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by naiwenwt 1538 days ago
The problem is sometimes this is done for legitimate reasons and genuinely does lead to stronger outcomes for both employers and employees.

It's hard to tell the difference between "stop the bleeding" title/pay inflation and "aggressively competing for talent" inflation.
3 comments
lmeyerov 1538 days ago
Sort of. A good question is what is the revenue per employee

Meta is ~$2M/employee. Probably more like $1M once contractors are accounted for? But for a good person, even if the rest of the company has random issues, they can carve out a win.

Fast was like $1K/employee

Consider what that's like for some hypothetical B2B startup BlitzScaler Inc. They're betting on 3x+ growth year-over-year for next 2+ years, 2-3 year sales payback periods, etc, and is probably closer to Fast levels of revenue per employee than Meta's. But hitting $500K is hard, $2M is hard again in different ways, then again to $10M, and again to $20M+ (and increasing range depending if many sales people inflating it). That matters because many aren't there, even unicorns (!). That means, like Uber, they're burning increasing piles of money, except unlike Uber, the revenue is unlikely to be keeping pace. Fundraising buys team, and an artificial sense of fit+growth (kool-aid-drinking team + forced sales that tap out + churn.)

A cockroach team is closer to Amazon style: reinvest ~100% in growth, but don't gamble your employee's stock options.

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meetups323 1538 days ago
Differentiator is what other companies will pay. If GAM all offer X, F offers 3X, and GAM refuse to budge on their X... either F knows some deep dark secrets about your capabilities which no one else can appreciate, or they're bleeding talent.
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frankchn 1538 days ago
It is usually not quite that drastic. More often it is like GAM offer X, F offers 1.2X.
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nomel 1538 days ago
> this is done for legitimate reasons

What could be a legitimate reason for giving silly titles? If it were a startup, it would be a huge red flag for an auditor.

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presentation 1538 days ago
A title is free to give and can motivate people who want them.
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mwcampbell 1538 days ago
Mightn't titles motivate the wrong kind of people?
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