how the hell do you post this and then also another comment that says nobody should pay their developers? which is it? don't go into debt, or don't get paid?!
this is ridiculous. you expect people to give you their labor for free? not only expect it, but CELEBRATE IT IN ALL CAPS?! and you encourage others to not have to pay a developer a "market salary (or any salary)"?
also it's not working for free if you've got fat equity on the way because you're a co-founder - you're just taking your compensation in a different form.
so not only is this not some virtuous thing that they did out of the good of their heart, it's exploitative and should be looked at as an example of the reprehensible attitudes toward labor that have proliferated in the valley.
you're probably one of those people who think interns should work for free, and that weekends are for catching up on work.
that's not what happened. if you click the link you included, your "self-respect?" comment isn't on that thread at all. because it was a reply to my comment. you're intentionally misrepresenting what happened.
let me point out how you "slipped" and took a "rude swipe" - you don't play by your own rules.
i made a post, you replied to me just saying "self-respect?" implying that i had none.
how can you just drop insulting comments like that on people who are just participating in conversation? two words, no explanation, just plain rude.
Isn't your "self-respect?" comment in bad-faith, given your own rules?
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
From the New Yorker profile of you:
"They treat their community like an encounter group or Esalen workshop; often, they correspond with individual Hacker News readers over e-mail, coaching and encouraging them in long, heartfelt exchanges."
Is that just BS? What was encouraging or heartfelt about your response to me?
The link addresses the "If they know you can't get more elsewhere" portion of what you posted, but I didn't respond substantially to the rest. Thanks for the chance to expand.
> "at risk of harm due to a possible societal backlash"
Fear of backlash over paying too little should not be a motivation for compensation. Trying to push it as low as you can without actually sparking dissent, internally or externally, is a cruel game.
I'm into the idea of worker co-ops, so I'm not starting from an assumption that the purpose of a business is to maximize profits for shareholders. Sure, the business might profit less if it pays its employees more, to me a business IS its employees, not a separate entity. If the employees create even more value for the company as a whole, paying them more is a cause for celebration.
If the amount of value you provide increases in a meaningful way, so should your compensation. Instead, on salary we provide unpaid overtime in times of need and enjoy a flat-line of compensation even if we create a new product, invention, or process that massively increases company value.
Bonuses, equity compensation, etc can and are gamed by companies to pay as little as possible without "fear of backlash," like you said. (Cliffs, golden handcuffs, dilution, preferred shares, etc).
Theoretically a salary should be desirable because it de-risks the downside: what if you're put on an under-performing team, or your product launch flops? NBD, because you're on salary, right?
Likely you'll just be fired anyway - you can be fired anytime without cause (in CA anyhow, since we're at-will).
So, salaried positions result in what the OP I was replying to said - "the logical thing to do is to scale back your effort to a point where the amount you get done matches the amount you get paid for".
That DOES seem logical to me. And undesirable. We want people to dial their effort up, right? How do we build compensation and hiring systems that reward people who can add value? As it stands we're leaving a lot of human potential untapped - by design!
that's on me, looks like it was below the fold and is still there for now. but you're likely about to send it to the bottom for being off-topic, like you did last month. i've posted the same thing for 3 or so months in a row and there haven't been any changes. it's not even like you have to do anything other than say, "Please include some of this info".
Once again, I'll post this. Admins will probably send it to the bottom, but it's especially important now that companies tell us about their process so that we can compare and expedite, including how many:
- technical phone screens
- video interviews / coding interviews
- projects (esp. length and duration, paid/unpaid, etc)
- portfolio / code reviews on past projects
- onsite interviews and if there's any whiteboarding or pairing, etc. [note: we'll assume these are virtual now]
- will the position stay remote or do you plan on making it in-person?
As well as the total amount of time you expect interviewing to take!
Here's the post I replied to below, it said nothing about self-respect. You're the one who brought that up and still haven't explained how compensation factors into your "best work" / "self-respect" chain. Please, do share.
-------------
> Congratulations, you are now 3-10x developer.
Congratulations. You are still getting paid the same.
Boosts in productivity need to come with boosts in pay, otherwise the logical thing to do is to scale back your effort to a point where the amount you get done matches the amount you get paid for.
------------
To which I said, "exactly! if you're taking home the same salary whether you're creating massive value for the company, why bother?"
---------------------
So, if someone generates 10x more value than the person next to them, you think they should both be paid the same (while the company reaps the immense profits) and that nobody should complain about the situation because of their "self-respect"? Wild.
If I work for a company and I'm earning them millions of dollars, you're saying that I don't deserve to be compensated proportionally, I should just give them my time and effort because of "self-respect"?
This explains why you always silence my replies on the Who's Hiring posts. If you truly think that people should work for 'self-respect', no wonder you hate it when I ask that companies post about their hiring requirements: length of process, type of interviews, projects and whether they're paid, etc.
Obviously you think we should all do those things for free because of our "self-respect". You must be rich AF already to have that kind of attitude.
> Last I checked, I was 9700 kilometers away from California. Not everybody on HN is from Silicon Valley.
So... you have strong labor where you live? Where do you live? Employment is not at will? Everyone gets a contract with a specified time? Saying you live far away doesn't address whether employment is at-will where you live.
> Then you've never seen one bad hire destroy whole teams.
Nope, never have. Ever. My anecdotes are as good as yours.
> This thesis has no null hypothesis...
Lots of word salad there, let me break it down for you: without speaking to someone to learn more, your interpretation of "desperation" based on their resume or what jobs they apply for alone is a projection of your own insecurities. Maybe they like several of the jobs at your company and could do them equally well. Just because you would feel "desperate" if you did that doesn't mean everyone does. All your gymnastics about hypothesis and arguments don't actually address any of the real issues that the post is about. Pretty self-congratulatory about knowing words.
"not hiring a good candidate is way better than hiring someone who turns out to be bad."
is it though? CA is at-will employment, so there's literally nothing stopping a company from firing someone that isn't working out (besides timidity on the part of the person who would have to do the firing).
"when hiring, you want to play it safe"
personally, i'd rather tell some people it's not working out than miss out on incredible talent because i'm too scared to fire someone.
i prefer to lean into strengths, not try to shore up weaknesses.
"top talent usually don't get desperate"
there are many reasons why people look for jobs, on their own timing, and with their own reasons. reading 'desperation' into someone's application is projecting your own fears and experiences onto theirs without actually taking the time to learn more. it's lazy.