[HN Gopher] Gitlab foundation established to increase people's l...
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Gitlab foundation established to increase people's lifetime
earnings
Author : pyrodactyl
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-04-03 16:11 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gitlabfoundation.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gitlabfoundation.org)
| rcme wrote:
| If Gitlab wants to increase peoples' lifetime earning, why not
| start with its own employees? Didn't they layoff hundreds of
| people?
| sosodev wrote:
| Yes, they let go 130 employees a couple of months ago. They're
| also a company whose remote pay is dependent on location. So
| they're unwilling to pay people what they're actually worth.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Evil GitLab is unwilling to pay people what they're actually
| worth. Poor GitLab employees worldwide cannot resist from
| being taken advantage of and have to work for unworthy
| amounts...
|
| Every time GitLab comes up someone will bring this topic up.
|
| San Francisco salaries are not a worldwide benchmark of
| people's worth.
|
| There are valid reasons why GitLab doesn't pay engineers in
| Kenya $200k.
|
| Should I also swing your logic the other way?
|
| If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and
| output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say you're
| being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth?
|
| If people don't understand why companies pays local labour
| market rates, either look at GitLab's income statement and
| multiply 2000 employees by your definition of "worth" or
| start your own business and show how everyone in the world
| can pay 8 billion people the same salaries. Good luck.
|
| https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-
| rewards/compensation...
|
| https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-
| ra...
| leereeves wrote:
| > If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and
| output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say
| you're being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth?
|
| No. If GitLab thought the work was only worth $50k, they
| wouldn't pay anyone anywhere $200k for the job.
|
| If they do pay $200k for the job anywhere, they must expect
| to receive more than $200k in return, and pocket the
| difference.
| ojosilva wrote:
| It doesn't work like that. It's more like: there's a 250k
| budget. We got an ex-googler-ex-meta-kid for 200k, so
| that leaves us 50k for a... Kenya engineer. Then, once
| both are on-boarded, gee, the Kenya engineer is twice as
| productive as the googler kid. Jackpot!
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > They're also a company whose remote pay is dependent on
| location. So they're unwilling to pay people what they're
| actually worth.
|
| They are also paying significantly less than their
| competitors. No wonder they are falling behind.
|
| I have no clue what this "foundation" is, the wording is
| extremely vague.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" They're also a company whose remote pay is dependent on
| location."_
|
| What is it with companies doing this? It never made sense to
| me that a company would pay me more or less depending on
| where I lived. If I'm doing the same work why should my
| location matter?
| rrgok wrote:
| Oh man, I agree with you. The typical answer is: market.
|
| But on a side note, this should make us blatantly clear
| that, all else being equal, our work has no inherent value.
| robopsychology wrote:
| I use it to my advantage - if I'm remote working for the
| Bay Area I can double my local salary but still be
| significantly lower than a Bay Area local.
| prepend wrote:
| People are not paid based on their value. They are paid based
| on what the labor market drives. There's some relationship to
| value, but it depends on how many people can and are willing
| to do the job.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| That would result in a $1 increase per dollar spent, which is
| 1% of the ROI they're aiming for.
| HopenHeyHi wrote:
| [flagged]
| phailhaus wrote:
| Increasing people's lifetime earnings != "you shouldn't be
| allowed to fire anyone, ever." I mean come on.
| smcleod wrote:
| I wonder what the research shows behind increasing peoples
| profits vs decreasing cost of living vs affecting non-financial
| changes on peoples quality of life and happiness.
|
| Massive over simplification but surely if everyone keeps trying
| to earn more money - that money has to come from somewhere,
| inflation happens and we're at where we are now all over again.
| The game is rigged.
| sneak wrote:
| > _Massive over simplification but surely if everyone keeps
| trying to earn more money - that money has to come from
| somewhere, inflation happens and we 're at where we are now all
| over again. The game is rigged._
|
| Humans do not all learn at the same rate. We will not be "where
| we are now all over again", as many people will be much smarter
| and more experienced.
| smcleod wrote:
| They're talking about earning though - not learning.
| sneak wrote:
| Earning more money over time is a skill, one that people
| learn after they are born and begin participating in the
| economy.
|
| Not everyone acquires this skill at the same rate. Some
| never acquire it. Some acquire it and leave it at an
| average level. Some are constantly trying to level up this
| skill.
| sosodev wrote:
| I'm very skeptical of their "North Star". They want the "lifetime
| earnings" of individuals to increase by 100x their investment.
| Isn't it extremely difficult to even measure this metric? That is
| something that would take decades to measure. You can't just
| extrapolate on temporary increases because people lose/change
| jobs regularly.
|
| They don't define anywhere in their handbook how they're actually
| going to measure this AFAICT.
| thomasjb wrote:
| The handbook which is linked is both irritating to navigate, and
| seemingly anemic. There are, however, hints as to their specific
| future funding activities, which include Offline Freecodecamp and
| Last Mile, with hints in the Activities section that lead me to
| deduce that the activities will be in the communities where Last
| Mile and the like work. Which is admirable. The results-focused
| aspect is different to any I've come across before, and I'll be
| interested to see if there's any future update on how they
| actually do.
| kayson wrote:
| I know they're just starting, but this is so vague...
|
| > grow their lifetime earnings through education, training,
| access to opportunities, and systems change on a global scale
|
| What is their actual plan? What opportunities? What systems?
|
| I hope they make a positive impact but so far it just seems like
| marketing hype.
| vsareto wrote:
| There are some concrete examples here, but it really feels like
| most of the opportunities are around software as that's still
| the lowest-barrier, training-time-efficient, highest paying job
| you can learn remotely. That's by far the easiest way to reach
| their 1:100 investment/income ratio.
|
| https://gitlabfoundation.notion.site/Activities-47c282c91b54...
|
| https://gitlabfoundation.notion.site/Intervention-Points-50f...
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Hypothetically, if every one does the same career, then all
| salaries will decrease in that career. Supply / demand.
|
| We need a healthy, heterogeneous career market. Driving
| everyone to become programmers isn't it.
| metaphor wrote:
| Relevant S-3 ASR[1] filed last week Friday.
|
| [1]
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1653482/000162828023...
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