| This is exactly why we are launching the Offer Drive: http://offerletter.io/drive.html . In short - submit your offer and equity information, get back access to a statistical pool showing where you stand. A few notes on this subject from my perspective as the founder of http://OfferLetter.io (we provide negotiation advice and career matchmaking to developers and other techies). Companies also oftentimes just don't know what someone is worth, and don't want to publicly publish numbers that are too high or low for fear miscalibrating expectations w.r.t. large swaths of potential candidates. 0) If a company tries to play the, "What do you make?" game, it's important to deflect, deflect, deflect and if they insist, simply state, "I expect a competitive offer to be on the order of $X" 1) Market rates are complicated. As I've written about before, the outcomes that people can see because of outsize startup exit scenarios means that their market rate can be very very high. Google doesn't publish this kind of info because they can and will match even crazy startup exit numbers, but don't broadcast this for fear of screwing up expectations. 2) At the end of the day it is contingent on the individual to define their own basis and see what places are willing to offer what compensation, and how much they are willing to budge. This is how markets work. 3) On a related note, oftentimes, companies will try and prohibit discussion of compensation by saying it's confidential, or a trade secret. Confidentiality and wage secrecy requirements in the workplace are illegal under California law. The exact statue is here: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection... As we have seen repeatedly, these kinds of requirements tend to disproportionately harm people from many kinds of non-privileged backgrounds. And, under national labor legislation, companies cannot prohibit discussion within the workplace. |