Tech Startup Buffer Publishes Every Employee's Salary, Right Up To the CEO

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Paul Szoldra reports at Business Insider that Joel Gascoigne, CEO of social media startup Buffer, reveals his salary along with the salary of every single employee in the company, and includes the formula the company uses to get to each one. "One of the highest values we have at Buffer is transparency," says Gascoigne. "We do quite a number of things internally and externally in line with this value. Transparency breeds trust, and that's one of the key reasons for us to place such a high importance on it." Gascoigne, who has a salary of $158,800, revealed the exact formula Buffer uses to get to each employee's number: Salary = job type X seniority X experience + location (+ $10K if salary choice). Gascoigne says his open salary system is part of Buffer's "Default to Transparency" and says Buffer is willing to update the formula as the company grows but hopes that its focus on work/life balance fosters employees that are in it for the long haul. "In Silicon Valley, there's a culture of people jumping from one place to the next," says Gascoigne. "That's why we focus on culture. Doing it this way means we can grow just as fast—if not faster—than doing it the 'normal' cutthroat way. We're putting oil into the engine to make sure everything can work smoothly so we can just shoot ahead and that's what we're starting to see.""

Comments

Norway

[lxs]

The nation of Norway does this for every citizen. It seems to work out for them.

Re:Norway

[Anonymous Coward]

No it does not work out well for us.

It is a gross violation of privacy and it is being used by criminals.

Re:Norway

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this.
The tax info has always been public, but you used to have to request the papers in person.
With it available online for a limited amount of time, websites like newspapers then store the information for anyone to look up, any time.

Re:Norway

[transporter_ii]

Lots of things work for Norway, and lots of other countries, that doesn't work for us. We are abnormal when it comes to the rest of the world. Now that may not always be a bad thing...but normal we are not.

Re:Norway

[TyFoN]

This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob, and the news has a feeding frenzy every year where they single out people who actually contributes.

I hope this system will be gone and buried soon along with the whole envy culture that we have in this country with the new government.

Re:Norway

[CrankyFool]

I'm not Norwegian, but ...

My income is relevant to society and my interaction with the state for a very specific and narrow purpose -- taxation. So obviously, for taxation purposes, the state should know how much I make. That does not mean, however, that every person in the state should know what I make; I have a general bias toward personal privacy (and state transparency), and I question why, say, my neighbors should know how much I make. I certainly have no interest in knowing how much they make.

As for criminals: Generally speaking, people who make more money have more money, and have more expensive stuff. So if you're going to target a house for burglary, and you have two houses with approximately the same countermeasures, would you not target the house with the higher income? You could argue that if I have a higher income I should have more countermeasures, but this is probably one of those cases where security by obscurity (not flashing money) is at least one of the useful security measures you could use -- and advertising your salary sort of makes that irrelevant.

Re:Norway

[ShanghaiBill]

This is incredibly stupid.

Indeed. Income was also made public when the income tax was first implemented in America. The goal was to reduce cheating, because it was assumed people would report their full income because they would be ashamed to appear poorer than they actually were. But the opposite occurred. People did NOT want their neighbors and relatives to know the extent of their wealth, because they feared both criminals and leechers requesting "loans". The publicity led to under reporting of income. Unlike the Norwegians, the Americans at least had the sense to abandon a bad idea.

Re:Norway

[drinkypoo]

This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob

Perhaps the Norwegians feel it's incredibly stupid to create a culture that creates criminals by promoting wealth inequality.

Re:Norway

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob, and the news has a feeding frenzy every year where they single out people who actually contributes.

I hope this system will be gone and buried soon along with the whole envy culture that we have in this country with the new government.

Fellow Norwegian here, this is actually a myth. There isn't any evidence that this ever happened. After populist politicians kept repeating this claim, the police did the research, and came up disproving it completely (Google Translate). Criminals don't need tax info to seek up nice neighborhoods and look for houses to rob.

Re:Norway

[buddyglass]

Neither of those two things ("gross violation of privacy" and "is being used by criminals") necessarily implies that it is not "working out well for you". Perhaps the system creates benefits that (in some peoples' minds) outweigh those two negatives.

Re:Norway

[drinkypoo]

In any case, it seems rather ludicrous to compare the economic policies of the second least densely populated country in Europe(Norway pop. 5m) with those of a highly successful and envied nation that has a population 60 times greater.

Well, I'm sitting in that nation, envying the Norwegians.

Re:Norway

[TyFoN]

Publicly posting tax information has nothing to do with wealth inequality.
That is the excuse, not the reason. The only ones that need to know your income is the computer systems that is used to calculate taxes.

Fighting wealth equality should happen in policies, not publicly shaming those who work hard and actually contributes to the society.

It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is pulled down as hard as possible.
Everyone should be equal, or else.
This is also ingrained in the school system and is one of the reasons we rank so low in the PISA tests.

Fortunately this is starting to go away as people come to their senses and stick to their own business :)
We just elected the first liberal government in many years and I hope they will make the necessary policy changes like removing the public tax information.

Re:Norway

[NormalVisual]

Think those bad boys of Wall Street would behave so badly if the fines for white collar crime were a percentage of their personal wealth instead of a percentage of the profits from just their latest rule violation?

No, they'd just find better ways to hide their money.

Re:Norway

[drinkypoo]

It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is pulled down as hard as possible.

It's shocking, shocking I tell you, that people who have had less advantage in life would be upset when others with a superior starting position exploit it to their further advantage over others.

Sure, sometimes people really do pull themselves up from nothing, with a whole lot of help from others around them of course, but hard work is the worst predictor of success.

Re:Norway

[pijokela]

Fighting wealth equality should happen in policies, not publicly shaming those who work hard and actually contributes to the society.

It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is pulled down as hard as possible.

I live in Finland and we also have publis tax information. I think the rationale for having that information public is to make hiding income harder... if you have no taxable income and your neighbour sees you buying new cars every year, that may cause him to go and talk to someone at the tax office. I'm not sure if there actually is someone you can report a suspected tax evader, but that's the general idea. The shaming is bad, but that is mostly done by the press here and AFAICT there is no shame if you have some reason for the large income. E.g. people owning companies are treated more like heroes.

But, anyway, what I really wanted to say was that the "culture of envy" is a myth. We have the same myth here too. The envy is mostly inside the head of people earning a lot of money. The people earning less generally do not care.

Personally I am very much in favor of public tax information. I usually check the income of some of my coworkers every couple of years. Usually their wages are very much what I expect, but once I noticed that my previous employer valued writing design documents over creating working software - and after learning that I decided to change to another job. I did not start raving and frothing at mouth.

Usually, what you imagine without the information is much worse then the reality.

Compared to what Google and NSA are doing, I find the public tax information to not be a problem.

Re:Norway

[bluegutang]

Norway is unique among developed nations in the huge amount of oil per capita it produces. That's a big incentive for corruption, which has been the downfall of many other oil-producing nations.

If publishing everyone income can serve as a (partial, at least) disincentive to corruption, then it could play a very important national role.

Re:Norway

[pipedwho]

Someone please mod the parent up.

'Success' is far better predicted by cut-throat underhanded behaviour and initial wealth than because someone 'worked hard'. An employee's ability to negotiate better than the next guy is also a huge advantage.

Here's an anecdote that I'm sure is a deja vu moment for many here:

At a company I worked at years ago, one of our best (and hardest working) software developers, was paid far less than one of the worst.

The 'worst guy' surely would have been a sales guy if it meant he could be more lazy. He'd normally just surf the net all day, but every now and then he'd spend a week or two working on what looked like foreign projects. When the big brass walked past, he'd go into 'super busy' mode where he'd frantically shuffle papers, tap keys at crazy speed, and move his head back and forth between paper specs and the monitor. I'm sure he pioneered the use of automated email sending scripts that would send out at 9pm emails drafted in the middle of the day. The guy used to do the bare minimum to fly under the radar, then when panic hit, he'd pull out and submit some work he'd been holding back and look like some sort of genius saviour. He'd even negotiate overtime rates to 'complete' the 'unfinished' work - from home, of course. One day he 'accidentally' walked in on one of the upper management guys (married) 'working overtime with the secretary'. I don't really know what he actually said, but, mysteriously, he got a pay rise - which naturally he told us all about. This guy was expert in the art of telling people just enough to come across as 'lucky' and 'hard working' rather than devious and opportunistic. He had no idea we could see right through his game, but then we weren't really the central part of his game.

That guy used to blow his own trumpet so hard that you'd be blinded in both eyes from all the stray saliva.

Luckily the guy only lasted a year before he moved on to riper pickings at a more gullible company. In fact, productivity (and morale) went up once he was gone. But, even after he'd left, the division manager and the CEO would swear blind that he was one of the most diligent and valuable guys ever to grace the company. I learned a lot from that guy (about how to play the 'system'), and I watch carefully for it in the teams that I manage. Sadly, this type of behaviour seems to be more prevalent the higher you look up in the corporate structure.

The age old idiom that 'shit floats to the top' seems to be well supported.

Re:Norway

[Darinbob]

This is silly. It's not your business to now what your coworkers make, except as a way to leverage a higher salary for yourself. I would feel terrible if my salary were public to my coworkers; either because it was lower than theirs and I would be ashamed, or because it was higher than theirs and feel bad for them. It would affect peer performance reviews, rather than judge fellow workers fairly it would create a bias.

It's my business to pay attention to myself, and not my business to pry into other people's matters. Life should not be a competition.

Re:Norway

[Darinbob]

The fact that people are arguing about this does seem to disprove the original claim of "seems to work out for them".

Re:Norway

[cascadingstylesheet]

But, anyway, what I really wanted to say was that the "culture of envy" is a myth. We have the same myth here too. The envy is mostly inside the head of people earning a lot of money. The people earning less generally do not care.

All I can say to that is, wow. Not sure how you don't see it. For one thing, you obviously read Slashdot ...

Re:Norway

[AK Marc]

Perhaps your myopic socialist viewpoint is due to your lack of wealth or maybe even laziness. Interestingly, it has been proven over and over, that most people that share such a viewpoint completely abandon it if they achieve wealth.

I'm probably richer than you (if Slashdot was a random selection, I'd be more than 99% sure of that, but it isn't, but I still have a good chance of being right). I haven't abandoned my viewpoint. In fact, many people abandon that idea off the idea that someday they might become rich, despite never actually trying to be rich (other than buying a lotto ticket when they can afford it). We call them "poor Republicans".

If elected tomorrow, I'd abolish the stupid tax advantages that make it cheaper for me to buy a house and rent it out than for someone to buy it to live in it. Not that we need to drive more home ownership, but that the rich shouldn't be given additional tax breaks when those trying to be rich can't get them. Most of the codes are reressive, but so complex it's not well understood, except by those who are affected, who generally are the ones that don't want it to change. Now that I own multiple houses, why should I make it more expensive for me to own so many and rent them out? I'd have to be stupid to be that altruistic, or so I'm told.

Re:Norway

[AK Marc]

Criminals use it to pick out who to rob,

Is this from interviews with convicted criminals, or unfounded fears by the rich who want to remain hidden to stockpile their riches, without regard to society or their neighbors?

Re:Norway

[mynamestolen]

No. Your comment is illogical. Some people will ALWAYS seek to be richer than others, to control them, to kill them. They're called sociopaths and even Norway has them and so does Slashdot. It's in the genes of some people. It's just that Norway and other Scandinavian countries deal with "criminality" a huge lot better than English speaking countries.

Re:Norway

[AmiMoJo]

The GP also assumes that those earning the most are contributing the most to society. In my experience this is rarely the case.

Re:Norway

[strikethree]

Perhaps the Norwegians feel it's incredibly stupid to create a culture that creates criminals by promoting wealth inequality.

There is a certain percentage (no idea what the actual percentage is) of people who will be criminals no matter what. Yes, certain aspects of society can push otherwise non-criminal people into criminal behavior, but for the most part, serious crime is performed by criminals who would be criminal no matter the type of society.

What was that saying? Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Re:Norway

[pijokela]

Well, certainly the people earning a lot of money think we have a culture of envy. But I'm not at all convinced that we actually have one outside of the top 10% earners envying each other. Now, of course the people making less money envy the rich in the sense that they would like to make more money - but isn't that what market capitalism is all about? What I mean is that most people are not consumed by this envy and they do not suffer from it in any significant way. Nor do people regularly harass each other about their money.

I dunno, maybe it is different in Norway, but your original comment really sounded like the comments I hear around here and I don't see any hard evidence to back them up.

And finally: if the tax information was not available, it would not stop this. People would probably think the rich are earning even more then they really are and envy them even more. Out of sight - out of mind, does not really work when you can see people using their big income in luxury boats, big houses and expensive cars.

Re:Norway

[pijokela]

It's my business to pay attention to myself, and not my business to pry into other people's matters. Life should not be a competition.

I absolutely agree that life should not be a competition. But - I assume you are from the U.S. - I'm pretty sure that overall life here is less a competition then it is over there, so clearly public tax information is not driving the competition the way you assume it would.

The way I see it is that it gives you more information to make important desicions about your life. Like how big a mortgage can you actually pay back? Or is your employer really valueing you highly like they say they are doing? And that is a very good thing. Most other information sources, like banks or surveys only give you very averaged and aggregated data that is difficult to use this way.

In a similar way, we built a house 7 years ago and I've been trying to tell all interested how much the project cost. People around here often do not share that kind of information. Prospective house builders have to work with very inaccurate information about the real cost of building a house. People bragging about how clever they were and how much they saved etc. I think this kind of thing is a really big problem in our society and we need more public economical information - not less.

Re:Norway

[DuckDodgers]

There's also a lot of luck. I'm earning a six figure salary and I didn't stab anyone in the back or cut anyone's throat to get it. It was maybe 10% hard work and 90% luck. Most of my friends and family members bust their behinds harder than I ever have at their respective jobs for less money.

Re:Norway

[DuckDodgers]

Think in terms of negotiation. Employees negotiate their salary every few years as part of getting a raise or interviewing for a new job. Any company except for a very tiny one has staff dedicated full time to negotiating compensation for employees at the lowest possible level that will not negatively impact productivity and employee retention. It's like trying to get the best deal out of a car salesman. You buy cars every few years, or even less often than that. He sells cars for a living. What percentage of the population gets a fair deal on a car purchase? 10%? 5%?

I left one job and discovered I was grossly underpaid for my skills while I was there. At another job after I left, I discussed compensation with a few other former employees and we discovered that although I was paid fairly, they were underpaid.

That kind of thing can have severe consequences for your career, long term. If your potential next employer asks for a salary history you have to lie, or refuse to discuss it - which gives the appearance that you were underpaid relative to your skill level because of incompetence, or tell the truth - which also gives the appearance you were underpaid relative to your skill level because of incompetence. Making 30% under market rate once can impact your career options for decades.

Last, and most important, public disclosure of salaries permits companies to continue discriminating pay scales based on the race, age, or sex of the employee. At the job where I was paid market wages and a number of former colleagues were not, the others were all older women. They were competent, professional, productive employees, but the company paid them far less than it paid me precisely because they could get away with it. That's good for the shareholders, but not fair.

Re:Norway

[drinkypoo]

There is a certain percentage (no idea what the actual percentage is) of people who will be criminals no matter what.

No matter what? Citation needed.

What was that saying? Some people just want to watch the world burn.

What was that saying? A witty quotation proves nothing.

No respect for employee privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

No respect for employee privacy, we never discuss salaries of other people here.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[SJHillman]

Is it respect for employee privacy or respect for being able to pay drastically different wages for the same job? A lot of times, company rules (official or unofficial) against discussing salaries protect the employer much more than the employees.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[cellocgw]

A lot of times, company rules (official or unofficial) against discussing salaries protect the employer much more than the employees.

Like my employer, for example (sub-sub-sub-subdivision of UTC). IMHO this rule is the same as the used-car salesman saying "OK, I can cut you this deal but you have to promise not to tell anyone about it." They hope to make each employee think he/she's got a better salary than the folks in the next cube.

One other thought: seniority should be a factor up to a point. Statistics show certain timeframes (e.g. 5 years' employment) at which people are more likely to switch jobs, so offering a seniority-based incentive to stay on at these junctures can help retain desired staff.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[penix1]

If the job is shit to begin with, no amount of incentive will keep employees very long. Burn-out is one of the biggest problems in employment with the most "productive" individuals getting abused to the point where they either leave or have health issues related to burn-out like heart attacks.

So salary is a very little part of the equation to keeping employees. Treating them like people instead of expensive commodities to be disposed of is another.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what others get paid, it is up to me to negociate a salary with my employer.

What other people do I really don't care about, that is their problem not mine.

If i am not happy in what i get paid, or whatever, i look elsewhere.

I certinaly don't tell anybody what I get paid and I never ask what others get paid.

If you want to be nosey into my life, I sure will take it personal and start targeting YOUR LIFE privacy in retiallation.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what others get paid, it is up to me to negociate a salary with my employer.

So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?
You sound like a shitty negotiator.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[ScentCone]

Is it respect for employee privacy or respect for being able to pay drastically different wages for the same job?

It's recognition that you can have very different expectations and get wildly different results from two people (with different experience, intelligence, work ethics, and ambition) doing the "same job."

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep telling him he's a great negotiator. He'll feel better about himself and someday he might work for you.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[Josuah]

I don't care what others get paid, it is up to me to negociate a salary with my employer.

So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?

You can get information your employer doesn't have, such as what other companies are willing to offer you to jump ship and work for them. You can also do research online to see what salary surveys have to say. And finally, if you're willing to, you can also pay for the knowledge of payroll information by geo, title, responsibilities, etc.

Comparing yourself to your coworkers can be difficult, for the very reason that you're not as likely to know what they're doing or how well they're doing their jobs as well as your employer (i.e. managers) knows.

Of course, you can also talk to your coworkers to share information. Such as what reasons were given for such and such during salary reviews. Without getting into hard numbers.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[pijokela]

The idea is to get the information for the negotiations, and offers from other companies suffer from the same problem. I.e. if you don't know what you are worth, how do you get good offers from other companies? Also .. getting an offer from another company seems to take some days in my experience: maybe two interviews and some kind of pair coding thing. How many of those am I supposed to go through to get a general feel?

I don't know what you do for a living, but I sure as hell know how good the other members of my dev team are at their work. I would like to add that I know it much better then our managers.

And yes, we do also share this kind of information between coworkers. Sometimes with numbers, sometimes without them.

After all above: public salary info would IMHO make everything easier and ... more transparent. If someone feels they should get more pay, they are free to leave. I just don't see the problem.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[ranton]

I don't care what others get paid, it is up to me to negociate a salary with my employer.

So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?
You sound like a shitty negotiator.

What your coworkers make has no bearing on what salary you are willing to work for.

When you go into negotiation there are only two relevant pieces of information. What your employer is willing to pay to keep you and what you need to be paid to not leave. These are complex pieces of information that are often very hard to determine, but they shouldn't have anything to do with your coworkers' salaries. The only thing that knowing your coworkers' salaries can do is make you resentful if you realize someone else was able to negotiate more money.

I am about to go into yearly salary negotiations in January, and I couldn't care less what my coworkers make. I know what I need to make to not start looking for work elsewhere, and that is all that matters.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[cascadingstylesheet]

I don't care what others get paid, it is up to me to negociate a salary with my employer.

So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have? You sound like a shitty negotiator.

Oh, come off it. I've got plenty of information that they don't have, too.

They don't know what other companies are offering, who I've already interviewed with, whether I have any backup offers (or brothers-in-law in high places, or whatever), and any of 500 other potentially relevant factors.

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[cascadingstylesheet]

Is it respect for employee privacy or respect for being able to pay drastically different wages for the same job? A lot of times, company rules (official or unofficial) against discussing salaries protect the employer much more than the employees.

The key question being, of course, whether it is really the "same" job, even if it has the same title ...

Or in other words, every Detroit school teacher is a state-certified, union-label professional, worth the same salary as any other teacher with the same seniority. Right?

Re:No respect for employee privacy

[drsmithy]

They don't know what other companies are offering, who I've already interviewed with, whether I have any backup offers (or brothers-in-law in high places, or whatever), and any of 500 other potentially relevant factors.
Yes they do. Perhaps not specific data pertaining to you as an individual, but certainly aggregate data that is representative of you as an applicant or employee.

Your employer knows how much people working the same job as you earn. They know how much other employers are offering new employees. They know how much recruiters are baiting applicants with. They know how much they've offered other applications. They have access to a vast array of salary data that "salary surveys" accessible to normal people are but a tiny, heavily sanitised sliver of.

An employee wants to be paid a dollar less than too much for the employer. An employer wants to pay a dollar more than too little for the employee. The employer generally has access to data that gives them a pretty good idea what those numbers are. The employee generally does not.

Contribution?

[smileytshirt]

Salary = job type X seniority X experience + location

So I guess productivity and contribution to the business doesn't count. Great. Time to sit back and eat pretzels!

Re:Contribution?

[ElementOfDestruction]

How many pretzels can you buy now that they've curtailed the length of time you can receive unemployment benefits?

Re:Contribution?

[guises]

There aren't a lot of careers that link your salary to your productivity. It's usually not possible - how would you suggest doing that for a social media startup? Pay employees by total lines of code written? By smallest number of bugs? These sorts of things have been tried by many companies, but they always seem to create detrimental incentives. If you pay by lines of code then you're telling your employees to use longer, sloppier code. You're also punishing them for helping out around the office in any way that doesn't involve writing code.

The method that has stood the test of time is to hire employees who have a good work ethic and fire those who don't. If all of your employees are helpful, contributing employees, then paying a standard wage isn't a problem.

Re:Contribution?

[psperl]

This is not true, especially with software developers. I manage quite a few of them, and it doesn't take long to be able to determine their approximate individual worth, without metrics. Activities outside of writing code are hugely influential to an employee's value, such as educating other team members and communicating with customers or our business sponsors. Obviously I can't pinpoint an exact number, but its obvious as night and day who the real catalysts are within the group, and I can adjust accordingly.

Companies that don't link your wage to your individual abilities are trying to take advantage of you. Plain and simple. I say trying, because one day it'll backfire. The most profitable companies that depend on skilled labor (not Walmart or McDonalds) pay their employees well, and do not use a uniform pay scale.

Re:Contribution?

[XcepticZP]

If you don't like it you have options. You can quit if you're an employee. You can not buy their product if you're a customer. You can choose to not do business with them if you're a supplier (good luck on that one, buddy). Or, if you're an investor/stockholder, then you're entirely welcome to sell your shares and get rid of whatever benefit you might get by investing in that company. Life isn't sunshine, rainbows and peaches.

You also forgot to mention the biggest factor of what makes a company profitable, more so than your other petty complaints. A company gains profit by doing something in the market better than it's competitors. It identifies a need no one is servicing, or a new market that no one has anticipated. The great success stories are all around for you to see, AC. Open your eyes, and see it for what it is. Someone had a good idea, and implemented it before you did. No need to bag on them for making a profit out of it because that just sounds like jealousy on your part.

I don't condone any unethical behaviour by a company/manager/corporation. So exploitation doesn't factor into my comments above. Of course there will always be ass holes out there that want to abuse loopholes, use government coercion to get their way, and generally do unethical things. That's not fair game, and they should be called out and punished for whatever damage they do.

Re:Contribution?

[buddyglass]

how would you suggest doing that for a social media startup? Pay employees by total lines of code written?

Employee B frequently misses deadlines based on his own scoping of the task. Employee A rarely does.

Employee B's code is frequently the cause of serious production bugs. Employee A's code rarely is.

Employee A often suggests solutions in technical meetings that are superior to what was currently being discussed. Employee B rarely does.

Employee A is capable of quickly diagnosing and repairing code defects with little assistance. Employee B is rarely able to do this.

It takes Employee A one week to implement code that performs a certain task. It takes Employee B two weeks to implement code that performs a nearly identical task.

etc..

Re:Contribution?

[Josuah]

Personally I'm of a suspicious mind and always wondering if I'm being underpaid because I'm not good enough at making my achievements visible, make demands or negotiate well enough. A visible system like this has a certain appeal, you at least know you're not being paid less than your coworkers.

There are ways you can figure that out without having to know your coworkers' salaries. For example you could interview at other places or read salary data online. If a company is afraid of losing you, they'll do what they can to keep you. If you're worth more than your current employer will acknowledge, then changing jobs would be a good idea. This tends to be why the average tech job these days is a few years instead of a lifetime like it used to be--employees started embracing the free market. If it turns out you're not actually worth as much as you think you are, the free market will end up letting you know (most likely) although learning that might be a tough lesson.

Re:Contribution?

[guises]

A company gains profit by doing something in the market better than it's competitors.

What you're describing is revenue, not profit. A company may gain a first-mover advantage by identifying a new market segment, and gain revenue from catering to that segment, but increasing profits means exploiting that advantage to raise prices (shafting customers), lower wages (shafting employees), or reduce expenses by squeezing suppliers.

It's more like a stunt to me

[Taco Cowboy]

Sounds like something they'd do to placate "dumb money" angel investors

I do invest in startups and most of the angel investors that I know are not dumb.

That guy is running a publicity stunt.

Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[SJHillman]

Most US states make available public employee salaries, and have been for quite some time. For example: http://seethroughny.net/

The government may not be run like a business, but when you're talking in micro terms of coworkers knowing the salaries of the people they work with, it's very similar.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Transparency worked pretty well back in the 50's when most jobs were unionized. Everyone knew what everyone else was paid and everyone worked their fair share because the company wasn't focused solely on posting record profits.

People need leadership, not management. That's a distinction this generation has no concept of as it fell out of fashion back in the 80's. You manage boxes and machines, but you lead people.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Baron_Yam]

I work in a unionized environment. All wages are in contractual 'bands', every job is evaluated and placed in an appropriate band based on required skill, risk, shift, education, etc.

This means that, within the band, we all know each other's pay if we bother to look up a job classification and leaf through to the most recent contract's appendix.

We all seem to continue working without being at each other's throats.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I think transparency is intended to forestall the structural imbalances which create jealousy in the first place.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Now they can do this with armed with evidence. Or not. People aren't machines created to adjudicate based on evidence. For those who are interested in doing so however, it's there to support or refute their arguments. This is a good thing since *there is no other working alternative to deciding things on a rational basis*.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[penix1]

Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...

That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

And that is bad because...?

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

And if you don't believe that, just ask a manager. His work is an ART and it's very delicate and that's why he's entitled to 500 times the salary of someone who works for a living. If you ask, he'll even write a book about his ART and the great delicacy and importance of his work and why he needs to get grandly compensated if he fails and gets fired.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[TheloniousToady]

Agreed. Don't public employees get pay raises based on objective criteria such as education, tenure, competency test scores, etc.? If so, that might reduce the jealousy factor, but it also excludes consideration of how much one produces, which is inherently subjective. I don't know if this startup is contemplating that sort of thing, but if so, it doesn't sound like a good idea for a startup. Imagine a bunch of startup employees just putting in their time until they get tenure. Doesn't compute.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[WOOFYGOOFY]

The cure for a lack of sunshine is more and better sunshine

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[XcepticZP]

I call bullshit on this. Union membership was never "most" or a majority of the population. The highest it has ever been in the US was in the 50's when it was in the low 30s% range, and has been declining steadily ever since. Probably as a consequence of people realizing that unions have done all they can for worker rights, and all they're interested in now is keeping their power/income at the expense of workers' and the companies both. I didn't even have to look hard for this stat, as it's already on Wikipedia here.

From what I've heard union members negotiate salaries based on seniority, and not on any sort of merit. It may bring security/assurance to a lot of people, but it does not distribute fairly according to effort/skill.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[buddyglass]

That comparison already happens, only people make up the numbers in their heads. If my team lead is a shmuck then his being a shmuck is doubly irritating because I assume he's making way more than I am. In Buffer's model I know exactly how much more than me he is or isn't making. It seems like, from a psychological perspective, the formula is the key. You can be sure nobody is making more than his or her raw "stats" dictate. Nobody is being compensated at an "especially" high level because of perceived (yet illusory) productivity.

What I see as the downside of this system is the incentives it creates. For one, if you're someone who's highly talented and productive yet don't have a lot of experience you're not going to want to work at Buffer because your lack of experience will have a direct, negative impact on your salary. You'd be better off at another company that at least attempts to tie salary to productivity. The fact that buffer's formula includes seniority also means you can have two employees with the exact same job, experience and productivity, and one will make more than the other purely because he's been with the company longer. That might piss some people off. On the one hand it motivates current employees to stay with the company because they know they're in line for automatic raises. On the other hand, it creates an incentive for Buffer to lay off employees with seniority when they can be replaced by equally productive new employees that are "cheaper" by virtue of their lack of seniority.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Daniel Dvorkin]

In the military, everyone knows down to the penny how much everyone else makes, or at least can figure it out easily enough. You look at their rank, their time in service, and various other factors such as their current assignment, whether they live on or off base, are married or single, etc., and the number is right there. And the reward for productivity is promotion, which leads to a higher salary. This never led to any problems that I saw; and while there are plenty of aspects of civilian life I like better than being in uniform, this isn't one of them.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions have been doing this for 100 years. Every single person knows exactly what each other makes along with the general public along with what people a different company doing the same thing make down to the penny, and when they will get a raise and sees what each other does on a daily basis. There is NO secrecy at that level at all. I'm not saying it is good or bad, just pointing that out.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Austerity Empowers]

If managers were paid that well anywhere I worked, I'd be inclined to get promoted! Mostly they make my salary with a little bit of extra "bonus" %. You know that bonus all employees get for good performance that is microscopically impacted by any individual working hard, but significantly impacted by the CEO being a moron.

For 500 times my pay you're looking at some CxO. I'd take their jobs too but my father, mother, uncle, cousin, best friend('s roomate) are all poor nobodies, so short of blackmailing someone on the board there's no reasonable way to reach those heights. Plus, I'd have to start taking responsibility for investor's greed, which I could never bring myself to do.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[NormalVisual]

then you are by defenition incompetent at your job

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[matthewv789]

So? Neither do any other salary figures you see anywhere. Did you think private-sector salaries you hear about were after taxes and health insurance and 401k deductions? Seriously, sometimes the paycheck amount is literally only 50% of the total salary "paid" during that pay period.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Nyder]

Sounds like something they'd do to placate "dumb money" angel investors

I do invest in startups and most of the angel investors that I know are not dumb.

That guy is running a publicity stunt.

Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

I don't agree. What it does is keep companies from getting over on it's employees. I've found that I was getting paid less then other workers, while having more experience and doing more work. What happened when I complained? I got my pay raised up to what the others were.

I don't know what world you live in, but companies/corporations are about profits only, and they will not only fuck over their employees for profits, but anyone they can.

You sound like you want to fuck over employees so you can get more money for your investments. Makes you scum in my book.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[HnT]

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

This is spot-on and the main reason and explanation why so much management training just completely fails by teaching people "KISS" and "SMART" 4-bullet-point tools so solve absolutely-every-situation-ever(tm). A lot of things can make and break your role as a good manager but nothing will do it faster than blindly following 4 steps without having a single "managerial" bone in your body.

And TFA is clearly nothing but a publicity stunt.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[kelemvor4]

Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...

That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...

Unless you're working under the table, all jobs come with those deductions. I wouldn't call the figures misleading at all. It's gross vs net, and they posted your gross compensation.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[kelemvor4]

A.C. can!

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[kelemvor4]

it also excludes consideration of how much one produces, which is inherently subjective.

I disagree. If you've got a competent manager, he will be able to objectively measure your output. His superior should be able to measure the output of your manager's team, and so on.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Immerman]

Well, I'll take umbrage to the idea that unions have done all they can - in the last few decades management has managed to undo virtually all the gains in profit distribution that the unions' ever managed to accomplish, with virtually all productivity gains of the last 30 years going exclusively into the pockets of management while inflation-adjusted worker wages have remained stagnant.

I won't argue that many unions have become part of the problem though. It's the same with any "government" - things can start out with the best intentions, but if you don't keep your representatives firmly bound to your will then it won't be long before they start taking advantage of the power you've given them to benefit themselves at your expense.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[bzipitidoo]

Pay levels are like a school with students split into groups based on their intelligence and performance. There's no hiding possible. The students know who is in which group. The whole class is ranked. Upon graduation, someone is anointed the valedictorian. In the work place, job titles are usually tied to specific pay levels.

Conceding to jealousy by keeping everything hidden is a poor solution. Especially when hiding is not possible. It's a fiction. Perhaps it's better that people learn to deal with jealousy rather than avoid it? At least, to a point. There are several crucial measures to take to maintain good will and peace among workers. First, criteria and evaluations must be as fair as possible. I've seen trouble caused when criteria is chosen after the fact, in blatant efforts to favor some employees over others. Alice is good at x, and Bob is good at y. We like Bob better, so we'll make y count and x won't matter. Second, there has to be more than one measure. It helps to measure frequently, but it helps more to measure different things. There is more than one facet to being a good worker, more than one skill needed. This is one of the mistakes schools make. They boil everything down to one number, the grade. It's a good thing there are other measures. Poor grades and great SAT scores, or the other way around, could show any of several different things. Could be that the teachers were biased one way or the other, or the student is good or bad at test taking and so the test score does not accurately reflect the student's true abilities or educational achievements. So colleges accept students who are good on at least 1 measure.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

Middle management is not really management. They exist to give real management somebody to blame. None of the ART of management that Taco Cowboy was referring to enters into the life of a middle manager. They're just going down checklists and trying not to draw attention. They get paid as badly or worse than the bottom level workers. The 99%-1% model exists in corporations the same way it does in society generally. There are only two categories of employees.

Plus, I'd have to start taking responsibility for investor's greed, which I could never bring myself to do.

Nobody at the C-level takes responsibility for anything. Responsibility is an outmoded concept. Just look at the 2008 banking cock-up. The few criminal investigations there were took place at a level well below the C-level. Or, the fines attached to prosecutions were a tiny fraction of the windfall.

If you neglect to put $1 in the parking meter, you face a $75 fine. If a corporation steals $10billion, the fine might approach $1million, but no more. In this way, accountability is always shifted downward.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Josuah]

I work in a unionized environment. All wages are in contractual 'bands'...we all know each other's pay if we bother to look up a job classification and leaf through to the most recent contract's appendix.

We all seem to continue working without being at each other's throats.

I'm sure that's true. But do any of the unionized employees produce or create at a much higher level of quality or quantity than others? Most businesses desire that, and humans tend to desire recognition of some sort. A shout-out is good enough for some, but if any employee realizes that they could be earning twice as much and/or receiving much more tangible recognition continuing to do what they love only for a different company, many will do so.

Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?

By similar argument, it would make sense for Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. to pay employees along shared bands (why limit it to within a single company?). But that's actually illegal. Tech companies that do pay that way (e.g. IBM) are not attracting the top talent these days.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[AK Marc]

If you look at something like a job site posting of "average salary" they list salary. If you look at a hatchet job against public sector, they'll list it as "salary" and instead sum all benefits, even potential benefits not actually used.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[AK Marc]

Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?

Have you ever worked? If you are at a job and had one of those ideas, do you know what your reward would be? I'll give you a hint. It isn't monetary (unless the company had a written policy before-hand, and almost none do). So unions don't make a difference in whether a single exceptional worker is paid for their exceptional work. Those types of bonuses are reserved for management only, so at best, your idea could make your department head some cash.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Josuah]

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

And that is bad because...?

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

And if you don't believe that, just ask a manager. His work is an ART and it's very delicate and that's why he's entitled to 500 times the salary of someone who works for a living.

It's bad for exactly the example you gave (and seem to embody). Everyone thinks they work harder and better than they really do, and doesn't really know what other people do or thinks that other people's work is easy or worth less. It happens between couples at home (e.g. housework) who are in love with each other and spend a ton of time together and know each other very well. Of course it's going to happen in the work place.

Unless a person's work is only measured in the number of non-defective widgets made per hour, human nature gets in the way. (Plus, the quality of a lot of non-robot work is a subjective measurement.)

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[superwiz]

And that is bad because...?

Jealousy is an ugly and yet ever-present human emotion. It breeds animosity towards people who do one no harm. In fact, it often breeds animosity towards those who benefit one the most because they appear to reap the most benefit.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[TubeSteak]

Probably as a consequence of people realizing that unions have done all they can for worker rights, and all they're interested in now is keeping their power/income at the expense of workers' and the companies both.

At the expense of the companies?
The decline in the fortunes of unions is reflected in the general decline of the average working (wo)man.

Here's a nice *graph showing inflation adjusted wages vs worker productivity:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/real_wage_productivity_gap.jpg

The difference is certainly not going to employees.
The graph is also slightly deceptive, since it depicts average real wages and not median wages.
If you look at median wages, the gap is even bigger, since you no longer have CEOs pulling up the average.

*If you don't like that specific graph, you can find many others that will show the exact same thing in various different ways

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[cascadingstylesheet]

Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...

That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...

Huh? Neither does anybody else's salary.

Private employer salary figures don't account for all that stuff either.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

Everyone thinks they work harder and better than they really do

I don't believe that. It has not been my experience that everyone in the workplace has an inflated view of their own value. If anything, it has been a hallmark of modern corporate life that the culture of management rewards those who devalue wage-earners. Remember, it's management that is creating the narrative. Always. And they benefit from the narrative you have described.

I think what you're trying to say is "Management doesn't want to pay people what they are worth, so it's better to keep workers guessing and fearful."

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[brianwski]

> Nobody at the C-level takes responsibility for anything.

I'm not so sure, I think it matters which C-level position you are talking about, some are hotseats...

In small to mid-size businesses (1,000 employees or less) I think it's super common to fire your VP of sales after 2-3 bad quarters and fire your CEO after 4-5 bad quarters, regardless of what situation is to blame. The CTO is almost immune from taking any responsibility, and unless there is embezzling I'm pretty sure the CFO is a cushy job with great security and awesome salary where your underlings do all the real work.

Regardless of whether I like them as human beings, I have been impressed by the risk taken by VP of sales at the high tech startups I've worked at. These men and women are compensated 50% by commission, so early on in a startup (in the era of low sales) their salaries are shockingly low and if sales don't pick up they are personally blamed, even if the product is young, buggy, and has better competitors in the market. VP of sales is a hot seat, we went through 4 in 4 years at one of my previous companies.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[ranton]

Everyone thinks they work harder and better than they really do

I don't believe that. It has not been my experience that everyone in the workplace has an inflated view of their own value. If anything, it has been a hallmark of modern corporate life that the culture of management rewards those who devalue wage-earners. Remember, it's management that is creating the narrative. Always. And they benefit from the narrative you have described.

I think what you're trying to say is "Management doesn't want to pay people what they are worth, so it's better to keep workers guessing and fearful."

Illusory superiority is the cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and underestimate their negative abilities. The research behind this bias is pretty solid. People overestimate their own IQ, popularity, academic ability, job performance, etc. Just look up the term and you will find a large number of studies. 93% of US drivers think they are above average, 87% of Stanford MBA students rated their academic performance as above the median at their school, and the results go on and on. People even overestimate their own immunity to this bias.

One in particular that has bearing on this conversation about job performance was that 68% of University of Nebraska faculty members rated themselves in the top 25% of teaching ability at their university. So if their pay was based on ability and these calculations were public knowledge, 43% of these teachers would probably feel shafted (assuming 100% of the top teachers were part of the 68% who thought they were).

The one exception to this is that some findings have shown that women can underestimate themselves in business situations. I am not sure how widespread this is, because it only seems to come up in a few studies.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[sumdumass]

It's not exactly comparable to private sector salaries. In the private sector, they don't tack on the company matching 401k contributions and so on to the salary figure. You normally only count the total amounts on your w2 at the end of the year as your salary which misses a lot. In the private sector, it would be more in line with the total cost of employment which companies do calculate but do not normally call a person's salary. If the government is posting numbers with those things including, they are really posting the cost of employment for people at certain jobs instead of their salaries for the postilions filled.

That being said, I should hope that any posting of salaries would be construed so that it doesn't divulge personal information. It wouldn't be too hard for a criminal to pick up a phone book or whatever and start tracking down who makes over 100k a year and rob their house because they know there will be valuable stuff there verses someone living in the neighborhood because they inherited the home or something. I don't mind co workers finding out how much I made, I don't mind family members or even some friends, but I do care if random strangers know.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[bledri]

Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?

You're kidding right? I used to work for a huge hardware/software company back in the day. My "real job" was to work on the OS, but I was also sent all over the world to "save" $50-150 million dollar sales on multiple occasions. I busted my ass and did some pretty damn good work - if I say so myself. Know what I got? $500, a plaque and a pat on the back for going above and beyond. I also got to keep my job and got a minor promotion. Which is exactly what would happen to the union guy - he'd get a few hundred bucks, and a bump to his pay grade (aka, a promotion.)

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[IcyWolfy]

Back at a company I worked for in So Cal (2009)
We switched to publically maing available everyone's salary.

It basically quickly turned the tide on everyone there.
Those where were hard workers but paid less got raises,
And those making more but were obviously (to other developers) not pulling their weight, were either given a hefty salary cut, or let go.

The net effect, was everyone was happier, and wage equalization among the general seniority levels.

I personally thing this information should be made publically available across the country.
Wage equalization and stopping the money from poolings up the social ladder is worth it.
Large income disparities for "Silver tongued" and charismatic people shouldn't be allowed.

And net benefit: wages across geographic areas owuld balance out, as companies won't be able to
  : pay H1B people less/more
  : under/over pay people as co-workers would quickly be able to tell if someone is under-performing
  : ability to easily switch companies with knowledge of their pay-grades
  : ability for companies to lure talented people by simply paying more making it more attractive
        - but not be able to do so on one-off bases, as existing staff would be offended
        - so wage leveling. Pay everyone more, or offer new person less.

This would be awesome to implement.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Maudib]

Public Employees get paid based on the political influence of their union. There is almost no correlation between their skills or output and their compensation.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Maudib]

Bullshit. I've worked at plenty of places where such contributions result in massive bonuses and stock grants. Or its a path to becoming management and access to those sort of bonuses in the future.

The way you think is why you are not management.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

Of course. The only reason management wants to keep salaries secret is because it allows them to pay people less.

If there are clear criteria about why people are getting paid what they're getting paid, it should have a very positive effect on peoples attitudes.

In every workplace I've ever been in, it's pretty clear who's productive and who's not. The only reason there would be any surprises and hard feelings is if management is being inconsistent and unfair.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Austerity Empowers]

In small to mid-size businesses (1,000 employees or less) I think it's super common to fire your VP of sales after 2-3 bad quarters and fire your CEO after 4-5 bad quarters, regardless of what situation is to blame. The CTO is almost immune from taking any responsibility, and unless there is embezzling I'm pretty sure the CFO is a cushy job with great security and awesome salary where your underlings do all the real work.

CFO's usually get fired after a few quarters of budget overrun, even if it's because the business plan that captured the VC capital was naive and the money is being well spent but the burn rate is too high.

Of course this is where people with integrity stand up and say it can't be done, and those people are fired in lieu of people who say it can be done, and you get a CFO who will stick to the plan regardless of consequences.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[cascadingstylesheet]

Most US states make available public employee salaries, and have been for quite some time. For example: http://seethroughny.net/

And that's supposed to be an argument ... in favor of this practice?!?

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[cascadingstylesheet]

Transparency worked pretty well back in the 50's when most jobs were unionized. Everyone knew what everyone else was paid and everyone worked their fair share because the company wasn't focused solely on posting record profits.

People need leadership, not management. That's a distinction this generation has no concept of as it fell out of fashion back in the 80's. You manage boxes and machines, but you lead people.

The 1950s were prosperous in spite of unions, not because of them.

The rest of the world's industrial capacity had been destroyed by war. No competition - nice work, if you can get it. Unions smelled blood, and it was cheaper for awhile just to pay them off, with unsustainable benefits and salary.

As soon as the rest of the world rebuilt, well, we had the 1970s ...

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[AK Marc]

Where? I've saved companies millions, and never got a penny of it. At least 5 places.

And I am in management now. You are wrong on every account.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[penix1]

They are showing total cost of employment with what they post but the public is too busy trying to justify their hatred of government employees they read at as only salary then think that the travel and benefits are paid on top of what is shown.

I don't have to worry too much in my position about tax payer backlash. Even with the benefits I get added in I qualify for food stamps!

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[unixisc]

Sounds like something they'd do to placate "dumb money" angel investors

I do invest in startups and most of the angel investors that I know are not dumb.

That guy is running a publicity stunt.

Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

Not just that - the other thing I wonder is - is this info open only to company employees, or to outsiders as well? If the latter, it would be a major societal risk, since people outside that company could compare the earnings of any friend who works in that company w/ their own, and that could affect that employee's social life. Unless they happen to be @ work 24x7, sans dinner breaks.

The thing that I'd be curious about is - how many people would actually join such a start-up, aside from those desperate to get a job?

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[robot5x]

You manage boxes and machines, but you lead people

Absolutely agree, but if everyone in my team is getting say $65k and quite happy, then my dickhead predecessor decides to pay this other guy $100k because he knows how to use excel and shit, everyone finds out, then everyone's unhappy. - this is a big problem for me as a leader. If the wages were transparent, this would never have happened and this problem would have never occurred.

In this particular case, I can lead them all they want, but it is a gross injustice I'm powerless to do anything about.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[robot5x]

You reminded me of an economic thought experiment I read about a while back, I can't remember the name or anything but it goes something like this...

You take an upper middle class family, who generally have more stuff than most of their friends and family. They're pretty happy. But then the parents have a chance to earn a MILLION times more money somewhere else - the only catch is that everyone else who lives there earns at least ten times what they do. The supposition is that the family will stay where they are.

Human beings, within reason, don't particularly care how much they earn. What they care about is what they earn compared to others. It reflects my experience with other people at least, and is why I think this transparency is really important

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Anonymous Coward]

*ding ding ding* I got no pay raises for two of the last three years, and only a 1.8% increase the third year. I may have to leave due solely to inflation.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Vaphell]

if the productivity increases are a result of serious capital investments on the employer side, why should the employee get a cut? He didn't buy the computer he works on, that replaced his pile of paper, bunch of pens, calculators and/or abacus. If you produce $100 of output by pushing a button one day, and then you produce $200 of output the next day because the button you use is newer, your contribution didn't change and doesn't deserve the pay raise.
Also remember, markets are global now and competition is a thing.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[cascadingstylesheet]

If the wages were transparent, this would never have happened and this problem would have never occurred.

Huh? How does that follow?

Maybe it would have just been a problem right away, instead of waiting until someone somehow found out about it.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[drsmithy]

The government may not be run like a business, but when you're talking in micro terms of coworkers knowing the salaries of the people they work with, it's very similar.
It's not even remotely similar.

Businesses typically go out of their way to ensure workers do not know each others salaries. Indeed, in several places I have worked, the employment contract had clauses explicitly stating employees were not allowed to discuss salaries with anyone except HR (including their boss - most bosses below Chief-whatever did not know, and were not allowed to know, what their immediate reports earned).

Coupled with the typical person's natural reluctance to discuss what they earn, and you have a system where hardly anyone who isn't running the business knows what anyone else earns.

Most businesses aim to be the complete opposite of transparent when it comes to salaries. That sort of information would, after all, lend a tiny bit of power to employees.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[drsmithy]

As soon as the rest of the world rebuilt, well, we had the 1970s ...
And the subsequent spoils going almost entirely to the top few (being generous) percent of the population.

So if you were rich, then the disappearance of unions was great.

If you were anyone else, it was disastrous.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[3.5 stripes]

Making a steady but reasonable profit while investing for the long term future?

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[DuckDodgers]

Your post is genius, start to finish. Thanks.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[DuckDodgers]

Nonsense. If I can live somewhere that affords me the ability to employ a maid service, a chef, a personal trainer, and a landscaping service, but the cost is that all of my neighbors have all of those things plus twenty vacation homes with a Ferrari in each of the twenty garages, I will still take it.

Now, if I already had sufficient savings for an early retirement, a fairly cushy lifestyle, etc... then your analogy would hold. Because I would already have the luxury of playing the grand game of "keeping up with the Joneses". But right now, literally more than 95% of the US population has concerns about the household long term financial solvency. If the price for any of us true middle-class folk to become someone with ten million dollars in assets was having Bill Gates living on my left, Larry Ellison on my right, and Larry Page across the street, I would pay it in a heartbeat.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

68% of University of Nebraska faculty members rated themselves in the top 25% of teaching ability at their university.

I can't believe they conducted this research on academics. Of course, you're going to get a skewed self-image.

As one of the top 1% of all academics who has ever lived, I can say with great certainty that all of my colleagues are idiots who have an inflated view of their own talents.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[PopeRatzo]

These men and women are compensated 50% by commission, so early on in a startup (in the era of low sales) their salaries are shockingly low and if sales don't pick up they are personally blamed,

That's why they call it risk & reward. Anyway, is a VP of sales C-level?

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Josuah]

Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?

If you are at a job and had one of those ideas, do you know what your reward would be? I'll give you a hint. It isn't monetary (unless the company had a written policy before-hand, and almost none do). So unions don't make a difference in whether a single exceptional worker is paid for their exceptional work. Those types of bonuses are reserved for management only, so at best, your idea could make your department head some cash.

That was my point. When compensation is tied to a specific formula (be it a union-designed formula or just one the company came up with) you will run into trouble when it makes sense to reward exceptions. All people are not equal, nor do people or their ideas all fit into nice little compensation buckets. In such an event, the people with equity or who are not constrained by those buckets are the only ones who can benefit.

Instead, that exceptional employee is probably best off taking a competitor's job offer because that competitor is willing to recognize and reward being exceptional.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[Josuah]

Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?

You're kidding right? I used to work for a huge hardware/software company back in the day. My "real job" was to work on the OS, but I was also sent all over the world to "save" $50-150 million dollar sales on multiple occasions. I busted my ass and did some pretty damn good work - if I say so myself. Know what I got? $500, a plaque and a pat on the back for going above and beyond. I also got to keep my job and got a minor promotion. Which is exactly what would happen to the union guy - he'd get a few hundred bucks, and a bump to his pay grade (aka, a promotion.)

That was my point. I didn't say that this unionized employee who saved the company $5M or increased revenue 10% got rewarded. My expectation is that he wouldn't, precisely because his compensation (i.e. reward) is constrained by a preset formula. Which is great for treating everyone equally, but people are not all equal. A competitor that recognizes this would come in and grab that exceptional unionized employee in a heartbeat, and reward exceptional work appropriately.

IMO, Buffer is not going to attract any amazing talent. Just okay talent. Unless they have some other sort of bonus equity policy in place to reward exceptional contributions.

Anyway, I hope you left that job and went somewhere better that would recognize and reward your abilities.

Re:It's more like a stunt to me

[superwiz]

But it's exactly why transparency is bad. It diminishes management's ability to set workers' priorities. This diminish's management's effectiveness and everyone suffers as a result.

What about the other stuff?

[rolfwind]

Do they also list the stock ownership ,stock options and bonuses of every employee too?

No snark, genuinely interested in how far transparency goes and how far it has to go before transparency is actually achieved.

And what is the goal?

I know some people that do the work of 4 of their colleagues, would it be wrong to pay them 4x more? Afterall, the company still saves on healthcare, parking spaces, and other redundant costs. What a person is worth is not always reducable to a position.

Re:What about the other stuff?

[fermion]

This is what I was thinking. I have had jobs where bonuses were 35% of my compensation. In addition to that, there are other means to keep compensation non-transparent. Health care plans can be more expensive for certain employees. Certain employees may get various allowances. In the religious racket, these allowances are often kept hushed up to make it appear that leaders are compensated in a limited fashion. For corporate compensation, the number of under the table tricks are endless, including cars, jets, household staff.

' If one is transparent, one must include total compensation.

Re:What about the other stuff?

[sergueyz]

I have to note that there should be engineering positions hierarchy parallel to management hierarchy, with payment extended to the levels of management.

Re:Here's my proposed algorithm.

[ganjadude]

I believe salary = the most I can get for the work I produce.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

>>social media startup

*groan* Anyone else joyously awaiting when this bubble pops and all these paper millionaire/billionaire social media people lose all their worth?

Happyness hero?

[petes_PoV]

Spending over $300k/yr on whatever the hell these people do. I wonder what they add to the bottom line (surely a better basis for calculating rewards).

Re:Happyness hero?

[Njovich]

He runs the secret canabis lab.

Re:Here's my proposed algorithm.

[Joce640k]

Sure, but first you have to invent the Star Trek replicator and holodeck. At a price that everybody can afford.

Meh....

[Lumpy]

Seniority is not always a good reason to give someone more money. There are new guys out there that can show up at the job and be 2X as effective as the guy that has held the position for 5+ years. And this assumes that the CEO is an honest guy and gives out raises every 6 months for cost of living.

Dishonest companies do not do the Cost of living increases.

Re:Meh....

[rcs1000]

While that's true, firms want to encourage employees (by and large) to stick around. Therefore making it attractive financially, in terms of some seniority element, is economically sensible.

Re:Meh....

[Lumpy]

I have not seen this for over a decade. Almost every job change I make, I will come in at a salary that is equal to or higher than the guy that has been there for 10 years.
This might have been a reality in a distant past when management actually cared about employees and wanted them to stick around, but I noticed in the past 10 that most only care about the next quarter profits and to hell with anything else. I watched my company recently let a very good person walk out the door to a competitor because they would not give him a piddly 10% increase.

I really hope that companies come back to having real leadership, but I highly doubt it will happen in my lifetime.

Bonuses and pay raises?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I read this right then it doesn't allow for pay raises.
Why not?
Because pay raises are generally based on individual performance and change over time and thus do not fit into a formula per se.
Which could also mean that nobody at this company will ever get a pay raise.
Not a place I want to work.

Oh, so why is this important?
In 2 years time, when 2 or more annual performance reviews have been undertaken and thus at leas 2 opportunities for pay raises has passed then numbers will start to move and people aren't always happy with all that this would entail.

Short sighted maneuver. I'd never work here for the simple fact that I don't want my collegues judging me in part or in full by how much I do or do not get paid as that's not their role and with this information they will.

Re:Bonuses and pay raises?

[buddyglass]

If seniority is part of the formula then that should create an automatic yearly pay raise.

surprised salaries are this low

[Anonymous Coward]

I know they are a startup and are all hoping for a big equity payoff, but I'm still surprised the salaries are as low as they are. I can't imagine any senior engineer in CA making less than 100k. Most I know make above 150k in the bay area even at startups. The risk they take at startups is unemployment in a few years if it doesn't get bought out by a big name.

Standard stuff for public employees

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a state government agency. Every employee's salary is public knowledge -- anyone can request the salary information of any employee under the public information laws. In fact, a newspaper in one of the large cities within my state did exactly that for every single employee, and put the information on the web so people could search through it -- yes, down to the individual employee level.

There's nothing wrong with this IMHO; the taxpayers are our bosses, and they deserve to know what their employees are getting paid.

What's funny is that within the agency, there was still the attitude among the management that systems (particularly databases) had to be designed so that no employee could look up the salary of any other employee (except for HR staff, and managers could see their direct reports). We in IT kept telling them this was public info, so trying to "hide" it was silly, but they just didn't get it. Finally in a meeting I got so frustrated, that I went over to the PC hooked up to the room's projector, fired it up, went out to the newspaper's website, and started bringing up the salary info (from the previous fiscal year) of the people in the room at the time. Then they got it.

Re:Standard stuff for public employees

[ledow]

I fear that in the EU, this would fall foul of Data Protection laws the second a piece of personal information is linkable to a person (so as soon as you know how much *I* earn, or could tell from the data, you have to have my personal permission in order to make that information public).

I think this is a quite reasonable, however - salary information is not something you want published down to the individual. Though I'm not one of those annoying people who dare not even tell their friends how much they earn, I see no reason for anyone else to know what I earn unless I tell them (pretty much - if you work with me and ask me, I will tell you). The people who need to know - my employers, the tax office, anyone with a valid legal reason who can go to a court, etc. - will know anyway. Those who don't, won't.

It's perfectly adequate for a company or organisation to have to tell how much they spend on salaries in total and, in a quick averaging using the number of full time employees, you can work out whether people are being vastly overpaid or failing to comply with minimum-wage obligations. You can't lower the average without cutting the outliers from earning lots more than the average, so there's no way to "hide" a large executive salary among thousands of workers being paid next-to-nothing.

The problem with publishing salary data is really this: I might earn more than you, and do the same job. The reason I might earn more might just be because I negotiated more, or I was more highly desired for the role at the time of employment, or I'm perceived as better skilled/experienced in the role offered - and if I negotiated a better deal, that's my business, not yours. This is why job adverts very rarely state an absolute salary that can never be negotiated on. If you have any sense, you won't sign the contract without at least trying to push it past the middle of the advertised salary range.

Historically, I've been paid more than my colleagues around me, for the same roles. That's my business. And I've helped some of them earn more by teaching them how to negotiate themselves (my girlfriend got several thousand pounds more a year by the simple precept of coming home with a contract to sign - not signing it there and then - asking me first, and then me telling her not to sign until she had it on paper that the pay was several thousand pounds more. She was scared shitless about doing so, found it very disturbing and "unnatural" for her normal polite self. But they barely said a word, printed out a new contract there-and-then for more money, she signed that instead, hey presto - free money for doing nothing! It's almost as if they EXPECT some people to ask for more...).

Many people are stupid and will just say "Yeah, great, fine" if a reasonable salary is offered at the start and then live with that for the rest of their lives. That's WHY they ask you about the salary right at the end of a good interview - they want to tie you to a number before you leave the room on the basis that you KNOW they want you. There's nothing wrong with taking it, but there's never any harm in negotiating for more either (or even just leaving the question open while you "read through the contract"). The worst that happens is they say "Sorry, but that's the absolute maximum we can pay" (and I've never had that happen when I've asked).

The primary reason to not publish salary data is to stop someone else finding out that they voluntarily elected to do the same job as someone else for less money (or for less money than their predecessors, etc.). That's it. Because when they find out, it creates bitterness and they will demand to earn the same, even though nobody told them that they could earn more if they'd asked.

Throughout my career, I've earned more than my peers. Not by huge factors, but by enough to notice. To the extent that, at one employer, my boss had to call the local government office and get them to create a salary band just for me, and then my boss had to personally sign-off tha

Re:Standard stuff for public employees

[profplump]

The problem with not publishing salary data is this: employers have asymmetric knowledge of salaries which puts them at a huge negotiating advantage, driving down the average salary. Which is far and away the #1 reason that companies discourage discussion of compensation. This basic economic fact is true in any market with asymmetric knowledge and there's absolutely not reason that you as an employee should want such a thing in the job market -- you'd be much better off in your negotiations (and they'd be simpler and faster for everyone involved) if both you and your employer had access to the same information about compensation.

Re:Hmm...

[Desler]

Especially with this on their front page:

There are currently NaN people using Buffer who have shared 115,681,392 updates through Buffer.

Sounds like some top-notch talent working there!

What about other "compensation"?

[karlnyberg]

Stock, stock options, vacations, automobile, life / health / disability insurance?

Too many CEOs think they are making a statement by announcing that they are only getting paid $1 / year all the while cleaning up on all the other perks...

It's comparing apples and oranges by using only one metric.

Re:Here's my proposed algorithm.

[I'm New Around Here]

OK, if you're the first to agree to clean out the sewage backup after the regular crew all left to be bartenders at Hooters.

Re:Hmm...

[lxs]

When asked for clarification, employee number six said:"I am not a number. I am a free man!"

Re:Hmm...

[Desler]

LOL.

Re:Star Trek replicator

[TaoPhoenix]

The Replicator is partially here, for Digital Entertainment. And look at the fight to the death for it!

We can forgive T.O.S. for a lot of things being the first, and "being far enough back" they had a lot of ground to break and computers were 3rd generation ENIACS with better hardware. But it's interesting that Next Generation takes place in an updated time (including the early 90's) when enough of the early future of computing was clear enough ... ... and they still missed the Digital Rights theme. (Or else were told by the studios not to feature it!!)

Meanwhile, we're half way there on the physical printing side. "Everything is a file", and you become limited only by the "quality" of your "Replicator". The early days, all they could do is fill cheap plastic molds so you could make toy models and stuff. But slowly the surprises are coming.

Porsche Provides 3D Printer Blueprints for Scale Model Cayman
http://wot.motortrend.com/1312_porsche_provides_3d_printer_blueprints_for_scale_model_cayman.html

As a "Scale Model", that kind of thing could be an immense help for people like Indie Film-makers. Because a big limiting factor is props. Let's presuming the model car doors open, and you can get inside. Then it's 1982 Atari all over again, and you can just add CGI to the Windshield area to look like you are driving somewhere in your Porsche. Then you get out and go back to your film.

Or, as the homage itself, ... just print the props for a SciFi show!

So it's coming.

Spending investors money vs. their own

[rockmuelle]

It will be interesting to see if they keep this up when they're spending customer's money rather than investor's. A blank business with a set amount of money to spend is easy to model this way. Once you start to find the real value in your offering and determine how revenue is actually made, things get trickier. One or two stellar salespeople or engineers can be responsible for an outsize portion of the business. They need to be compensated appropriately.

-Chris

Free Market

[nickmalthus]

Isn't this the way the free market is suppose to work? In an open market workers (suppliers) can see what positions and skills are being paid the most (demand). I would think open salaries would make for a more competitive environment and assist in reducing the extreme income equality in America.

Re:Free Market

[smwny]

If you assume that all people are the same, that is the case. Fortunately, we are not.

Some people are worth more than others. While job title and experience correlate to ability/worth, they are only one factor. A star programmer at Buffer will be in higher demand elsewhere even if he has less experience than a more senior programmer. You probably want to pay him more to avoid someone else from giving him a better offer. By paying only by the factors listed, you are undervaluing your best employees which makes it more likely they will jump ship.

Re:Free Market

[robot5x]

eh? GP did not say everyone should be paid the same or that everyone is worth the same amount

The point was simply that not all of the things that are crucial to effective free market operation (perfect information being a pretty central one), are present in the current labor market.

It's a very good point, in fact.

...and everyone is above-average

[argStyopa]

Personally, I'd rather not work for a firm where the quality of my work doesn't equate in the least with the pay calculations. Do I look like some unionist drone (at least in Europe, they are usually paid along the same sort of gridded scale).

Yes, of course, anyone rationalizing it will simply say "well, we only keep exceptional people" - to which, after 30 years in the workplace, I call "bullshit".

In every group there are going to be achievers and slackers. Frankly, I want my compensation*/pay to be the highest I can compel the company to pay me, otherwise yeah, I will go somewhere else.

*note, compensation isn't pay - there are a host of other ways a company can compensate an employee that can be hugely beneficial that aren't cold, hard, taxable cash.

Re:...and everyone is above-average

[BemoanAndMoan]

Personally, I'd rather not work for a firm where the quality of my work doesn't equate in the least with the pay calculations.

Wow, that was like a triple-negative sentence ... absolutely no idea if you are for or against being a slacker and fair pay for laziness ... and don't think you didn't break my brain with that ... er, in the least.

Re:...and everyone is above-average

[IcyWolfy]

The thing is, by making pay public, it basically forces companies to use a quality-of-work metric.

If someone makes more, but obviously doesn't pull weight, everyone else will be offended, and ask for raise to match, or have slackers pay reduced.

If someone makes less, but is quite valuable, he'll demand more money, or leave; rather this be content in his position/compensation blissfully unaware he's making less than people less important/productive than he.

The net effect is more merit pay, and leveling of wages.
Which in the end is better for everyone (except perhaps for companies wanting to be cheap)

Re:...and everyone is above-average

[argStyopa]

Except that there isn't a single company out there whose primary goal is "maximize everyone's salary". And fundamentally, that's not the point of a company in the first place.

Aside from that, you've nailed it.

Re:"job type"?

[grimJester]

If all salaries are public, you can probably figure that out.

Re:Hmm...

[Austerity Empowers]

The last time this article was posted, I felt the salaries were awful low compared even to Texas, and it was a job in California. Now perhaps we see that you get what you pay for ;)

Wow, I'm speechless

[Kimomaru]

There are so many things wrong with this method. First - privacy. If you don't understand what I mean, stop right there and move along, no need to read the rest. Second, "seniority" and "experience" are part of the forumula? Experience in years? If so, that's totally fakable and in fact I intereview people all the time who pass interviews by upper management who insist that they have a decade or more of experience and I when I talk to them there's no evidence of it. Seniority? Really?! In any kind of work, the only thing that matters is effectiveness. You're getting paid to do a job, and I've seen people who have less than five years experience who are A LOT better at what they do than industry "veterans". If you're using seniority as a consideration then you're making a mistake because seniority has no correlation to value.

Re:Wow, I'm speechless

[robot5x]

Second, "seniority" and "experience" are part of the forumula? Experience in years?

Apparently not, from TFA 'experience' is calculated like this:

• Master: 1.3X
• Advanced: 1.2X
• Intermediate: 1.1X
• Junior: 1X

I have no idea what the criteria is to meet a particular rank, but all but one of their people are apparently 'Advanced' (including the CEO). I did want to post this question on their page but couldn't bring myself to sign up with disqus.

Happiness Hero?

[Smerta]

I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to respect any firm that employs multiple people under the title "Happiness Hero". What exactly is it that a "Happiness Hero" does?

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially with this on their front page:

There are currently NaN people using Buffer who have shared 115,681,392 updates through Buffer.

Sounds like some top-notch talent working there!

Come on, it's just a Buffer overflow. It happens even to the best of us.

Jealousy not always a factor

[ranton]

Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.

Jealousy is only a major factor when the salary determination is kept secret. If there is a set formula, like for public workers or other unions, the jealousy is not a big deal. Everyone knows that their coworker who has been there two years longer is paid a little more. Or someone with a Masters degree is paid a little bit more than someone with a Bachelors. And these calculations don't have to be as simplistic and questionable as most current unions as even complicated formulas that include performance metrics, salary at previous company, commuting considerations, etc. are okay as long as it is transparent.

But in the private sector your ability to negotiate has a big impact on salary. And I mean huge, I have routinely seen people make 20% more than their initial offer (at least $10k more) just because they were willing to walk away from the job offer. This means they are effectively making around 20% more than some of their equally qualified peers just because they negotiated from a position of strength.

Pay discrepancies because of this are what create jealousy.

Re:what about your next job?

[profplump]

We should all stop being coy about what we used to make, so that employers lose their knowledge advantage in salary negotiations. Your salary is currently being depressed because you *don't* know what other people are making.

Re:what about your next job?

[russotto]

We should all stop being coy about what we used to make, so that employers lose their knowledge advantage in salary negotiations.

It's mostly to avoid ugly scenes like this

Jim (to his manager): "Hey, I need to talk to you. There's no way Bob should be making $10,000 more than me."

Manager: "Calm down, Jim, what are you so upset about?"

Jim: "Look, I have a full breakdown here. <waves papers in manager's face> I write more code than Bob, fix more bugs, I cause fewer regressions, and I even take fewer sick days. I should be making WAY more than Bob.

Manager: "Jim, there's really no way to put this delicately, but you have to understand, Bob makes what he makes because he's regularly fellating the CEO."

Jim (still agitated, and riffling through papers): "I FACTORED THAT IN. Look here, line 12, 'special services'!"

Re:what about your next job?

[ConstantineM]

When sitting in that job interview with a prospective employer, you can't even be coy about what you used to make, since the new employer can just look it up on Buffer's site... "oh, you made $128k at Buffer. We'll pay you $129k"

Except your actual sample number is wrong -- you must not have read the original post. They're hardly even paying anyone the market rates for SF. Their highest paid engineer, a "senior" one at that, is only getting $107,9k, in SF!

So, it's more like, "oh, you made a $96k at Buffer? We'll pay you $97k"

Although on the other hand, for a gaining company, it's also a matter of providing competitive compensation for employee retention purposes, so, even if your old salary is posted somewhere, a new company isn't necessarily going to employ you at the lowest possible cost, since the likelihood of you leaving for competitive pay would be higher, and turnover is expensive.

Re:Toodle-oo

[drinkypoo]

Us freedom loving capitalistic pigs carved out our nation of like minded individuals, here in America. We're not interested in redistribution of wealth simply because the have-nots are most vocal.

By 'carved out' you actually mean 'engaged in redistribution of wealth by forcing prior residents off of their land'. You're in favor of the redistribution of wealth so long as it benefits you.

Re:what about your next job?

[pipedwho]

Is an extra $1k enough to get you to leave one job for another. I don't think so.

You can also tell your new employer that your new position is far more senior/challenging/responsible/etc than your previous position. Your new employer has a baseline number, knows a little of your previous job (from your resume), and will tell you in detail what the new job entails. You on the other hand also have the exact details of your previous job to make the comparison a little more ambiguous.

Worse is if you don't know what anyone else was being paid. Then you end up agreeing to $85k (because you were previously being being paid $80k) when you should have been asking for at least $129k while a few of your colleagues were being paid $128k at your previous place of employ. Remember, you're up against a professional negotiator. Not some guy that does it a few times a decade.

Re:what about your next job?

[1729]

I just switched jobs, and my new employer asked for my current salary on the application and later verified this information during the background check.

Re:what about your next job?

[ConstantineM]

How do you know they've verified your old salary via a background check?

Re:Here's my proposed algorithm.

[naff89]

The expensive part isn't the replicator/holodeck, it's the warp core that powers it.

Re:Hmm...

[Dahamma]

Yeah, I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that - transparent or not, the actual numbers quoted are REALLY LOW for the San Francisco Bay Area. Their highest paid engineers make just over $100k, which is pretty much the base starting salary at many Silicon Valley tech companies these days.

Then again, if you look at what they do (an app that schedules your Facebook and Twitter posts so that your "fans" are more likely to see them? Not rocket surgery or all that interesting), there is no way in hell they are going to grow into a significant company on their own anyway. Basically they are going to sit around making 2/3 of what their peers at other companies do hoping someone at Facebook will have a brain fart and decide they are worth acquiring.

Re:Star Trek replicator

[Joce640k]

What about Gold Pressed Latinum?

Re:what about your next job?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know they've verified your old salary via a background check?

(Posting anon for a good reason, see below)

That's a good point. Currently on the prowl, meself, so talking from recent experience here :) All the slave traders and prospective employers ask for proof of your current salary (latest salary slip). They've always done so. This is to provide an anchor point (preferably a low one) before any negotiations even start. What generally happens is that they then offer a salary not too far off the current one (say... +10%). Giving away the salary slip effectively ends the negotiation and caps the most that they are willing to offer you. Even if they were, for example, willing to offer R500k, but your current salary is R300k, they'd rather you walk away than take you at R400k (fully R100k below what they were initially prepared to pay). The reason for this is because a hard negotiator is a "problem" down the line, and not easily manipulated.

My, ahem, solution to all those jobhunters who are tired of getting hit with the anchor point tactic, is to simply photoshop the salary slip (they're all digital and emailed these days) with a higher salary. A simple spreadsheet formula calculates the correct value (to the cent) to put into all the fields so that it all works out correctly. Set the anchor point to around 115% of your current salary (don't want to make it too obvious, now do we?), photoshop all the fields in correctly and send them the resulting PDF.

The recipient can't actually double-check this because:

It isn't legal for them to contact my current employer and tell current employer that I am looking

Even if they did contact current employer, it's still a criminal offense for my current employer to reveal my salary

Personally, I'd prefer them to do so, as then I'll collect quite a windfall from the two criminal cases :) (Current employer paid out around R200m in 2013 due to stupid HR not knowing the law - a fraction of that my way and I'll never need to apply for a job again)

Re:Toodle-oo

[3.5 stripes]

You also created that wealth through the millions of slaves, got the land through systematic genocide, and wholesale exploitation of immigrants. I bet their opinion on you redistributing their wealth to yourselves was of extreme interest to you.