[nell]

The reverse is also true. At the beginning Airbnb employees will be making SF level salaries. As Airbnb continues to hire and churn employees, average salaries will come down since they won't be paying SF salaries for new positions. They might pay better than other companies, but won't keep SF as baseline.

[subpixel]

I've said as much on other threads. Employers are playing a longer game, and thinking about the salaries of the person who replaces you. So go ahead, move to Colombia but save up.

When there's zero friction and in fact a couple years successful track record involved in managing W2 staff in any country, the salary for new hires will reflect that.

No company will ignore this, because the potential savings are just monumental and there is no stigma attached.

[runako]

This might be a plausible outcome, except for two factors:

- Big Tech has been expanding out of CA for over a decade (e.g. Amazon HQ2, Microsoft Atlanta HQ, etc.)

- Tech compensation is highly weighted toward equity (RSUs/etc.).

Taken together, these mean that more regions have at least one big tech player that's paying significantly in equity. This means that even if the salary portion of compensation is reduced for employees living outside SF, their overall compensation will likely still be very competitive.

At the same time, regional markets are heating up as non-tech companies increasingly are staffing up with the same React & Swift programmers needed in SF. Why leave family & move to SF for $180k base when you can make $150k base in Atlanta or Raleigh, where the cost of living is a fraction of SF?

(Given recent actions in the public markets, it's also worth nothing that equity-based compensation frequently is topped up to some extent when stock values remain depressed. It's been a number of years since this broadly happened, but we can generally expect the $100B+ club (at least) to issue meaningful retention grants if stocks stay down while the labor market remains tight.)

[foota]

I doubt this will be the case, unless they're willing to substantially shrink their labor pool by not competing with large tech hubs.

[subpixel]

I am happy for you if you can play a FAANG salary against another offer, and many on HN can, but for the vast majority of tech employees _and_ employers, those numbers are nothing like a baseline.