

Ask YC:  How much is an engineer worth in a talent acquisition? - iamelgringo

"At that time we knew that a talented engineer in a tough to get tech was worth about $1.5 million per head. Thus, I knew with relative assurance that since we were going to hire at least 70 people with our Series A money, that our worst case scenario was about a $100 million exit" [1]<p>ref:  [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1793095
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bdfh42
If you are paying $1.5M joining bonuses then "I'm in" - if not, then why would
anyone pay more than you intend to?

It is possible for a bleeding edge start-up to include a couple of high value
engineers but most of them will just be good engineers (if you are lucky) and
some will be less than good.

~~~
cperciva
_why would anyone pay more than you intend to?_

Some people may think that working at a startup for a few years and gaining
experience building stuff people increases a developer's value.

The better question is why, in light of the 13th amendment to the US
constitution, talent acquisitions exist at all: Why buy a company if you can
instead just hire its developers directly?

~~~
gallerytungsten
Because you're buying the team, not hiring a series of unconnected
individuals.

