The article does not support this claim. My reading is that GOOG's HR department kept/keeps the salary curve artificially flat (over-rewarding low performers) to manage pay within a narrow band and thereby prevent having to negotiate with top performers.
> Google, like the others, used a “salary algorithm” to ensure salaries remained within a tight band across like jobs. Although tech companies like to claim that talent and hard work are rewarded, in private, Google’s “People Ops” department kept overall compensation essentially equitable by making sure that lower-paid employees who performed well got higher salary increases than higher-paid employees who also performed well.
Buried beneath a stack of preferences it makes little sense for founders to make any sacrifices to save the company (i.e. not take a salary for a while) since all money will go to investors first.
In this case, that should be part of the hiring risk that the company takes on, else you're punishing the good developers, who presumably you want to join your company, for something they have very little control over.
Tell your barber that you're going to pay him 1/2 from now on because half the other barbers in the city are worthless...
You've got bigger problems, tho. A headhunnter fee is 30K.[1] Take 30K and divide it by 50, and you have over 600 hours to play with. Lets save ~85% and take 100 hours as your budget @ 2x the cost. That would cover how many work-sample tests? (take your pick) 20 peple x5hrs or 24x4hrs which should be a good funnel. What's wrong with this approach?
[1] Assume a 100k position., which is also $50/hr on 2000 hrs/year.
I think OP was asking from the seller's (interviewee's) perspective. $25 doesn't buy a lot of time from a software engineer. And from the hiring side it seems like you could easily justify a higher amount based on time saved on interviews.
Way back to Calder v. Bull in 1798, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the ex post facto restriction applies to criminal law, not civil matters like taxation.
Unusual retroactive taxation could face a due process challenge, but the basic "pass a tax law January 20 that extends backwards to January 1" kind of retroactivity has been upheld several times.
Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is consistent with the Constitution (which is itself only relevant because it's USG's purported charter).
Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is consistent with the Constitution...
Assuming that by "Supreme Council" you mean "Supreme Court" -- that is exactly what it means. There is no way to determine whether or not a thing is in accordance with the Constitution other than to ask a court to decide. It's called The Rule of Law.
The other system is called, "internet randos and other people with Ron Paul signs in front of their house decide what the Constitution means." I'll take the first one, thank you.
So then according to your viewpoint, the text of the Constitution is an opaque blob to anyone besides the SC. Since there's no way for an individual to judge for themselves whether the government's charter is being followed, we must simply accept any decree from the ruling council of nine. This does not sound like "The Rule of Law" to me.
The personal opinions of private citizens are not binding whereas judgments are. Ergo, opaque blob or not, unelected and unappointed citizens don't get to pass binding interpretations of the Constitution. Everyone has an opinion, but only specific people are empowered to enforce their interpretations and the rest of us agree to limit us only democratic channels to influence that mechanism. That is the rule of law.
If you have some alternate proposal whereby it can be determined whether or not the Constitution is being followed, I'm happy to hear it. So far you have not even demonstrated that you understand the meaning of the word "constitutional," as you declared unconstitutional a mechanism which is literally specified in the Constitution, so I am dubious of any system which would elevate the opinion of any random person to the level that it would be constitutionally binding. We already have a system for assessing the will of the majority.
Well obviously. The problem comes about when someone wishes to rule out the idea that the SC can make faulty judgments by construction (usually because they wish to keep believing that USG has not failed horribly at its design goals).
> The problem comes about when someone wishes to rule out the idea that the SC can make faulty judgments by construction
I think you're talking past each other.
Obviously the Supreme Court can get decisions wrong (not just "the context was different then" but actually wrong; e.g. Dred Scott).
But the point is that for the purposes of the government and of the law there is no higher arbiter than the Supreme Court so if they get a Constitutional interpretation "wrong" in your humble opinion then it still won't matter that you or anyone else disagrees; in the interim the government and the courts will use the new precedent.
Saying in essence that "other people can have their own opinions about the Constitutionality of a Supreme Court decision is tautologically true; how can it add to a discussion? You might as well mention that water is wet. For that reason it's easy for other people viewing that comment to believe you meant something else entirely...
The problem comes about when someone wishes to rule out the idea that the SC can make faulty judgments by construction...
That's what it fucking means to be supreme! There is literally no higher authority unless you want to start shooting people! If you don't like a Supreme Court ruling you can only petition the court to reverse itself or amend the Constitution. By definition, the Supreme Court is the highest legal authority, ergo if they make a "mistaken" ruling (according to whom?) there is no higher legal authority to express that conclusion. So yes, by construction no power exists to override the court, only to amend the Constitution. Faulty judgments are part of the system, the rule of law is the system whereby you agree to operate within this system, even when rulings are made which you personally object to.
Whoosh. You're doing the equivalent of conflating legality and morality - separate your perspective from than of USG. The point isn't that an arbitrary person's opinion of constitutionality directs the actions of USG. It's that there's an independent notion of constitutionality outside the opinions of the Supreme Council. By acknowledging this divergence, we illustrate one aspect USG's corruption (and gain insight to how it occurred) and can weigh whether it is time to reboot the failed system by external means.
You began this discussion by saying that a Supreme Court decision can be unconstitutional -- practically a contradiction in terms, and also legal statement. Now you're trying to switch subjects and say you were talking about morality the whole time? Morality is utterly irrelevant and subjective. I don't care about what you think is moral, that's why we have a Constitution in the first place: so we don't have to pick which moral code to observe!
No, I began by saying that the SC can declare something "constitutional" when it (the "something") is obviously not.
(Funnily enough, I was implying that your original judgment of constitutionality was irrelevant as to what could happen. A point which you then went on to make hard about others' judgments of constitutionality, but mostly restricted to post-SC-decision disagreement)
I said nothing about morality specifically, just that the phenomenon of conflating it with legality is an analog of what you seem to be doing: assuming that the truth of something (in this case: "constitutionality") is fully captured by how the government judges it.
That is tautologically true, something you don't seem to understand. The Constitution defines the methods by which to determine whether an act conforms to it. Whatever you think is "obvious" is a) not obvious, and b) irrelevant unless you are prepared to establish your interpretation by force. The word "constitutional" means that a thing is aligned with the Constitution, and the Constitution defines the method for making that determination as the court system. Ergo, constitutionality is determined by the supreme court. Apart from that, what you have are commonplace observations made by lay people about how they think the world should work. Strangely, you seem to think these are universally agreed-upon beliefs, apparently for no other reason than because you and people like you agree. You also think the rest of us should regard your beliefs on the Constitution at least as highly as we do the rulings of the court. Again, for no other reason than because you hold them and they are "obvious." You apparently have never heard the word "subjective."
All you seem to be saying is "everyone has an opinion as to what is constitutional" to which I can only say, Yes and they can express it at the ballot box, seek office, or strive for a relevant appointment. Apart from that, tell it to your wife because nobody else cares.
The flippant and cavalier manner with which you would declare something unconstitutional is staggering. Had you any level of meaningful understanding as to what it takes to determine the constitutionality of a thing, I think you would have a better appreciation for the nuance involved. At least you would have a more interesting position than simply reiterating that everyone has a right to an opinion.
Your thinking process has been thoroughly pwned by the idea that changing the individual cogs comprising USG suffices, such that nobody should ever judge or hope to deprecate the entity itself. So, adieu.
> If you don't like a Supreme Court ruling you can only petition the court to reverse itself or amend the Constitution.
Or just ignore it. While I can't recall an example of this by the executive branch at the Supreme Court level, its certainly happened with lower federal court orders (e.g., the Lincoln administration's first set of suspensions of habeas corpus and the rulings invalidating them), and there is nothing magical about the Supreme Court that makes it any less possible for their decisions.
One perspective is that a friend got screwed out of shares. Another view is the real drivers behind the company were smart to not give a dispensable person a third of the company, and are seeking a discount on mistakenly made legal commitments by drawing out the litigation. As an investor I would take the second view. The deposition video also shows Spiegel is clearly CEO material.
Wait what? But to send to a phone, you need to pay twilio 1c or something. How do you actually SEND the sms for free? Can you describe it? I have NEVER heard of a free way to send sms except though sms gateways, and the result in that case is ugly.
The simple answer is that this perceived benevolence is forced upon Facebook anyhow, having a substantial presence in the EU and being subject to data privacy laws there. On the pg side of things I can only assume the chilling effect on conversation works as intended.
uninformed prediction: "pg called us to correct their mistake, we got an interview and we're in" by the end of next week, though you might be asked not to talk about it in public. meanwhile, nothing will come of the "acquisition" talks.
very true. i wish i could reveal a lot more. at least my product and what i'm going for and have the yc community tell me their honest opinion.
founders on the other hand - from the tech end nothing extraordinary but solid. on the business end, pretty top-notch caliber (i.e. 99 percentile in their respective fields).
Thanks lbr. I got a chuckle out of your comment so didn't take any offense to it whatsoever! I'm pretty sure PG is too busy to care about a potential oversight of an interview based on some off-chance strategic acquisition happening, but we can all dream about it : )
haha. i wish he would! if i got into YC, i would definitely not care about the large player as much and play hardball with them instead of the other way around : (
"pivot" as commonly used now is code for "we did not pull an @ev (i.e. undo existing investment on change of direction such as odeo->twitter) and chose to continue using the $incubator brand licensing arrangement"
