[HN Gopher] Oxide's compensation model: how is it going?
___________________________________________________________________
Oxide's compensation model: how is it going?
Author : steveklabnik
Score : 115 points
Date : 2025-05-01 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oxide.computer)
(TXT) w3m dump (oxide.computer)
| endianswap wrote:
| Wish they would've gone into more detail about the sales
| exemption - it seems to undermine many of the other points on the
| page...
| bcantrill wrote:
| Happy to go into it in more detail, but the salient points are
| in the piece: sales folks are eligible to make more -- but can
| also make less. This is in keeping with the way enterprise
| sales is done more or less everywhere: sales is different from
| every other company activity in that it _is_ very quantifiable.
| I don 't think that there's a whole lot more to say about it?
| Arnt wrote:
| Do you to to quantify promises they make?
|
| Sometimes salespeople boost their metrics by promising
| features that come from other people's work. But they also
| sometimes provide valuable information on what people are
| willing to pay for (very different from what they say the
| want).
| bcantrill wrote:
| One important detail: their comp model is different -- but
| the hiring model is the same. And that has yielded a
| _deeply_ thoughtful and customer-centric sales team. We are
| very mindful of go-to-market anti-patterns![0]
|
| [0] https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/uncrating-the-
| oxide-rack...
| theoryofx wrote:
| "this is in keeping with the way enterprise sales is done
| more or less everywhere..."
|
| For non-sales roles you're doing things very differently than
| (most) everywhere else, which is why it seems like a
| compromise to give in to an 'industry standard' model for
| enterprise sales.
|
| The fact that sales is quantifiable doesn't explain why sales
| people get instantly rewarded with cash comp (+ equity) while
| everyone else on the team might wait years for a potential
| liquidity event.
|
| The real explanation for why sales people get paid so well is
| that some really good sales people sold the idea of a highly
| favorable 'industry standard' model for enterprise sales.
| bcantrill wrote:
| Do not walk by their lower base! Sales people _can_ make
| more -- but they won 't unless they crush their number.
| lbotos wrote:
| > why sales people get instantly rewarded with cash comp
| while everyone else on the team might wait years for a
| potential liquidity event.
|
| Because sales people also do not make money if they don't
| sell?
|
| What's your counter proposal on how they should pay and
| attract top sales folks?
|
| I know some sales folks who would love to have $200k base
| with no variable component: The bad ones.
|
| Every salesperson that I've ever worked with that was worth
| their salt was worth the commission they made.
| ec109685 wrote:
| You _could_ say the same thing about paying everyone a
| flat salary that you attract the middling ones.
|
| And no way all salespeople are worth all the commission
| they are paid as all times.
|
| You think the quality of Anthropic's salespeople had much
| to do with them crushing their numbers as Claude
| exploded?
|
| Even the most incompetent salesperson could sell their
| service if it's currently the best model out there.
|
| While that should increase everyone's equity, it's dumb
| that non-salespeople can't participate in that abundance.
| lbotos wrote:
| > You could say the same thing about paying everyone a
| flat salary that you attract the middling ones.
|
| This depends on where your flat salary lands right? 200k
| base pay for remote is a very good salary for most of
| America.
|
| The hiring process will weed out the middling ones.
|
| > You think the quality of Anthropic's salespeople had
| much to do with them crushing their numbers as Claude
| exploded?
|
| You are right -- a rising tide raises all ships.
|
| > it's dumb that non-salespeople can't participate in
| that abundance.
|
| I think most people can't stomach the risk of the
| variability. Or else they'd become sales people :D
| jasode wrote:
| _> The real explanation for why sales people get paid so
| well is that some really good sales people sold the idea of
| a highly favorable 'industry standard' model for enterprise
| sales._
|
| Is there a notable company with enterprise sales that's
| successful without sales commissions?
|
| Companies in the past have tried a "flat salary no
| commissions" comp structure for salespeople before and it
| doesn't work even though intuition seems to tells us that
| it should. The thinking goes something like... _" If
| salespeople are paid a good salary and therefore aren't
| under any pressure to meet any quotas to earn a high
| income, that mental freedom should allow them to sell."_
|
| What actually happens is that fixed salaries for sales
| positions attracts underperformers who can't sell and
| simultaneously, makes the job not attractive to
| "rainmakers" who know they're worth more than the fixed
| salary.
|
| E.g. Pluralsight made the news in 2014 for not paying
| commissions to salespeople with a list of intuitive-
| sounding reasons: https://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/why-
| sales-commissions-don...
|
| ... But 2 years after that story, they changed their policy
| and had to pay sales commissions again. They eventually
| learned what previous companies already figured out:
| _variable pay for salespeople works the best_.
| theoryofx wrote:
| Yeah no doubt you have to have performance based
| compensation but that's exactly what equity and bonuses
| are for everyone else. Sales people are special in
| getting large amounts of cash comp in addition to equity.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Sales people are special in getting large amounts of
| cash comp_
|
| Not sure what you mean by "getting large amounts of cash
| comp" as if it was a given. Co-founder clarified their
| _base pay is lower_. If they don 't sell, they won't get
| large amounts of cash comp.
|
| What's the alternative idea you have in mind for
| compensation? How does one re-divide the pie to be more
| "egalitarian" to the fixed-salary $200k non-sales
| employees that doesn't lower the compensation to
| salespeople and make the job less attractive to
| rainmakers?
| theoryofx wrote:
| Sales people that don't sell just get fired, that's the
| thing about being such a quantifiable role. So in
| practice at a startup with a hot product you end up with
| a team of sales people receiving huge amounts of cash
| comp.
|
| Everyone in in a well run startup org gets performance
| based compensation in the form of increases in salary,
| bonus, and equity.
|
| There's no reason sales people couldn't be compensated in
| the same way. The reason they're not is just that it's
| considered an 'industry standard' to reward instantly
| with cash.
|
| Sales people have themselves a sweet deal they're loath
| to give it up whether or not it's in the best long-term
| interests of the company or even themselves. It's not a
| terrible thing but it does seem an anachronism that will
| go away.
| zem wrote:
| do sales folks have the option to take the flat salary
| instead? or is that seen as a lack of confidence in their
| abilities?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| I forget the details, but the rough shape of it is that sales
| makes a lower base salary, but with a commission component that
| can lead to a higher salary than the standard one. I can't
| remember if there's also some sort of cap.
|
| You could take it as undermining those other points, but I
| don't. (I am, of course, biased.) We didn't do this because we
| needed to address some failing of these other things, we did it
| because sales has an incredibly strong culture of this
| compensation model, to the degree that it would be difficult to
| hire otherwise. That isn't an issue with other staff.
|
| Additionally, some of the points don't work the same way with
| sales, that is, the variability is easily measured and
| objective. Sales people don't write promo packets, you count up
| the amount they sold.
| halestock wrote:
| In practice, what % of the salespeople make a higher base
| salary?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| I don't personally know. We also only started hiring for
| these roles very recently, so I don't think it would really
| even be representative yet.
| neilv wrote:
| > _we did it because sales has an incredibly strong culture
| of this compensation model, to the degree that it would be
| difficult to hire otherwise. That isn 't an issue with other
| staff._
|
| SF Bay Area SWEs are famously compensation-focused, and this
| uniform salary is basically Google new-grad SWE entry-level
| TC.
|
| Are you hiring from the minority of good engineers who _aren
| 't_ driven primarily by compensation, but you just can't find
| the analog of that among good salespeople?
|
| > _Sales people don 't write promo packets, you count up the
| amount they sold._
|
| And you manage the imperfect alignment? (Imperfect, like the
| incentive to close a sale by lying to a customer, in a way
| that won't be discovered until next year. Or incentive to
| close a sale now, and don't communicate back a customer
| insight that would nudge the product line in a better
| direction longer-term, since that insight risks someone at
| the company wanting to talk to the customer, which puts the
| imminent commission at risk.)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > SF Bay Area SWEs are famously compensation-focused,
|
| We don't hire only SF Bar Area SWEs. Only about a quarter
| of the company is in the Bay Area.
|
| > but you just can't find the analog of that among good
| salespeople?
|
| I'm not sure I've ever met an equivalent salesperson. Maybe
| that's a personal thing. Given the other responses in this
| thread, it seems to be fairly universal.
|
| > And you manage the imperfect alignment?
|
| No measure is perfect, that's true.
| skadamat wrote:
| Honestly it makes sense and resembles how other companies pay
| sales people. Lower base salary than other roles in the company
| for similar years of experience (roughly) but with a commission
| component that's some percentage of each sale. Commission is a
| big big part of sales culture that I suspect is hard to
| eliminate in an effort to be different.
|
| What's interesting is that often times the commission has no
| cap, so top sales people can take home higher income than even
| than executives (at least in cash compensation).
|
| But to the commenter's point, true transparency would share the
| commission % as well :)
| tptacek wrote:
| Especially if you're doing account manager-type high-touch
| sales, which I assume Oxide is given its product, it would be
| difficult to hire strong sales people at all without variable
| compensation. It's best to think of sales as an entirely
| different kind of animal as the rest of the company. Like the
| post says, when they're making lots of money, everybody else is
| making even more money.
|
| One thing people who have never managed direct sales teams
| might not immediately grok is: good sales people are _experts_
| at gaming incentive schemes. Their work and output adapts to
| their comp schemes in ways nobody else 's does. If you cap a
| salesperson's comp in a quarter, they will work to move sales
| out of that quarter; exactly what you don't want.
| OJFord wrote:
| > One thing people who have never managed direct sales teams
| might not immediately grok is: good sales people are experts
| at gaming incentive schemes.
|
| Is that just circular though? i.e. I think everyone's like
| that, it's just unusual that it's tied directly to
| compensation. e.g. if I feel that my Jira output is being
| critically monitored, I might push something (or the
| reporting of something) into the next sprint if it's close
| and I've already done a lot in this one; I might more
| diligently create tickets for every little incidental thing
| that popped up (rather than just quietly getting it done).
|
| I'm not comp'd according to that, but it's the same
| behaviour, it's just 'a measure becoming a target' really
| isn't it?
| boulos wrote:
| As others have said, the sales compensation model is
| fundamentally a low base and then a percentage of the sale. I
| think Ben Horowitz had an early blog post about not trying to
| innovate on sales compensation models, and having seen a few
| attempts at "innovation" at Google Cloud, I agree. It's almost
| _never_ worth the complexity.
|
| You can figure out various sliding scales, maybe even caps (but
| adjusting the scale is more rational), but I think flat pay is
| basically anathema to being a salesperson.
|
| Edit: found it, though it isn't from as long ago as I
| remembered. https://a16z.com/why-must-you-pay-sales-people-
| commissions/
| jszymborski wrote:
| I wonder why not just make it an employee-owned cooperative at
| that point?
|
| I understand there are funding considerations, and founders won't
| get the lion share, but it fits the stated values better.
| setheron wrote:
| Good point.
|
| The other aspect that I didn't buy too much was the original
| blog entry claims the salary is enough since the founders
| themselves have kids and are living in San Francisco.
|
| They are coming from a point of economic safety from prior
| successful ventures and maybe are on multiple boards with other
| income streams.
|
| Anyways. I like the intent so I won't be too critical.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| The Bay Area is expensive, but I assure you that many
| families with kids live on less than $207,264.
|
| That said, everyone has their own personal requirements, and
| startups aren't for everyone. Around a quarter of the
| company, last I checked, lives in the Bay area, so while we
| obviously miss out on some good people who want more money,
| we haven't had an issue with finding enough people who are
| happy with the compensation.
|
| (I myself took a pay cut to join Oxide, but I live in Austin,
| which isn't cheap but also isn't as expensive.)
| setheron wrote:
| I disagree based on my own personal experience of raising
| kids in California but they are all young and I'm paying
| quite a lot for preschool :P I'm also carrying a mortgage
| as I'm younger which is ~30-40% of my take home pay.
|
| Total tangent: 2024 Jujutsu was my favorite tool to learn
| and your posts helped me learn it. Thank you.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/how-much-
| mone...
|
| > the [SF metro] area's median household income [was]
| roughly $120,000 [in 2022]
|
| That, being the median, includes a lot of folks who make
| less.
|
| > Total tangent:
|
| Awesome, so glad to hear it! You're welcome. I wish I
| could find more time to continue writing V2...
| parrit wrote:
| Yeah $175k plus 30% say stake in high growth company plus
| already owns home plus parents help woth kids and they own
| home nearby is different to $175k none of above.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| That $175k was pre-pandemic, as the post says, it's
| $207,264 now.
|
| I'd also say that you're presuming a lot about the
| lifestyle of some strangers on the internet.
| ahl wrote:
| Which is $167,202 in pre-pandemic, inflation-adjusted
| dollars.
| parrit wrote:
| That's the point. "$175k is good enough for me" doesn't
| mean much, especially as they also have a large stake in
| the company (not an assumption) as well as possibly other
| advantages (or not, they dont divulge).
|
| Don't get me wrong. Rethinking comp is great and they are
| paying well. But you can't make the argument that X is
| enough for founders (plus let's forget equity!!) and so X
| is generous for everyone.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| We all receive equity.
| TZubiri wrote:
| But compensation is the opposite of ownership? And there's no
| mention of equity here.
|
| In fact equity compensation is very common in SF startups.
| ahl wrote:
| Equity is mentioned in the previous post:
|
| > Some will say that we should be talking about equity, not
| cash compensation. While it's true that startup equity is
| important, it's also true that startup equity doesn't pay the
| orthodontist's bill or get the basement repainted. We believe
| that every employee should have equity to give them a stake
| in the company's future (and that an outsized return for
| investors should also be an outsized return for employees),
| but we also believe that the presence of equity can't be used
| as an excuse for unsustainably low cash compensation. As for
| how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-depth
| treatment, but in short, equity compensates for risk - and in
| a startup, risk reduces over time: the first employee takes
| much more risk than the hundredth.
| TZubiri wrote:
| Yeah, but equity is very standard in SF startups, Oxide
| actually goes in the opposite direction, by reducing weight
| from equity and placing it on salary.
| ahl wrote:
| What makes you say that? We talk about salary
| compensation, yes, but there's also equity compensation.
| tptacek wrote:
| Presumably because it would be untenable to fund a hardware
| startup that needs to carry inventory as an employee-owned co-
| op.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Funding for co-ops is usually a sore spot for sure, and like
| you pointed out, they're a hardware startup, which often
| require more funding than most.
|
| That said, I wonder how far traditional bank loans + loans
| for the founders themselves could have gotten them.
|
| Clearly not as straightforward as just keeping it a private
| corp and trading funding for equity.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > I wonder how far traditional bank loans + loans for the
| founders themselves could have gotten them.
|
| There's a reason startups generally don't get traditional
| bank loans: they're far too risky of a loan for the bank to
| be interested!
| sunshowers wrote:
| Without going into specifics, both debt and equity
| financing have their place.
| jasode wrote:
| _> I wonder why not just make it an employee-owned cooperative
| at that point? I understand there are funding considerations,_
|
| The ~75 employees probably don't have enough personal money to
| buy out the previous investors to convert it into a true
| workers co-op. Reportedly ~$78 million total raised (over 3
| rounds) and last round was $44 million:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=0xide+raised+funding
|
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/oxide/company_financ...
|
| The alternative of turning it into a hybrid/partially employee-
| owned company where the VC investors still own their % shares
| is still too expensive for employees to "buy" because you're
| supposed to value the shares at the same present price as the
| investors' shares. (We're not talking backdating stock options
| at an artificially lower price here.)
|
| I guess one could create loans where company let's employees
| pay for their ownership over time. The current investors
| probably won't agree to that.
| TZubiri wrote:
| Very interesting to see Valve's famous org structure and handbook
| referenced here. Equal salary was a bold move from the start, but
| that's exactly what a successful company needs to avoid dropping
| into commodity terrain. This is especially relevant to the
| Operating System space, I think there's a lot of creativity here
| and Oxide's approach embraces that.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Is there a 1 sentence description of the model? It wasn't
| apparent in a minute of scrolling down the long winded blog post.
| charlotte-fyi wrote:
| "our compensation is not merely transparent, but uniform"
|
| second paragraph
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Is equity compensation also uniform?
| ziddoap wrote:
| No.
|
| This is also covered in their original blog (linked from
| this post in the first paragraph).
|
| " _As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its
| own in-depth treatment, but in short, equity compensates
| for risk - and in a startup, risk reduces over time: the
| first employee takes much more risk than the hundredth._ "
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Everyone but salespeople (who can make more or less based on
| their sales figures) receives the same salary, currently
| $207,264. As stated in the blog.
| ziddoap wrote:
| In short, they pay everyone the same as they pay themselves.
|
| " _We decided to do something outlandishly simple: take the
| salary that Steve, Jess, and I were going to pay ourselves, and
| pay that to everyone. The three of us live in the San Francisco
| Bay Area, and Steve and I each have three kids; we knew that
| the dollar figure that would allow us to live without financial
| distress - which we put at $175,000 a year - would be at least
| universally adequate for the team we wanted to build. And we
| mean everyone literally: as of this writing we have 23
| employees, and that's what we all make._ "
|
| Later update:
|
| " _Since originally writing this blog entry in 2021, we have
| increased our salary a few times, and it now stands at
| $207,264. We have also added some sales positions that have
| variable compensation, consisting of a lower base salary and a
| commission component._ "
| boulos wrote:
| Apparently, I'm one of the people that would have given feedback
| on the original proposal :).
|
| > Some will say that we should be talking about equity, not cash
| compensation.
|
| I think of compensation as total compensation. It would be fine
| to say this is Oxide's _salary_ model. And I think it 's a fine
| choice.
|
| It sounds like the equity grants are naturally variable, though I
| doubt it's just newer vs older employees:
|
| > As for how equity is determined, it really deserves its own in-
| depth treatment, but in short, equity compensates for risk - and
| in a startup, risk reduces over time: the first employee takes
| much more risk than the hundredth.
|
| Edit to add: I assume there aren't cash bonuses for salaried
| employees. (I've always found it a bit weird anyway, but it's not
| mentioned explicitly, and would seem against the ethos, too)
| bcantrill wrote:
| We have had cash bonuses but they are (wait for it?) uniform --
| and they have been based on company-wide events.
| boulos wrote:
| Also reasonable! A little annoying though, since I find most
| people are better served by uniform paychecks, but I
| understand the celebratory aspect.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| It doesn't happen often enough for you to rely on it for
| budgeting, it's a nice surprise, not something that you
| think of as part of your regular compensation.
|
| (I've worked at places where your "bonus" was regular,
| until it wasn't: that did not go over well...)
| tonyarkles wrote:
| The first startup I worked at had a year-end bonus tied
| to meeting all of a list of company goals. The last year
| I was there, the list consisted of 3 engineering goals
| and 1 sales goal. We had around 25 engineers and 2
| salespeople.
|
| We nailed the three engineering goals by about October.
| Sales didn't hit their goal. No bonus for anyone.
|
| You want to build animosity in a company? I can't think
| of a better way than that.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> One of the more incredible (and disturbingly frequent)
| objections I have heard is: "But is that what you'll pay support
| folks?" I continue to find this question offensive, but I no
| longer find it surprising: the specific dismissal of support
| roles reveals a widespread and corrosive devaluation of those
| closest to customers._
|
| The easy way to "pay everyone the same amount" when you sorta
| don't want to is to outsource everything you _don 't_ want to pay
| the same amount for.
|
| Don't want to pay $200k to your receptionists and cleaners? Rent
| a serviced office and you get their services without them
| appearing on your payroll.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Why is that a good thing?
| dijit wrote:
| its not, its a method of "x-washing".
|
| IE; Green-washing[0] and so forth.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't read GP as saying it's a good thing necessarily, just
| pointing out that it can be or become a bit arbitrary.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's not. He's just pointing out that their "we pay everyone
| the same" line probably isn't true.
| __jonas wrote:
| Not sure what you're saying, are you implying Oxide is doing
| this?
| sshine wrote:
| They inevitably are, because anyone who has a service
| subscription is doing this.
|
| Because doing every single thing in-house is a different,
| more extreme value.
|
| I'd love to be a $207k/mo. lunch lady.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| We do not currently have any lunch ladies, outsourced or
| in-house.
| sunshowers wrote:
| We all do our part, but our CEO is ultimately responsible
| for dish duty at the office.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Almost certainly. You really think they are paying their
| cleaners and receptionist $200k?
| knowitnone wrote:
| So outsource everyone?
| ec109685 wrote:
| While there are a few things highlighted in the post that are
| unique to this flat comp structure (e.g. no middle managers
| worrying about comp and leveling), for things like "we hold a
| high hiring bar", it isn't at all clear that paying everyone the
| same has has anything to do with where the bar is set.
| cobertos wrote:
| If you free up the peer/employee/worker from thinking about the
| constraints of scarcity of money, doesn't the next resource of
| scarcity become time (or perhaps, intellectual property)? Which
| can still lead to a straying from the candor and other ideals
| this compensation system hopes to promote. The corporation still
| owns all your time, and all your production during that time.
|
| I just can't help but think this scarcity of resources still
| causes poor incentives that lead to not as good human/team
| outcomes. Maybe better than in a "normal" compensation structure
| though?
| sunshowers wrote:
| It is true that scarcity along any dimension sucks at some
| level. (Though it can also help develop the skill set to manage
| that scarcity well.)
|
| But some scarcities are more fundamental than others.
| chaosprint wrote:
| Regardless of the content of the article, I was very impressed
| with the design of this company's website. Very neat.
| clarkmoody wrote:
| One thing I've been listening for in the podcasts is a discussion
| of equity. I'd love to get the company's perspective on equity,
| options, liquidity, etc. The Silicon Valley Way (tm) of using
| stock options to "juice" compensation while injecting large
| amounts of risk and drama into the employee's tax returns is
| certainly something I'd like to hear Bryan's (and Oxide's) take
| on.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| I can tell you that we receive options pretty much like any
| other startup. Early exercise is a nice perk.
| cashsterling wrote:
| I really hope the best for Oxide and applaud their compensation
| model.
|
| I applied to one of their roles which required me to write about
| 10 pages of text to answer all their questions... which I think
| is a big ask but I did it because "why not".
|
| They took over 3 months to get back to me, but at least they got
| back to me (with an apology and a polite "no").
| senderista wrote:
| I never bothered applying because they explicitly said they
| didn't want candidates who didn't finish college.
| abxyz wrote:
| I like it a lot and their thoughtfulness about it but it's a
| little hollow when they're spending investor money. I'd like to
| see how this model evolves once they're off the vc teat: when
| there's a bottom line to answer to, does the dynamic shift?
| Everyone has an on-site chef when the money vc hose is on.
| Valve's flat structure was exciting because it wasn't 3 vc's in a
| coat larping as a business, it was an actual profitable business.
|
| Support is typically low paid because it's a lot of effort for
| little reward, no matter how much you pay someone in support,
| there's only so much impact they can have on the bottom line. The
| organization as an organism where every organ is as equally
| important as the other is a beautiful sentiment but the appendix
| is getting jettisoned at the first sign of trouble. Support, no
| matter how valued and important to the organisation it is, is
| never worth $200k/year on the output of 1 person.
|
| The exception to the rule for sales is the canary in the coal
| mine: sales measures itself, but every role can (and will) be
| measured when the pressure is on, there will be competition for
| budget, and the support team will get squeezed until they're
| empty while the engineers coast. I would be more convinced that
| this model could survive outside of the vc bubble if sales had
| bought in to too. Sales as a competitive sport is cultural, not
| fundamental.
|
| Anyway, not criticism, just musing, love that they're trying it,
| even if this doesn't work out, everyone had a few good years,
| it's worth a shot.
| lbotos wrote:
| > Support, no matter how valued and important to the
| organisation it is, is never worth $200k/year on the output of
| 1 person.
|
| I... think you are thinking more "Customer Support
| Representative" (how to reset a password) and not Support
| _Engineering_.
|
| An engineer that can talk to customers, find bugs, and fix
| them, is not worth $200k?
|
| One of the Oxide Support engineers was (still is) an INSANELY
| strong performance engineer who helped solved performance bugs
| when he was on my team. We were actively using strace weekly to
| troubleshoot deep process internals to optimize perf.
|
| (Hi Will, I miss you, and you are definitely worth $200k don't
| listen to this guy. <3)
| schneems wrote:
| To add: I saw job listings recently posted on bsky and was
| enjoying how well written they were. The support engineer
| role description asked that they be able to fly to a
| customers site at short notice. That's a whole other level of
| on-call right there.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > when there's a bottom line to answer to
|
| Having VC money doesn't mean that you can ignore finances. We
| are in a relatively capital-intensive business compared to a
| lot of the startups on HN.
|
| > Support is typically low paid because it's a lot of effort
| for little reward,
|
| Respectfully, I think this attitude is flat-out wrong. Because
| of this:
|
| > there's only so much impact they can have on the bottom line.
|
| _Directly_ , sure. But that's the fundamental error. Good
| support is absolutely worth it, and do bring in value, only
| indirectly. That customer you kept because when they had an
| issue, it was resolved quickly and professionally? That's
| money, even if it's more difficult to quantify than sales. And
| it's not like support engineers aren't doing engineering as
| well.
| dapperdrake wrote:
| Long-term growth really seems to come from _keeping_ paying
| customers.
|
| Thank you, Steve.
| zem wrote:
| I think of it as "we have a team developing this product, the
| product makes money, and we use that money to compensate the
| team". if the team as a whole needs support people in order to
| do its work, it seems like a great thing to consider those
| people full-fledged team members deserving of equal
| compensation.
|
| to the point that their labour does not scale in the same way a
| software engineer's does - think of the fact that you need more
| support people to do the amount of revenue generation that
| fewer devs could do as part of the _cost_ of running the
| business, rather than as a measure of the fraction of the
| rewards that should go to them.
| tgma wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head re sales being the canary in the
| coalmine. I just read the original post which I found
| distasteful and on-brand with Cantrill virtue signaling.
| Everyone is equal but some people are more equal: some get
| founder equity and some measly basis points. To boot, founders
| already made their money from Sun Microsystems looking for
| retirement entertainment and more than 175 or 200k is gonna be
| taxes anyway. If they hit it big they'll be billionaires and
| their employee number 24 will do as much as if they'd gone to
| FANG with much stress and liquidity concerns along the way.
| ahl wrote:
| Several mistakes here, perhaps most egregious: Sun
| Microsystems might have made some people rich but that was
| looooong loooooong ago.
| tgma wrote:
| Sun or otherwise it's not the beginning of his career. I
| don't mean they are billionaires but I'm willing to bet
| they don't need to collect cash to pay downpayment like an
| average Google L4 on their first starter townhouse in
| Sunnyvale which will get more expensive while they receive
| their 200ks, so yeah I know exactly what I'm talking about.
| He knows very well too.
| ahl wrote:
| I can't speak for everyone at Oxide, but I'm practically
| certain that none of us wants to live in Sunnyvale.
| tgma wrote:
| Haha I can tell South Bay isn't quite communist enough
| for the People's Republic of Berkeley compensation model.
| :)
| bcantrill wrote:
| Are you... _actually_ willing to bet? Because I would
| take the other side of that bet. But please, let 's make
| it meaningful: I still have a mortgage to pay and
| college-aged kids!
| Retric wrote:
| Depends on the business model, cater to high end clients and
| having a ~1M$/year doctor be the once answering the phone can
| be a major selling point.
|
| Further you optimize around costs, when having people answer
| phones is expensive you try a minimize the need for someone to
| answer a phone. A 5 minute call with someone making 200k is
| like 8.50$. Empower them to figure out and fix the underlying
| issue thus avoiding the next 1,000 calls and that looks cheap.
| sunshowers wrote:
| I work at Oxide, and support engineering is worth far more than
| that. It literally means the rest of us don't have to be on
| customer oncall all the time -- I've spent long stretches of my
| career doing that and it's extraordinarily stressful. Do you
| know how valuable that can be?
| jzelinskie wrote:
| No commentary on your latter points about Oxide's compensation
| structure, but I fundamentally don't share the same sentiment
| you have about the dynamics of cash flow for venture-backed
| startups.
|
| Maybe there are still VC-backed companies having catered food,
| but I think they're by far the exception and not the rule. ZIRP
| is long over and a decent portion of this generation of
| startups began in COVID and subsequently don't even have an
| office. Maybe I'm the one that's in the bubble, but when you
| take VC money you're on the line to hit growth numbers in a way
| that you aren't when you bootstrap and can take your time to
| slowly grow once you've hit ramen profitability.
| zem wrote:
| I looked at the careers page and could not see any administrative
| roles - I wonder it they pay the same for these (very impressive
| if so) or outsource those roles to staffing agencies.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| I don't believe we have any traditional dedicated
| administrative staff at the moment. We're certainly not
| outsourcing any kind of employees, to my knowledge. (EDIT: I'm
| told we do currently outsource accounting, I don't interact
| with that part of the business so I wouldn't know about it,
| heh. We do have one dedicated finance employee but that's a
| recent hire.)
| zem wrote:
| interesting! how are the administrative tasks managed, or are
| there just not that many of them? I've worked for a pretty
| small startup that still had a dedicated admin person who had
| a ton of stuff to do, though maybe Indian companies need that
| more.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| What kinds of tasks are you asking about, specifically?
| Admin can be pretty far-ranging.
| zem wrote:
| off the top of my head, making sure that the building
| rent was paid and maintenance and supplies taken care of
| for various offices, managing calendars for the
| executives, managing software licenses, doing any
| government paperwork that was needed, perhaps even doing
| the admin side of HR if there're no dedicated HR roles.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| As far as I know, our CEO does a lot of this sort of work
| himself. There's just not very much of it so far. We only
| have one office, we don't license much software, and we
| pay a company to manage employee benefits.
| serhack_ wrote:
| OT: how does anyone buy their cloud? Is it only available as a
| public alpha/beta with remote control? I might have a client
| interested into this, but needs to have some guarantees that
| their data remains on-premise.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > how does anyone buy their cloud?
|
| https://oxide.computer/contact
|
| > Is it only available as a public alpha/beta with remote
| control? I might have a client interested into this, but needs
| to have some guarantees that their data remains on-premise.
|
| You are purchasing hardware. You put it on-premise. Our
| software gives you a cloud-like deployment model, but it's not
| going anywhere other than your rack.
|
| Happy to answer any other questions, even if they're off-topic
| :)
| serhack_ wrote:
| Ah nice, I thought for a second it was more vertical with its
| own hardware (which has its pro and cons, maybe it's in your
| plans..). Would that work as a SAAS? Or price per hardware
| device/machines I can create?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| We have built our own hardware, yes.
|
| > Would that work as a SAAS? Or price per hardware
| device/machines I can create?
|
| I'm not 100% sure what you're asking. You could use this to
| build your own SAAS business if you'd like, but you can't
| rent the hardware from us, or run your software on hardware
| we own, if that's what you mean.
| serhack_ wrote:
| Ah now I understand what you meant with "You are
| purchasing hardware", I missed completely that point.
| "You are purchasing hardware from us" :) yeah, then it's
| what I originally understood. Good :) so I guess one time
| payment, I get the hardware, I set up with your software
| into your hardware that I purchased and then I should be
| good.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > so I guess one time payment,
|
| We sell support too, but yes, fundamentally it's a one-
| time payment: we don't have software licensing fees, for
| example (and the vast majority of it is open source).
| You're purchasing physical hardware.
|
| > I set up with your software into your hardware that I
| purchased and then I should be good.
|
| You don't even need to set it up! Heck, the rack comes
| pre-cabled. You roll it into the data center, hook it up
| to power and internet, turn it on, and get going.
| latchkey wrote:
| The post I want to see is: "Oxide's revenue model: how is it
| going?"
|
| Looking on the website, I just see "try a vm and play with us",
| I'm super curious how this translates to sales.
|
| Updated: s/rent/try/
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > I just see "rent a vm and play with us",
|
| To be clear, you cannot rent anything from us: you are buying a
| rack-scale system.
| latchkey wrote:
| True, rent was the wrong word. I was referring to this:
|
| https://oxide.computer/remote-access
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Ah yeah, this is something new I frankly forgot we have. I
| don't personally know how well it specifically converts.
| latchkey wrote:
| It is the primary CTA on your website, so maybe it isn't
| converting well if you forgot about it. ;-)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Hahah, well, you see, I have access to our dogfooding
| rack, so I'm not in the market right now anyway...
| VladVladikoff wrote:
| As someone who is unfamiliar with your product could you maybe
| explain to me what your company sells? I looked for a while at
| your website, and it seems like you sell server hardware,
| however, when I go to the products section, it talks of demos
| etc, which sounds more like you sell cloud hosted systems. I
| don't see any way to find the prices or order the hardware
| itself. Very confusing website.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Sure thing!
|
| > it seems like you sell server hardware,
|
| We do!
|
| > which sounds more like you sell cloud hosted systems
|
| The server hardware we sell has a cloud-like interface. That
| is, you don't administer individual computers in the rack, you
| treat it as one big pool of resources that you can use. We
| handle the details.
|
| I wrote a lengthy comment a few years back that has more
| detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30678324
|
| I'm happy to elaborate on this or anything else you're curious
| about.
|
| > I don't see any way to find the prices or order the hardware
| itself.
|
| We do not publish pricing, and to place an order, you can
| contact sales: https://oxide.computer/contact
| lbotos wrote:
| they sell you a "cloud in your closet" -- the "apple of
| enterprise" -- buy their boxes, which run their os with deep
| integration to the hardware because they make both, and a
| support contract and you have and end to end solution where
| Oxide deliver the literal entire stack.
| jamietanna wrote:
| Always one for transparency in salary (given I share my own,
| publicly at https://www.jvt.me/salary/) and applaud the model
| y'all are following!
| sudomateo wrote:
| Hey Jamie, nice to see you here! I've been a big proponent of
| salary transparency in previous roles and also publish my
| history on my website at
| https://matthewsanabria.dev/posts/salary-transparency/.
|
| I think a lot of people here are in a tizzy about this blog
| post because it's against the norm of how companies view
| compensation. I'm willing to bet most readers haven't fought
| for salary transparency personally or professionally or perhaps
| they are on the negative side of inequitable compensation.
| Granted, that's perfectly fine and I hope readers reflect on
| their career and make the positive change they need but don't
| berate companies for spending money however they choose to.
| Especially when that spending is truly equitable across
| employees, barring sales of course but that's already been
| discussed and I'd be hard pressed to find an Oxide employee
| that's angry about sales people making commission.
|
| I personally took a pay cut to join Oxide. The uniform salary
| across the board has saved so much time that would otherwise be
| spent propping up metrics to get a promotion during review
| season based on some arbitrary goal that's set. Time that I get
| to spend doing actual work. It also motivates me to stay
| productive because I know all my teammates count on me the way
| I count on them to deliver work to sell Oxide racks. If other
| teammates are doing their best for their $207k salary I need to
| be doing my best for my $207k salary. On the equity side I'm
| sure I didn't get as much equity as the people that have been
| here for years but those people took more risk than I did so
| who cares? I'm gonna do what I can to help Oxide equity be
| worth so much that we all come away with a fantastic pay day
| and I'm sure my teammates are doing the same. Not that it's all
| about the money but every startup wants their equity to be
| worth something one day.
| whazor wrote:
| I have personally followed the same strategy, but at the expense
| of my 'career development'. Trying to perform well or getting a
| promotion can be a lot of unproductive effort.
|
| I think the only downside of 100% uniformity is that you don't
| hire and train junior engineers, which should also be like a
| duty. While you could pay juniors the exact same salary, this
| might give that person a lot of stress (" concerned that they
| aren't doing enough"). One solution could be to offer
| traineeships, where the you offer actual coaching for a fixed
| duration. While clear goals like: finishing first small task,
| first doc, led first initiative. Then automatically completing
| after one or two years.
| carstenhag wrote:
| I understand that currently (and maybe because you are "only" 75
| employees) it feels fair for everyone, or people are even feeling
| bad about it. Also it sets the bar high when hiring someone, I
| get that.
|
| But what if in a year or two a person is not so great anymore?
| Just by my own past work experience at 2-3 companies, there were
| always _some_ colleagues that were definitely not good at their
| job (and this was pretty much common knowledge, multiple people
| had the same opinion). Maybe they were good at the beginning, or
| not even then. I would have felt it to be super unfair for them
| to get the same money, or the same salary bump as me.
| ahussain wrote:
| Wouldn't this person be put on a PIP and then fired if their
| performance didn't improve?
|
| Even at companies with non-uniform salaries, it's difficult to
| down-level someone. Their morale will drop, the team's anxiety
| will go up, and (if they were genuinely bad for a long time),
| the team will wonder why they weren't fired.
| paddw wrote:
| I'm more curious how the business is going? Have they got a
| Fortune 1000 on board yet?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| It's going well! We often can't share details about our
| customers. We did do a joint announcement with Lawrence
| Livermore National Labs: https://oxide.computer/blog/oxide-
| computer-company-and-lawre...
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