[alkonaut]

> You get into work at 8am and you leave work at 8pm

To be comparable, a salary number should reflect a full time work week, and be for a position which TWO people can hold, full time, while still having time to pick up kids. Obviously if I worked 12h days I'd be supporting my partner who could NOT have the same full time job. Not sure what these figures represent, I thought they were regular day-jobs, which you could hold while still having a meaningful work/life balance?

> These employees are bringing in billions of dollars for these companies and for them to still receive < $200k per year is appalling.

The same can be said for employees of any large corporation. Sure you may be more or less replaceable, but still: the dollars brought in are return on risk by investors. It's no more appalling than fast food workers being paid peanuts in fast food chains that make a billion.

[nerfhammer]

> It's no more appalling than fast food workers being paid peanuts in fast food chains that make a billion.

What are the numbers per employee?

Net income per employee:

Apple: $456,800

McDonald's: $12,530

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+per+employee+app...

Revenue per employee:

Apple: $2,111,000

McDonald's: $64,320

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+ap...

Apple has about 3x what it pays out in salaries left over after paying everyone, McDonald's only has about 1x salary per employee profit. McDonald's would go broke if it doubled everyone's salaries, Apple could afford to do that and still be hugely profitable.

[alkonaut]

Point taken, I'm sure there are better examples than fast food of companies paying peanuts but earning millions per employee, probably due to huge investments/risks involved. Natural resources and banks come to mind.

Still, there is nothing that should make Apple pay more because they can, they only need to be competitive in salaries, not excessive. If they wanted to compensate employees more, that would probably not show up in these figures as it would likely not be base salary but rather bonuses/stock etc.

[nerfhammer]

> Still, there is nothing that should make Apple pay more because they can

No, but to hear people complain about how it's impossible to hire anyone...

while inflation- and cost-of-living-adjusted salaries actually have not increased at all... what's going on here?

[alkonaut]

"Hard to find developers" just means "Hard to find people who will do X when we pay Y". As for cost of living, if NYC/SF tech companies offer competitive salaries for those areas (like $150k) that must be a fortune for people working remotely from almost anywhere else. So assuming that remote work is quite normal, and the companies accept paying SF salaries to remote workers from everywhere, I can't see how they can fail to find talent.

[nerfhammer]

Personally I think there's a cultural aversion to competing on compensation.