
Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k - rbanffy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-googles-parent-alphabet-median-pay-nears-200-000-1524879024
======
mrleiter
Just a quick reminder what median means in this case:

You have a finite set of wages/pay - and $197,000 should be in the middle of
this set. Meaning that half the wages at Alphabet are below, the other half
above this wage.

It is a rather robust measure, because it is insensitive to extreme values
(like the arithmetic average would be), while also giving you a good overview,
e.g. that 50% of all the wages are above $197,000.

Vice versa, it tells you nothing about how low or how high the wages are aside
the median (e.g. the lower 45% of the wages could be <$45,000). So take it
with a grain of salt.

~~~
onion2k
Also, as with the Facebook news that their median is $240k
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955393)),
it could well be the case that Alphabet's lower paid staff are mostly
contractors who wouldn't be counted in this metric.

~~~
sanderjd
Everyone seems to report either median or average, both of which leave out a
lot of interesting information. If people simply reported both values, it
would go a long way to painting a more accurate picture.

~~~
dx034
Median is the only one you need a disclosure for. Mean is simply the
compensation expense divided by the number of employees. But the mean salary
doesn't really say anything, it'll always be higher than median and at a
company the size of Alphabet you don't really get additional insights from
that.

Reporting median is a good step, most companies don't disclose that.

~~~
sanderjd
The difference between mean and median provides information. It's always safe
to assume the distribution is right-skewed, but having both median and mean
gives you a sense for how much.

~~~
dx034
Just the difference doesn't tell you much. It's always right-skewed. But that
could be because it's bimodal with developers earning a lot and support staff
little or it's because everyone makes the same except for some really well
paid executives.

What would be really interesting would be to see the actual distribution. But
I don't think we'll ever see that.

~~~
sanderjd
I think at this point we're quibbling over the definition of "how much" it can
tell you. I think "median of $70k, mean of $150k" vs. "median of $70k, mean of
$1.5M" carries a lot more information than just mean or just median, even if
it doesn't approach a full summary of the distribution's shape.

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drewg123
Is this salary, or total comp? From the article ".. a median pay package.. ",
so that's not clear to me. What is the original source of the info?

When I was at Google, GSU (stock grants) and bonuses typically added anywhere
from 25% to 60% to your salary. That depended on level, years of vesting, etc.

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jasonkester
I find the more interesting story to be the "Software developers _really_
don't want to believe that their profession pays as much as it does" message
that's playing out in the comments here and the similar Facebook story today.

It's something I notice every time salary comes up here.

Story: "Yet Another Datapoint showing that the current market rate for
developers is $300,000/year and higher."

Hacker News: "No It Isn't!"

You can almost see the fingers stuck in ears reading the top comments on these
stories. In my mind, the thing to do when somebody tells you how you can make
twice what you did 5 years ago in this profession isn't to call that guy a
liar. A better reaction would be to talk about actionable ways to go get one
o' those salaries.

~~~
izacus
Probably because you'll never come near these kind of offers outside a few
cities in the world - no matter how good you are.

Most of developers in the world aren't allowed to move to SV or Seattle and
get those salaries.

~~~
jasonkester
You're mistaken.

Just for a datapoint, I've never lived in the Bay Area (and haven't worked on-
site for a dozen years), and I make a lot more than that as a developer. I am
in no way unique. This is in fact what good devs make if we ask for it.
Nomatter where we live.

Incidentally, you're right that you generally won't receive an initial offer
for that kind of money. You need to negotiate for it. That is sadly another
area we devs are not historically good at:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/developers-should-
lear...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/developers-should-learn-to-
negotiate.html)

~~~
mywittyname
Do you own your own business? It's definitely possible to earn that much when
you run a successful website or app. But I have a really hard time believing
developer salaries are $300k+ at companies outside of CA/WA/NY.

The national median is right around $100k.

Developers that earn significantly more than that have significant ownership
stakes in the company, highly desirable skill-sets, or notoriety in the field.

~~~
jasonkester
At the moment, yes. In the context of my above reply, no.

Personally, I prefer to listen to the person who has tried a thing and
declared it possible, rather than the person who has never tried that thing
and declared it impossible.

Sadly, this thread (and others like it) fill up quickly with that latter
group.

~~~
mywittyname
You are absolutely unique. The fact that you have no problem pulling down a
salary that's _3 times the median_ yet don't appreciate that fact suggests
that you work in a bubble.

You're typical mid-western Java dev is not going to get a job for $300k. Or
anywhere remotely close to it. Those salaries are for very specialized roles
and consultants.

------
dvirsky
Does this include employees (not contractors) outside the US? It's not clear
from the article.

------
Judgmentality
> In its proxy, Alphabet asked shareholders to vote against an investor
> proposal seeking a management review of potential abuses of Google’s digital
> platforms, such as Russian interference in U.S. elections.

I feel like this is the most interesting part of the article, even if it's not
relevant to the main content.

~~~
umanwizard
It's really not. Have you ever read one of those proxy voting guides?
Investors propose all manner of stuff and the board systematically asks you to
vote against.

------
dx034
The same as for Facebook, most low-paid workers don't work for the main
company (cleaning, building security, support, hospitality, various services),
probably not even half the people working full-time for Alphabet are actually
employed there.

------
arrty88
Do these numbers include stock + bonus, or is it strictly salary numbers?

~~~
rb808
Also it isn't even clear if it includes benefits like health insurance and
401k costs. Anyone know?

~~~
dqpb
I think this probably includes base salary, stocks, and bonuses.

I don't think it includes health insurance and 401k.

~~~
lostmsu
Why not? It is an ask from feds, and they track insurance as a sort of income.

~~~
chatmasta
This document is for the SEC. The IRS already has the W2 form for every full
time employee.

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11thEarlOfMar
Seems this would be a primary driver of low inventory and world-leading single
family home prices in S.V. Inventory is ~50% what it was one year ago:

[http://scc.rereport.com/market_reports](http://scc.rereport.com/market_reports)

------
samfisher83
Google has the lowest ceo/pay ratio since their CEO gets $1.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/ceo-pay-
ratio/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/ceo-pay-ratio/)

I know Facebook included Mark's security/ travel into compensation. Did google
just not do that?

~~~
Lionsion
> Google has the lowest ceo/pay ratio since their CEO gets $1.

That's misleading, because their CEO gets paid in other ways. Garbage in
garbage out.

------
jballanc
Considering their quarterly profit per employee, they still have room to go up
from here:
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=google+profit+per+empl...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=google+profit+per+employee)

------
Cthulhu_
As was pointed out in another thread about Facebook, and I'm sure this is also
true for Google / Alphabet, a lot of the lower-paid jobs are done by
contractors, temps, etc - all off of Alphabet's employee / pay numbers.

------
samfisher83
The WSJ article doesn't seem right. Here are a list of the top paying
companies by median income:

Chimera Investment

TESARO

Exelixis

Splunk

Equity Commonwealth

Agios Pharmaceuticals

Incyte Corp

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc

The highest paying software company appears to be Splunk with 256k. There
seems to be a lot of biotech companies that pay a lot.

~~~
FuNe
These are start-ups, right? The article is talking about Fortune 500
companies, not start-ups. Having said that the top 2 ones are pharmaceuticals.
I wonder whether the fat salaries trickle down to their bioinformatics
divisions.

~~~
samfisher83
No they are all publicly listed companies. I am not sure if private companies
are required to disclose median pay.

------
tropo
One way to interpret this is to focus on the pay, and just how wonderful it
is.

The other way is to ask why they must pay so much? Alphabet must be a
relatively awful place to work. Something is very wrong if they pay is this
high.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It might be an awful place to work. Or it might just be, if I'm going to work
at a place that has made several people billions of dollars, if I don't get
paid pretty well, I'm going to resent it. They might have to pay well to keep
morale up, not because it's an awful place, but because it's easy to envy
others who also work there.

------
cylinder
Seems really low. Imagine if they unionized!

~~~
bluntfang
gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union...the excuse I
always hear is "but we have it so well! why do we need to organize?!".

Organize for the people that clean your office space, organize for
marginalized peoples, organize to make the world a better place, not just your
industry. Think what would happen if AWS was without site reliability for 72
hours.

~~~
Tehchops
Oh not this deceased equine again. Is /r/sysadmin leaking?

>gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union

Much less than it does now.

I've had odd jobs at union places. I know career workers in union-dominated
industries.

We don't want it within 10 miles of tech.

A fun thought experiment I ask people to do that usually puts this one to bed:

Imagine the most useless, technically incompetent, lazy sack of flesh that you
were unfortunate enough to share the title of "engineer" with(and office space
too).

In a union, they'd be very nearly impossible to fire, and based on tenure
would probably make more than most of their peers.

Multiply ^^ said scenario over multiple tech companies and a few thousand
workers, and see what happens.

~~~
ddorian43
Why doesnt that happen enough in current unionizes jobs ?

~~~
mkirklions
This does happen in current union jobs.

There is a reason for outsourcing, and its not just cost.

