In Norway, salary information is viewed as public information. Each year the government releases the income, assets and amount of payed tax of every citizen, so that the media can make it public. It is then made searchable online, for example here: http://skattelister.no/
Warning: Look at these databases at your own risk. You may be shocked at what others at your company are probably earning. Google H1-B salary database.
Fog Creek has secret profit-sharing plans. All Joel has done is move a portion of employees' compensation from the "salary" column to the "profit-sharing" column.
If Joel were to begin posting the annual profit sharing of all employees, including Michael and Joel, then this article would make sense. But until then, it's just flair.
Honestly, I know it sounds too good to be true, but all compensation is completely open and honest.
Just to be clear - does that apply to Joel and Michael too? If so, a tip of the hat to both of them.
I like the idea of transparency with salaries as long as the company pays well. If an employee decides he/she wants a higher salary than is afforded by a system like that they can look for another job or start their own company.
So, joel may make a lot of money, but i seriously doubt he's half, or even 10% of the profit sharing money. I also wouldn't count out the idea that some employees (other than Joel and Michael) have stock, so they get paid again when profits are distributed.
employees are rich. shareholders are wealthy.
It kinda implies that while in school you couldn't have possibly picked up any experience that would define you above someone who has a year of industry experience.
I was going to read this article, but halfway through the first paragraph some stupid ad blocked my view. I'll definitely think twice before clicking through on anything pointing to inc.com again.
Wow, talk about self-important. People have a term for something you just took a paragraph to explain. Can you guess why? This comes across as a pointless dig to make yourself feel superior.
"is this the UDA? / Or is this the IRA? / I thought it was the USA / Or just another country" (c) Sex Pistols
Fog Creek is free to compensate people in this manner. You are free to seek employment elsewhere if this is a problem.
It would not be a free market if either A: the government mandated this approach (or worse, mandated the pay scale) or B: an oligarchy formed where everybody determined compensation the same way. So far, neither have happened.
(Ironically, many people's proposed solution to various problems caused by their not liking one particular centralized entity's choice is to centralize the entire market into one entity. You didn't say anything about that, I just can't resist pointing that out. Unionizing programmers could have this effect, though.)
If there was no built-in scaffolding of corporate status and corporate law, and it were just individuals operating in a free market forming whatever arrangements they want via private contract law, it's at least possible that large, centralized entities wouldn't emerge as easily or as frequently. From that perspective, the modern "sea of centralized entities" version of capitalism is itself centrally planned: the government decided that it'd be best if the economy were made up of a sea of centralized entities, and wrote the rules so that it happened.
The key question, then, when applying to a company for a job, is do they have the profit to throw my way?
If they are worth X, but I can only pay Y (where Y < X), then I pay Y (and hope that they'll work for Y) until I can afford to pay them X. At that point, I raise their pay to X.
Also note that, if they are worth X, but you can only pay Y, this should only be a temporary situation. Because, if they are truly worth X, then once you hire them there should be no reason you cannot afford to pay them X eventually (since they are bringing that value to your organization).
But I think the point is more that I know I'm not getting screwed over compared to my peers in the company -- it wouldn't really bother me to find out that they take extra for themselves since it is their company and all...
https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/?W4
However, I distinctly remember, and later confirmed, that Fog Creek only publishes the salaries at each scale, and not the profit sharing.
The libertarian argument is about how much government regulation influences the size of companies, that is how large companies would be absent regulation, the vast majority of which impacts smaller companies more per dollar of income than it does larger one.
Limited-liability is a natural, almost inevitable, requirement for joint-stock companies, such as corporations, to exist. It does NOT limit criminal or tortious liability of the company; all it does is limit the financial liability of investors to what they have invested in that company, so if your retirement account bought stock in a company that went bankrupt, it is only out what it invested, it does not have to contribute toward paying off the company's secured debt.
What kind of government regulation is keeping Microsoft at near-monopoly level? (if you disagree it's a monopoly, pretend we're a decade back in time)
At the limit, I still see some large stuff coming together unless you rip out the legal system well beyond what I think is optimal. My father works for Chrysler, and I have observed that even as they outsource everything they can, the remaining core is intrinsically huge, as there really has to be an entity that is finally responsible for the car. That means that entity has to have a huge testing component. That further means it needs to do its own design. It also really needs to be the one doing the manufacturing, too, even if that is only a "final assembly" step.
Structuring things so that this wouldn't be necessary anywhere in the economy is probably not currently practical. But ask me again in 20-30 years; technology is rapidly shifting from encouraging centralization to the opposite.
It's simple to take it for granted that it's natural, when instead, it's about as natural as bamboo entrained to grow in loops. Made of natural stuff... yes. In natural form... no.
I KNEW all those individual facts, but you know, I never put it together until you put it just so.
What have you been reading that shaped your views/thinking? I'd like to check it out.