[johnomarkid]

Industry level salaries are important. In addition to that, how do you create an environment that people want to work in for the next 10 years? I think remote work is a big incentive. Maybe capping work hours at 40/week. That makes people happy. Maybe profit sharing. There are incentives that are more tangible than stock options.

[inetknght]

Cap on personal income as a ratio of number of employees (so you don't end up with Wal-Mart-like policies where the bulk of your "employees" make minimum wage and require government assistance just to live, while people at the top make millions) would be great.

Combine that being profitable (after base salaries) and fair profit sharing (eg, across all employees and contractors) and you will have people flocking to your company in droves.

[pc86]

Why would contractors get profit sharing? They're already paid higher rates after accounting for benefits, risks, and taxes. If you undervalue yourself as a software dev contractor and bill 25-30 hours a week you can make a quarter million dollars a year gross.

I get where you're going with the WM example, and that's a fair one, but probably not comparable to a tech company like this. Nobody is going to be working for $10/hr or less unless it's fair for their standard of living. Likewise, industry level pay is important and if a good CFO commands $2 million a year but you can only offer $1.1 because you have a bunch of people making $50k, you're not going to get a good CFO, or your hiring pool is going to be artificially limited to those who don't need or care about the money.

[inetknght]

I would consider contract jobs only because of more pay. But the lack of stability is a concern.

Profit sharing with contractors because... imagine Uber where drivers are poorly paid contractors while Uber reaps silly amounts of profits.

I fully understand that people can dictate what price they want. But that doesn't make that price fair, does it? Show a reason that $2M is necessitated instead of... say... $250K base salary and bonuses "up to" $2M based on performance. So if the company hires you and you don't bring profits (remember, profits are shared now) in line with whatever's necessary to pay you that $2M, then are you really worth your $2M asking price?

[TheAdamAndChe]

Living wages, normal schedules, plenty of vacation time, and a certain degree of autonomy would go a long way. It amazes me how few companies offer many of those things nowadays.

[wwalser]

For software engineers, I haven't seen a company which doesn't offer all of those things. I guess it depends on one's definition of "normal", "plenty" and "certain degree".

[sharemywin]

I think jobs in IT are tricky. I doubt anybody likes giving up their IP to others for cash, but you gotta eat. I find it funny companies want entrepreneurial types that are creative, self-motivated, fast learners, with expert level understanding of latest technology, but are completely ignorant too how much value they give away everyday they code for someone else. You really want to attract talent, pay them a fair wage, let them work on a side projects 20% of the time until they find something that pays for itself and then split the IP with them 50/50.

sort of like a job/incubator hybrid.

(wish I could patent ideas)