratulated me on this defensive maneuver.
I think a textbook example of that is what Chevron did to Steven Donziger.
Frivolous litigation happens but is fairly rare but, as you said, nothing in this country prevents potential employers from anally raping candidates for "bad-mouthing" prior companies. In the US, that's a legally defensible reason to fuck someone over, even if what was said about the ex-employer was truthful.
It's very likely that Valve is a major client of his current business. Geldreich builds and licenses a texture compression system that can supposedly outperform anything else on the market.
American companies always have bored lawyers on staff, and lawsuits are just day-to-day activities for them. Suing costs the company virtually nothing, while defending against that suit as a private party can be ruinously expensive. The company can almost always afford better PR than you can, and relying or hoping your case going viral and the company backing off due to negative PR isn't going to help you sleep at night.
It isn't fair, but that's how it is. Don't poke the bear anymore than you have to. All you have to do is personally anger one executive and they can go after you.
It isn't fair, but that's how it is. Don't poke the bear anymore than you have to. All you have to do is personally anger one executive and they can go after you.
Retaliating against employees for discussing their working conditions is in fact enormously legally risky for a company. Doubly-so when doing it via SLAPP lawsuits. Why on earth would Valve take the risk?
> Why on earth would Valve take the risk?
yes, exactly. Esp. if he is the only one talking about it this way publicly. If it's truly awful, employees will vote with their wallets and quit.
And if valve wins the law suit, what reward would they have gained, other than stopping him from saying what he has already said (which cannot be taken back). There might be punitive damages to be paid, but it's not like the corporation is going to make money from doing so.
And in fact, making a law suit would legitimize the claims!
yes, exactly. Esp. if he is the only one talking about it this way publicly. If it's truly awful, employees will vote with their wallets and quit.
And if valve wins the law suit, what reward would they have gained, other than stopping him from saying what he has already said (which cannot be taken back). There might be punitive damages to be paid, but it's not like the corporation is going to make money from doing so.
And in fact, making a law suit would legitimize the claims!
> Is Valve really going to file a lawsuit against him and argue in court whether this actually happened or not?
They most likely won't, you are correct. But it just simply doesn't seem to be worth the trouble on the off-chance that they will decide to do it.
The whole thing is just a situation where you risk a lot (even if the chance of that risk materializing is very small), but you aren't really gaining anything by taking the risk. What's the point of taking the risk of naming the company, if you can tell the entire story just as fine without naming them and reducing the risk to zero?
They most likely won't, you are correct. But it just simply doesn't seem to be worth the trouble on the off-chance that they will decide to do it.
The whole thing is just a situation where you risk a lot (even if the chance of that risk materializing is very small), but you aren't really gaining anything by taking the risk. What's the point of taking the risk of naming the company, if you can tell the entire story just as fine without naming them and reducing the risk to zero?
> if you can tell the entire story just as fine without naming them and reducing the risk to zero?
That’s my point. He’s not reducing shit. We all know exactly who he’s talking about. All he’s done is curiosity baited us into reading this.
That’s my point. He’s not reducing shit. We all know exactly who he’s talking about. All he’s done is curiosity baited us into reading this.
Or just maintaining plausible deniability.
I would certainly have a different opinion about someone saying negative things about me in anonymous generic terms that people paying attention could figure out, vs using my name and posting direct criticism. As would most people I think.
I would certainly have a different opinion about someone saying negative things about me in anonymous generic terms that people paying attention could figure out, vs using my name and posting direct criticism. As would most people I think.
Heard that's not necessarily enough, "not specifically naming".
IANAL but would love a lawyer to chime in. My understanding was that you could indeed get in trouble if you don't cast enough ambiguity around the identity of the person/company you are trashing, but casting some ambiguity is better than none.
I am also not a lawyer, but I've always heard that telling the truth is a bulletproof defense in libel/slander/defamation situations. Some employment contracts have non-disparagement clauses but I think they're fairly rare (kind of a red flag) and at least where I live they can't prevent you from truthful griping about working conditions
As I understand it, this might be true in America, but in Japan, "it's the truth" isn't a defense against libel.
In the United States, truth is an absolute defense against libel. You are correct that it is not in other countries, but this is someone in America (probably an American) talking about an American company.
That's wild. How does that work out legally? A company can sue an employee for telling a damaging (but uncontested) truth?
It works if the law says that reputational damage trumps the fact that the statement causing the damage is true--or can't be proven to be false. Although the UK has made some changes in recent years, it's probably the best example in the West of a country where truth isn't necessarily a defense against a libel suit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law (And somewhat ironically given that US law has its roots in English common law, the US swings heavily on the side of free speech.)
Yep, he posted a similar set of tweets back in 2018:
https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless...
https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless...
keep in mind that he is literally the only one who talks about the company that way from everyone whose ever worked there (many, many have left for various reasons since).
I also can't help but not overlook that he's an UFO nut. can't trust info from someone who can warp reality in a way to see only what fits his own preconceived notions even if they fly in the face of basic facts.
I also can't help but not overlook that he's an UFO nut. can't trust info from someone who can warp reality in a way to see only what fits his own preconceived notions even if they fly in the face of basic facts.
> keep in mind that he is literally the only one who talks about the company that way from everyone whose ever worked there (many, many have left for various reasons since).
That's not true.
There's been lots of criticism coming at Valve's management style over the years: There are many people who _hate_ it, but also many people who love it. It really depends on the type of person you are. If you really really dislike bureaucracy Valve's a great place to be, but also don't expect them to enact any quality-of-life systems: If your coworker wants you dead, then that's something you yourself have to deal with.
This is also why you see a lot of different opinions when looking through e.g. glassdoor: Some people that do the murdering love it there and thrive, but that system only works if people are there that can be murdered. Some people I know have described the atmosphere as "prison yard style": You trade rigid bureaucracy against a "you have to know who you have to know" bureaucracy. Richard Geldreich's account lines up pretty well to what I have heard about valve's emergent self-organization system.
A couple of years ago there was a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41XgkLKYuic that summarized the working environment.
That's not true.
There's been lots of criticism coming at Valve's management style over the years: There are many people who _hate_ it, but also many people who love it. It really depends on the type of person you are. If you really really dislike bureaucracy Valve's a great place to be, but also don't expect them to enact any quality-of-life systems: If your coworker wants you dead, then that's something you yourself have to deal with.
This is also why you see a lot of different opinions when looking through e.g. glassdoor: Some people that do the murdering love it there and thrive, but that system only works if people are there that can be murdered. Some people I know have described the atmosphere as "prison yard style": You trade rigid bureaucracy against a "you have to know who you have to know" bureaucracy. Richard Geldreich's account lines up pretty well to what I have heard about valve's emergent self-organization system.
A couple of years ago there was a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41XgkLKYuic that summarized the working environment.
> There's been lots of criticism coming at Valve's management style over the years: There are many people who _hate_ it, but also many people who love it.
Looking at it as a consumer, Valve didn't get anything released for many years, which imo would point at there in fact being a problem. Not necessarily what this guy is claming, but there did seem to be issues.
They have shipped HL:A and Steam Deck now, so maybe they've solved it or are solving it.
Looking at it as a consumer, Valve didn't get anything released for many years, which imo would point at there in fact being a problem. Not necessarily what this guy is claming, but there did seem to be issues.
They have shipped HL:A and Steam Deck now, so maybe they've solved it or are solving it.
The measure of success for a corporation isn't number of products released, it's revenue/profit. Valve has higher revenue per employee than any other gaming company.
They have first mover advantage on a platform that's true, but even when competitors significantly undercut them they can't take any notable percentage of Steam market share. Epic is literally giving away free content every month and can't compete.
They have first mover advantage on a platform that's true, but even when competitors significantly undercut them they can't take any notable percentage of Steam market share. Epic is literally giving away free content every month and can't compete.
“I also can't help but not overlook that he's an UFO nut.”
Well, that’s your personal opinion but I’m not sure how his thoughts on UFOs discredits his view of the work culture at Valve. One can have metaphysical and spiritual beliefs and be an extraordinary scientist as well for example.
Many have left Valve but usually people in the relatively constrained game dev industry tend to be conservative in voicing their opinions if only for their future careers prospects.
Well, that’s your personal opinion but I’m not sure how his thoughts on UFOs discredits his view of the work culture at Valve. One can have metaphysical and spiritual beliefs and be an extraordinary scientist as well for example.
Many have left Valve but usually people in the relatively constrained game dev industry tend to be conservative in voicing their opinions if only for their future careers prospects.
> One can have metaphysical and spiritual beliefs and be an extraordinary scientist as well
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but that's how you bet.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but that's how you bet.
Or, because he's a UFO nut he's willing to call out things that seem crazy when it's socially unacceptable to do so
Nah, many people spoke out about ruthless insider politic cliques and how they were at a mercy of invisible forces with "totally democratic" decisions about their work being made for them.
I've heard/read such reports about valve from various other people, including friends I trust saying so privately. He is an outlier in how vehement his criticism is but is hardly the only one that throws that criticism at Valve (keep in mind workers face massive disincentives to do so publicly).
> he is literally the only one who talks about the company that way from everyone whose ever worked there
false. wrong, wrong, wrong.
he's the only one you know about, is all. he's not even the only one that has spoken publicly about it.
false. wrong, wrong, wrong.
he's the only one you know about, is all. he's not even the only one that has spoken publicly about it.
Can you provide substance to your claim that other Valve employees have talked about a sabotaging culture due to bonuses?
Well I have several friends who have worked there and no one has had anything positive to say about the culture.
I thought it might have been why the Windows UI is such a mess.
Yeah, I've heard similar complaints about dysfunctionality regarding Microsoft's "stack ranking" system that they had under Balmer, where the best engineers would actively avoid working in the same teams, to avoid being ranked in the same stack. But afaik they didn't have that nebulous peer review system - I've only heard about that at Valve.
Does Valve really have 7 figure bonuses? That's quite impressive if so. Wonder what it would take to get that -- do you have to launch/invent a new, successful microtransaction store? Can't imagine it's easy based on that twitter thread.
Wonder what it would take to get that -- do you have to launch/invent a new, successful microtransaction store?
You have to make a really cool looking hat for Team Fortress 2.
You have to make a really cool looking hat for Team Fortress 2.
Yeah, around a decade ago this also made the news:
"Valve fires Jeri Ellsworth, who was developing Steam Box game controllers"
"Valve fires Jeri Ellsworth, who was developing Steam Box game controllers"
She was working on AR which she was able to take after she was fired and form TiltFive https://www.tiltfive.com/
Bio also says 'FBI witness'.. that's just a completely meaningless random fact isn't it? 'Happened to witness some crime, interviewed by FBI', why's that in a Twitter bio?
(Unless it means 'expert witness' in court, in which case 'and the FBI were involved' is the weird bit.)
(Unless it means 'expert witness' in court, in which case 'and the FBI were involved' is the weird bit.)
We're talking about a twitter bio, right? Sounds like you're expecting linkedin.
No, just.. if you want to list stuff like that then I'm expecting it to make some sort of sense? Unless you're saying it's a joke? (I don't really get it.)
Another thing that happens that I didn’t see mentioned is that people at higher levels will only allow incompetent people to be promoted to their level.
If they allowed the best people to get promoted to their level, it would adversely impact their own bonuses and career. So instead they fight to get incompetent people promoted to their level so they have no competition.
If they allowed the best people to get promoted to their level, it would adversely impact their own bonuses and career. So instead they fight to get incompetent people promoted to their level so they have no competition.
He does mention it at the hiring stage.
I don't get why you need to sabotage others? Does your bonus size shrink if others get a bonus or something?
yes. that’s pretty typical. managers get a lump sum to distribute among the team, at least at Apple.
All those managers seem to think it's a good enough motivator to keep it around.
It's certainly a good way to have a lot of monkeys jumping when you say so.
That's not even stack ranking - managers being assigned a fixed pool of $ to give out for raises and bonuses across their reports (or their branch of the org tree if director or above) is pretty standard at any big company.
It's pretty reasonable if you "ship your org chart" and can easily measure each team's contribution. It's much trickier and more prone to unfair allocation when people switch teams a lot or contribute outside their team, i.e. if one of my engineers went above and beyond and boosted some other team's profits by a bunch, I'm probably not going to get extra money to allocate to my people as a result since the higher level execs don't usually follow credit assignment at that level.
It's pretty reasonable if you "ship your org chart" and can easily measure each team's contribution. It's much trickier and more prone to unfair allocation when people switch teams a lot or contribute outside their team, i.e. if one of my engineers went above and beyond and boosted some other team's profits by a bunch, I'm probably not going to get extra money to allocate to my people as a result since the higher level execs don't usually follow credit assignment at that level.
Bonus pool competition is typically zero sum. For you to get more, someone must get less.
Everything is nearly zero sum when it comes to bonus and salary once you're a level or two below C-level, as it has to be. That's how budgets work, and the only people who get to determine "what % of company cash flow do we want to dedicate to personnel costs?" are pretty high up the ladder.
Stack ranking (aka performance calibration)
Behavior follows compensation
Many people are highlighting the zero-sum nature of bonuses. I wonder how much of this problem goes away if bonuses are no longer zero-sum. In theory, it shouldn't even cost the business more money, because everyone who meets the bonus requirements should get a bonus, in either system.
I think a large part of the problem is that bonuses are often based on comparables, so the bonus requirement is being in the top 10% of people.
That is technically a requirement, but still zero sum.
That is technically a requirement, but still zero sum.
At the end of the day, there’s a bonus budget which makes bonuses more or less zero sum.
> If you want to see how crazy and mental tech people can get, start making the bulk of their income dependent on 6-7 figure bonuses.
This is unrelated to "tech" people. It's a common trope for shows about bankers, attorneys, consultants, etc.
This is unrelated to "tech" people. It's a common trope for shows about bankers, attorneys, consultants, etc.
Valve has been known to pay… as much as(?) 10x the person’s salary in bonuses.
The only bonus I have ever received which didn’t make me feel scummy was profit-sharing. Most companies don’t do it because profit is for the owners. Everything else just feels like a way to decide whether or not to pay me what I’m worth after I’ve already done the work
How is that different? Somehow we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was, which, unless you work in sales maybe, is going to involve a lot of judgment.
At Wrox Press during the dotcom era editorial staff were comped with direct sales-derived royalties. Was the most connected I have ever been to a metric that clearly mattered to the business.
There were some perverse incentives - people wanted to work on bestsellers, there was jockeying for credit for carryover work from previous editions, but in general it promoted a creative energy around trying to publish hit books, editors had a good deal of direct ownership that could actually impact the product they were shipping, and the scheme even helped align you on the same team as authors, whose compensation is also royalty driven - where for many other publishers author royalties are almost in conflict with what the publisher wants from the deal.
Such a direct unit sales driven profit share is hard to imagine engineering into many other businesses but it’s always stood out to me as a remarkably powerful model.
There were some perverse incentives - people wanted to work on bestsellers, there was jockeying for credit for carryover work from previous editions, but in general it promoted a creative energy around trying to publish hit books, editors had a good deal of direct ownership that could actually impact the product they were shipping, and the scheme even helped align you on the same team as authors, whose compensation is also royalty driven - where for many other publishers author royalties are almost in conflict with what the publisher wants from the deal.
Such a direct unit sales driven profit share is hard to imagine engineering into many other businesses but it’s always stood out to me as a remarkably powerful model.
Yeah, everywhere that's close to sales it's usually possible to attribute revenue shares directly. But even in those organizations a lot of people will be doing work that can't be directly measured (IT, accounting,...), so either you cut those people out of bonuses or you find some metrics to include them.
Editorial work is not close to sales. It’s upfront product development work.
What Wrox did, though, was very clearly assign editors to book projects. You worked on one book at a time - each book was a little startup venture that shipped a product at the end.
What Wrox did, though, was very clearly assign editors to book projects. You worked on one book at a time - each book was a little startup venture that shipped a product at the end.
Editorial work is close to sales in that it's clear that editorial quality impacts sales and it can be clear who did the editorial work on an item that sold. (Depends on the editorial process though, if you do a lot of group work, maybe it's hard to say who did how much).
As opposed to IT work where sure, if the editors computer doesn't work, it's hard for them to do their editing, but there's not much connection to a specific item.
As opposed to IT work where sure, if the editors computer doesn't work, it's hard for them to do their editing, but there's not much connection to a specific item.
Well, that’s rather my point. Most publishers don’t run editorial work like that, but if you are able to organize your teams around products that have clear revenue streams, even indirect work can be attributed to it. Look at the credit roll on a video game and you’ll see credits for ‘IT support’. The lesson I take from the Wrox experience is that there might be ways for other businesses to pull the same trick and get the same benefits. But I’ve not often seen it attempted.
If you are able to organize your teams around products that have clear revenue streams, even indirect work can be attributed to it
That's pretty much what every finance department in every company on earth large enough to have one does (with notable exceptions maybe of hyper-growth start-ups).
That's pretty much what every finance department in every company on earth large enough to have one does (with notable exceptions maybe of hyper-growth start-ups).
You can make the profit sharing bonus proportional to salary. So if there is 100k available for bonuses and your quarterly payroll is $1M, then pay everyone a 10% bonus. You still have to set salaries correctly but that's a problem whether there is a bonus or not.
I've seen this work well at a small software company. It paid out once a quarter for anyone who had been there a year.
I've seen this work well at a small software company. It paid out once a quarter for anyone who had been there a year.
> we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was
Well, we gotta find some way to split it, we could use any metric though, true. We could pay everyone equally, or make it a lottery, or donate it to charity in the employees' names, or whatever you can think of. But we have to make a decision.
> But we have to make a decision.
At my previous employer it was first proportional on tenure, and then switched to just divided to everyone equally.
And how were those perceived by employees? Genuinely just curious.
The switch was accompanied by grumbling by tenured employees, but it wasn't the only switch ( post-acquisition with lots of "harmonisation" of tools, processes, etc.) so many left anyways.
Besides that, there weren't many discussions on the "fairness" of either system, people just went with it
Besides that, there weren't many discussions on the "fairness" of either system, people just went with it
Wow, that would have been quite the transition!
In my case it was tied to how many shares or options you held.
> Programmers will purposely subtly sabotage key utility functions, methods, or systems to prevent their bonus competitors
This seems like a potentially self-destructive way to accomplish this. Not sure what company he is referring to, but at all I have worked at, this would be filed as a bug report and a quick git blame tells you all you need to know. Over time, if your name keeps coming up in that commit log, you'll get a bad reputation and your code in particular will acquire a smell ("Oh Bob, wrote this code... better be careful here," etc.)
This seems like a potentially self-destructive way to accomplish this. Not sure what company he is referring to, but at all I have worked at, this would be filed as a bug report and a quick git blame tells you all you need to know. Over time, if your name keeps coming up in that commit log, you'll get a bad reputation and your code in particular will acquire a smell ("Oh Bob, wrote this code... better be careful here," etc.)
I was thinking of subtle stuff when I read it. Like not providing a list function for the front people to pre-fill a combo box, forcing them to display a crappy open ended text field.
By the time that happens, Bob has been promoted out of the team, or transferred somewhere where people don't read his code.
Big end of year bonuses are par for the course (in addition to a nice salary) in finance. I've worked as an engineer in the industry for close to 15 years.
Finance (I'm thinking prop trading) seems different from Valve. You eat what you kill - if you're sabotaging team members you're not making money.
If you're at Valve, you can count on your monopoly still printing money while you carve out pieces of the pie for yourself. Any negative effects from your work will be felt years later when you're long gone.
If you're at Valve, you can count on your monopoly still printing money while you carve out pieces of the pie for yourself. Any negative effects from your work will be felt years later when you're long gone.
I in fact work in prop trading. Our owner was once asked about more people joining the team as we grew making the bonus pool smaller. He (rightfully) said that the team member should focus on making the pie bigger than getting a bigger slice of a small pie. It’s worked out very well for us.
This reminds me of the structure used at many high frequency trading firms today. The nature of the work in quant work is different and likely much easier to tie to financial output. But the bonuses can sometimes even go up to 5x the base: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Hudson-River-Trading/salaries...
moron4hire(3)
Oh this is fascinating to me. Since I joined the workforce back 5 years ago (non IT and IT) I've witnessed so much bs on every side. Everything he describes I've seen. People spend more time tricking the game than I'd ever thought possible. That said I'm shocked devs are playing too since they have a comfy life. I guess it just taps into the same primitive reptilian brain reflexes.
When we have gotten to the point where 5 years of bonus might very well give you an entirely feasible retirement nest egg, I'm not surprised people go to great lengths to game it. Most of us go our entire careers to build the retirement fund that some people get in 5 years at Google.
> That said I'm shocked devs are playing too since they have a comfy life. I guess it just taps into the same primitive reptilian brain reflexes.
An interesting firsthand view on the dynamics of the motivations comes from HN post from some times ago (https://frantic.im/leaving-facebook). Some excerpts:
> The salary is high. Facebook aims to pay top 5% compensation in the market (we’ll get back to that). This makes a lot of other things very comfortable: you can go to a restaurant without worrying too much about the bill, get a nicer car, a nicer house, better stuff.
> The benefits are top notch. Almost every doctor I visited said “wow” when looking at the health insurance. It’s very comfortable to know that you are likely not going to receive a huge bill for doing an ultra sound for a routine checkup.
> Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line.
All the benefits above, in one way or another, are relative¹ ("niceR" car, not "nice" car) so ultimately, it's a matter of aspiring because aspiring, rather than aspiring to reach a certain level.
So unfortunately, being a developer with a comfy life tends not to have an effect on ethics.
Note: the above statements give an unfair image of the author/full article; the extracts are only meant to give an idea of certain dynamics.
¹=with bottom limits; being too poor certainly hurts.
An interesting firsthand view on the dynamics of the motivations comes from HN post from some times ago (https://frantic.im/leaving-facebook). Some excerpts:
> The salary is high. Facebook aims to pay top 5% compensation in the market (we’ll get back to that). This makes a lot of other things very comfortable: you can go to a restaurant without worrying too much about the bill, get a nicer car, a nicer house, better stuff.
> The benefits are top notch. Almost every doctor I visited said “wow” when looking at the health insurance. It’s very comfortable to know that you are likely not going to receive a huge bill for doing an ultra sound for a routine checkup.
> Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line.
All the benefits above, in one way or another, are relative¹ ("niceR" car, not "nice" car) so ultimately, it's a matter of aspiring because aspiring, rather than aspiring to reach a certain level.
So unfortunately, being a developer with a comfy life tends not to have an effect on ethics.
Note: the above statements give an unfair image of the author/full article; the extracts are only meant to give an idea of certain dynamics.
¹=with bottom limits; being too poor certainly hurts.
I kinda get it. I'm an ex poor, still frugal person, but I got a spot in a comfy company. My colleague is also a new hire and got 50% more salary. I don't need more money, but since I sense I'm more skilled than him, I have this itch that I should play the game a bit to maximize money. It's less about competing or getting rich, and more about shielding myself from an absurd system when a lot of dogs get all the money by putting you under the bus.. so I'd rather stop bleeding like an idiot :)
Sounds like bonuses were based on individual rather than company goals. That sounds absolutely mental. Why would anyone create a setup like that?
What's the best incentive system for both employee and company?
Surely it has to be profit sharing - split a healthy chunk of profit between employees as an equal percentage of their base salary.
Everyone is incentivised to make the company more profitable, no individual/team/department/division can siphon bonuses from anybody else.
Everyone is incentivised to make the company more profitable, no individual/team/department/division can siphon bonuses from anybody else.
Do you think giving RSUs is about the same?
Not so easy in practice, let's say a company has to make a big investment (acquisition/enter a new market/new product), employees are generally more risk averse and care about consistent year to year income, maybe they have an average tenure of 3-4 years. In this example, employees may not be incentivised to take bonus hits now for income 5+ years down the road, especially if bonus is a high proportion of total comp.
only the bonus mattered because they were paying your weekly salary on time?
Working Backwards. Best Amazon content you will ever find.
The idea of a six or seven figure bonus for a software developer is - no matter what level of their career they're in - absolutely bonkers to me. Completely beyond my ken.
Separate from that, who in their right mind would enter into a contract to make so much of their salary optional for their employer to pay them?
And yeah, if you set them up as the reward for a prisoner's dilemma, of course you'll see insanely bad behavior.
Separate from that, who in their right mind would enter into a contract to make so much of their salary optional for their employer to pay them?
And yeah, if you set them up as the reward for a prisoner's dilemma, of course you'll see insanely bad behavior.
I have seen bonuses work really well when given to the whole team (or the whole company) instead of individuals. It emphasises that success depends on the whole team/company not arbitrary management favourites.
That's amazing. Paying people more than I've made lifetime total... to actively sabotage things....
When I was just starting out, I probably wouldn't have thought of tech as a money-focused business, or that there would be any real competition.
I just kind of thought once you were successful, as long as you still had a job, you were effectively way too rich to bother actively seeking higher pay, and that nobody would ever want to do something like this kind of sabotage.
I also thought that people would be generally excited about the future of tech and everyone on all levels would want to do what they can to keep innovation going....
But as it turns out, programming is in fact just a job, most people seem to be largely in it for the money, they don't think Tiles and AirTags are as cool as I do, and game dev especially seems to be very businessy and DLC driven and even NFTful and not exactly managed by artists.
What happened to the dot com era vision of what tech should be?
I would have thought management at the billion dollar places really would run things well, but it seems like there's plenty of dysfunction even at the top companies.
When I was just starting out, I probably wouldn't have thought of tech as a money-focused business, or that there would be any real competition.
I just kind of thought once you were successful, as long as you still had a job, you were effectively way too rich to bother actively seeking higher pay, and that nobody would ever want to do something like this kind of sabotage.
I also thought that people would be generally excited about the future of tech and everyone on all levels would want to do what they can to keep innovation going....
But as it turns out, programming is in fact just a job, most people seem to be largely in it for the money, they don't think Tiles and AirTags are as cool as I do, and game dev especially seems to be very businessy and DLC driven and even NFTful and not exactly managed by artists.
What happened to the dot com era vision of what tech should be?
I would have thought management at the billion dollar places really would run things well, but it seems like there's plenty of dysfunction even at the top companies.
The 80s and on into the .com boom was all about money. For the first time, the world saw that programmers and software could generate insane amounts of money.
Nothing has changed, you were just young and naive.
Nothing has changed, you were just young and naive.
All the beginning programmers were.
I don't think it was just about money for the average lay programmer. Everything everywhere is always about money for the business guys, but a lot of people got into coding with no real thought to money besides just wanting a normal comfortable living.
I don't think it was just about money for the average lay programmer. Everything everywhere is always about money for the business guys, but a lot of people got into coding with no real thought to money besides just wanting a normal comfortable living.
The problem here isn't "bonuses are important" it's "the total bonus pot is fixed, so you getting more means your co-workers get less".
Reward people for adding value. If everyone has added value then reward all of them.
Reward people for adding value. If everyone has added value then reward all of them.
> This is a very bad idea and the perfect way to run your tech corporation straight into the ground.
I always wondered what it was that caused valve to be “run straight into the ground”. Great to have this former disgruntled employees inside perspective. I’m sure it’s objective and aligns with reality.
I always wondered what it was that caused valve to be “run straight into the ground”. Great to have this former disgruntled employees inside perspective. I’m sure it’s objective and aligns with reality.