
Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities - walterclifford
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-03/blizzard-workers-share-salaries-in-revolt-over-wage-disparities
======
IgorPartola
Whenever the topic of sharing salary information comes up I always bring up
the algorithm for figuring out the average salary for a group of people
without anyone learning anyone else’s exact salary:

Say you have 10 people sitting at a round table. Person 1 picks up a piece of
paper and on it writes a sum of their salary + randInt(100_000, 10_000_000)
remembering what the initial random number was. We can call this number the
seed. They then pass the piece of paper to the right and person 2 reads the
number, adds their salary and writes that number on a new piece of paper that
they pass to person 3. Finally when person 10 hands the paper to person 1,
person 1 subtracts the seed from the final number then divides that value by
the number of people. That gives you the mean salary of the group.

~~~
axaxs
Why all the hoops? Companies have shamed us into thinking sharing salaries is
bad. It's not. People should share freely, in my opinion it benefits all
parties except the company.

~~~
rosywoozlechan
It doesn't benefit top earners to share salary information. If I'm making more
money than everyone else and the consequences of sharing salaries is equity
than it is in my rational self-interest to keep my salary hidden because I'm
unlikely to get any kind of raise until equity is achieved whereas I may
continue to get raises otherwise.

You know what those top earners are going to do then? Quit. And then you end
up with overpaid mediocre talent and a product roadmap that is suffering from
the loss of top performers.

The more we celebrate victimhood as some kind of hero status, the more we
shame and punish those who achieve and create success the worse off we're all
going to be. A private company has every right to compensate its employees
with its private capital anyway it wants, and they're going to want to do it
in a way that achieves the goals of the business. They're not distributing
welfare checks, they're a business.

~~~
intended
Sadly your pay has little to do with merit, and more to do with perception,
connections, face time and ability to handle office issues better than your
cohort.

It may well be, if not more likely to be, the other way round - you could be a
GOOD performer, but since you can't or don't gork office politics, you are
underpaid or even not at the level of challenge and seniority you should be.

~~~
irrational
Eh, anecdotal, but that hasn’t been true in my experience. I’m fairly certain
I’m perceived negatively. I show up, do my work, but do not seek any sort of
human communication beyond the bare minimum required. I certainly don’t create
connections, seek face time, etc.

I’ve been with my company for nearly 2 decades and only know about 10 people,
and only 2 of those well. I worked with one person for five years on a daily
basis before they learned I was married with a bunch of kids.

My salary has gone up 84% in those 18+ years. I make way more money than I
feel I deserve (though I’m not complaining). I’ve never asked for a raise or
anything like that. They just keep giving me raises on their own. Just
recently in the middle of the pandemic they gave me a 16% raise out of the
blue.

I don’t know for sure how much others make, but I’m fairly certain I’m one of
the top earners. It frankly baffles me.

~~~
Kinrany
I'd say either you're still underpaid, or your employer/boss is a saint

~~~
irrational
I’m making an insane amount of money. I was way overpaid even before the most
recent raise. I’ve been in the field long enough to be very familiar with
going rates.

~~~
TheHegemon
I think you may be surprised what the current rates are though.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Depends on which market you're talking about. Canada, EU, and Asia are
generally unimpressive. West Coast US is through the roof, mostly due to
FAANG+M types, or those orgs with a similar demand for skill bodies. The rest
of the US is hit-or-miss.

Entirely possible the Parent comment was getting paid 6 figures years ago and
is now up to 200-300k total comp... but that's still paltry compared to SV,
NYC, or cleared Washington DC work.

------
masayune
Back when I worked there, they had something called "Blizzard Bucks" to
"supplement" your salary. Basically "Blizzard Bucks" was Monopoly money we
could use to buy their microtransactions and WoW game-time. In reality, you
made approx. $30-40k sans OT, but they would always calculate your "salary" at
$50-60k because of all the "Blizzard Bucks" and claim your salary was industry
best.

The best part was, and they would emphasize this at every meeting, "that the
company would pay the taxes for us" as if it were a big deal. People never
believe me when I tell them this is how the non-devs got treated.

~~~
Mandatum
That is possibly the most exploitative form of compensation I've heard of in
the Western world.

~~~
setr
Then you dont know your western history :-)

There used to be whole towns where you'd get entirely paid in, and shop with,
corporate funny money

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip)

~~~
kalleboo
At least company scrip was used to buy food/normal goods, albeit at a large
markup. "Blizzard bucks" sound completely useless unless you're really into
games

~~~
oefrha
Since you can trade WOW (and many other MMOs’) items for real world cash, I
wouldn’t call Blizzard bucks useless. In fact I’ve heard people playing WoW
for a living...

Basically, say Blizzard compensates you $20k in Blizzard bucks, and you
auction off $20k worth of items at a reduced rate, you end up taking $20k *
discount rate from Blizzard’s revenue, roughly speaking.

~~~
masayune
Yeah you can't do this w/o risk of getting fired. Blizz had an internal
affairs division that would track this kind of stuff down.

~~~
oefrha
Huh that really sucks.

------
john-shaffer
I boycotted Blizzard after their censorship regarding Hong Kong. It was a
great decision since it saved me from the dumpster fire to end all dumpster
fires that was Warcraft III Reforged [1]. I would strongly suggest that if
anything about Blizzard pisses you off, just be done with them entirely. The
people who created the great games of the past don't work there. Blizzard is
no longer capable of producing good products, and has no purpose other than to
suck every last penny out of the existing IP.

[1] [https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/warcraft-iii-
reforged](https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/warcraft-iii-reforged)

~~~
dyslexit
I feel like their entire mission changed around the time of their merger with
Activision. I remember reading a long time ago the original devs saying they
made games _they_ would want to play, and I believe it showed. The most
obvious example of that to me were the game stories. Back then the stories and
background lore had depth and were fascinatingly interesting. Characters felt
like they had real motivations and reasons for doing things, the worlds felt
believable, gritty, and sometimes unforgiving.

I don't know if it was Activision's influence, many of the original devs
moving on, or World of Warcraft coming out, but since then everything about
the company seems to have changed. So much of what they do nowadays just seem
like money grabs. They release pay to win content meant to be addictive,
dumbed down their art style to looking like cartoons that appeal to the least
common denominator, follow trends instead of doing anything innovating, and
seem to have completely stopped caring about making any interesting story. The
villains in Diablo 3 were _comically_ badly written.

At some point they even tried to force users to use their REAL WORLD names on
battle.net[1].

It really isn't the same company as it used to be in the early 2000's.

[1][https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/blizzard-requires-
rea...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/blizzard-requires-real-names-
on-forums)

~~~
john-shaffer
The decline started when Vivendi (the owners) drove off the Blizzard North
(ex-Condor) devs. The Blizzard North leaders were ignored to the point that
they submitted their resignations in protest. Rather than actually give the
team a voice, Vivendi decided to accept the resignations. They shut down the
studio entirely a year or two later because it couldn't perform. They would
have made a lot more money if they had listened to their proven leaders.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080702062733/http://www.netwar...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080702062733/http://www.netwars.pl/modules.php?name=news&id=3751)

------
donatj
So possibly unpopular point of view here, maybe not on HN, but I think pay
discrepancies can be entirely fair.

I'm almost certain my pay is different from my colleagues, but I've bargained
like hell to get it. When I was hired, every time we've been acquired. I'm no
executive either, I'm just a developer with a proven history of give-a-damn.

I think it's perfectly fair game in a job where it's hard to replace
individuals, jobs where people with the same title can achieve vastly
different amounts of value for the company, and especially for a company that
values its employees.

~~~
woodruffw
> I'm almost certain my pay is different from my colleagues, but I've
> bargained like hell to get it. When I was hired, every time we've been
> acquired. I'm no executive either, I'm just a developer with a proven
> history of give-a-damn.

Whether or not pay discrepancies _can_ be fair, this doesn't sound like a case
of them _being_ fair. What happens to your (hypothetical) colleague who gives
just as much of a damn as you do, but doesn't feel comfortable hitting the
appropriate negotiation notes to get their due?

Similarly: given that companies are liable to offer a lower initial rate to
women and minorities, how do we account for the fact that they might negotiate
_just as hard as you_ and still end up behind?

~~~
scottLobster
I'd argue your first example is actually fair. Someone who has trouble
negotiating in professional circles is going to have issues far beyond the
workplace, if nothing else they're going to get repeatably screwed buying a
car, and they should work on that. Why shouldn't the more aggressive, more
strategic people earn more on average? I'd argue they give more of a damn by
definition. The ability to project social force is a positive trait if used
well, and can directly benefit the work if turned in that direction.

By contrast I agree with your second example as systemic discrimination is
something sharing salaries can directly help with. I had a female co-worker
who was the same level of engineer I was at our company, had more experience
and a Master's degree (to my Bachelor's), and was making 10k less a year than
I was. Now I'm not sure if that was due to her being a woman or being rather
conflict-avoidant (or both), but seeing the difference certainly made her push
for a promotion that she eventually got.

~~~
woodruffw
> Why shouldn't the more aggressive, more strategic people earn more on
> average? I'd argue they give more of a damn by definition. The ability to
> project social force is a positive trait if used well, and can directly
> benefit the work if turned in that direction.

One potential reason: being aggressive and strategic, as qualities, are
orthogonal to one's skills. They're just as good signals for being an abusive
manager or manipulator as they are for "giving a damn."

We've also gone and conflated "aggressive during salary negotiations" with
"(positively) aggressive in one's job." It's not clear to me that these are
the same things, particularly in the context of economic need and privation:
I'm more likely to be aggressive and confident in my job once I know that I
can afford groceries and rent. The "I" there is me, personally.

In sum: the qualities that make someone a good negotiator _in the context of
obtaining a job_ are not necessarily positive qualities within the context of
the job itself. Conflating the two eliminates an entire cohort of qualified
people who may possess those traits but lack the systemic comfort to risk
demonstrating them.

~~~
ryandrake
Maybe I'm just an amateur, but this whole idea of negotiating your salary
being some complex, strategic parlay--like you're brokering peace in the
middle east--doesn't really match my experience with getting job offers. It's
not like there are a lot of dimensions to bargain around. You get an offer
from the company, and you can basically do one of three things:

1\. Accept the offer

2\. Walk away

3\. Say "How about more compensation?"

If you do 3, the company will either say:

3a) (95% of the time) "How about no?"

or

3b) "How about this small amount more?"

And from there you can accept or walk away and that's pretty much it. You can
write the decision tree on a post-it note. What are people talking about when
they say "aggressive and strategic"? Bang on the table more? Yell and scream?
What are you captains of industry doing that the rest of us aren't? In my
view, we are just workers--our only leverage is our willingness to walk away,
which is usually fine with the company. They have a long line of candidates
out the door.

~~~
scottLobster
No, it's a matter of knowing what you want and getting as close as possible to
that objective rather than accepting what's initially offered (unless what's
offered is already good enough). Mainly through convincing other people that
you deserve it.

Over the course of a career this behavior compounds into superior experience,
superior interview performance (you have more examples to draw on/confidence
in general), and secure enough position such that you have the ability to walk
away.

For example, your perspective of "they have a long line of candidates if you
try to negotiate". That may be true but your name arrived at the top of the
list somehow. The fact that you're getting an offer alone gives you some
leverage, and small increases in salary can matter over time. There's always a
range of salaries for a given position, why not convince them you deserve the
top of that range? Maybe it's through actual experience, maybe it's just by
reading their personalities and being likeable in the interview, but at least
try the hand you're dealt.

Granted this isn't always possible given an individual situation, but so many
people simply throw away what leverage they have out of anxiety.

------
vvanders
The game industry as a whole was pretty fucked when I left. I remember doing
the 40hr+1.5x overtime calculation and realizing that if I wasn't salaried I'd
be making $4/hr with the mandatory hours we were working(70-90 hrs/week).

I tossed 2 months of PTO to leave that industry(yay Washington laws) and made
up the difference in the first 2.5 paychecks of the new gig.

Be careful of industries that over-index on "passion" and don't compensate
people accordingly. Last I checked that industry was still built on chewing
through new faces every ~3 years or so. Taking care of your people makes
business sense and I wish more companies got that.

~~~
davidgay
80 hrs/week is ~4000 hr/year. Your salary was only ~$16000/year?

~~~
vvanders
You have to factor in the 1.5x overtime that's standard on hourly.

I went back and did the numbers, it was closer to $6hr but well below minimum
wage for a dev position. From the little bit of salaries I heard art, design
and test had it even worse.

~~~
pandaman
80 h/week at 1.5x overtime for 40 hours = 100h/week * 50 weeks (less holidays)
= 5000 hours a year. At $6/h it makes 30K/y. This looks very low for the US
tbqh, even for a non-programmer. When I started at my first job in the US game
industry in the late 90s I've made 75K in a small independent studio. I had
probably 3 years of experience at that time but no shipped games, I also was a
foreigner on a temp visa so I don't think I had significantly more than a
fresh grad would have got at the same position. This looks like QA salary from
more than 10 years ago but where did you get a salaried QA job?

~~~
falcolas
EA, about 15-20 years ago, was paying $35k for programmers, and working them
~80 hours a week. It was so bad that EA lost a lawsuit that cost them about
$90k per impacted employee, since the courts ruled that they were being
treated as hourly employees, not salaried.

That is to say, due to “passion”, entry level game programmers aren’t making
much more than $40k a year. They have no negotiating power going in, since
there’s a hundred others who will willingly take their place at the low wages,
just to be in the videogame industry.

~~~
pandaman
Do you mean the ea_spouse lawsuit? I don't know what EA cost had been but
seeing that affected people were paid 5-15K I doubt it was 90K on the front
end. As for $35K for programmers - maybe in Canada? I don't believe for a
second EA could get any significant number $35K programmers in their main
studios in the US (CA,TX) or even Florida. And when I worked there 15 years
ago they equalized salaries across the internal studios with COL adjustments.

------
overgard
At risk of sounding like a mercenary, in my experience the only realistic way
to get paid your market value is to be on the market. It's just way easier to
get a pay bump by switching jobs. If you wait for your employer to give you a
raise, they usually will drag their feet for as long as possible and then give
you something disappointing.

One consequence of this is, in companies that are willing to do it, it can be
useful to negotiate a title promotion even if they don't give you a raise,
because you can then use that title in your next job negotiation.

BTW, giving this advice depresses me. I'm constantly amazed companies make
such a weak effort to retain employees via good compensation policies. The
cost of recruiting and interviewing candidates, not to mention training new
hires, is huge.

~~~
lotsofpulp
>The cost of recruiting and interviewing candidates, not to mention training
new hires, is huge.

Clearly it's not more than the cost of providing higher pay. Most people would
rather not switch jobs as there is considerable risk involved if you're not
performing labor that results in very profitable sales.

People would rather work with the devil they know than the devil they don't,
so unless they're in upwardly mobile careers such as engineering, law,
finance, or medicine, they probably don't have many good options.

~~~
overgard
I think it's more likely this: calculating the cost of giving an employee a
raise is very simple. Calculating the cost of finding a new employee is
extremely variable (how long does it take and how many people are involved?)
and also involves metrics that are very hard to measure (how much more would
the team lead and the team members have gotten done that week if they weren't
interviewing candidates?)

Usually if you're debating management, especially non-technical management,
solid numbers win out over hand waivey numbers, even if the hand waivey
numbers are representing something far more important and the solid numbers
are representing something in a very limited context.

An example: Tom is a mediocre programmer, but he's worked for the company for
5 years and has a lot of institutional knowledge. He wants an above average
salary now. Should we give it to him? The obvious answer would be to let him
walk, he's asking for more than he's really worth. Ok, but how much does the
equation change if we factor in that it's going to take 3-5 months to hire his
replacement, and you'll need to interview about 20 candidates, some of them
for multiple hours, not to mention potentially flying them out? Also now Tom
is walking with his institutional knowledge, and the bugs that used to go to
him are going to someone that doesn't have the 5 years working with the system
he does, so whoever has to pick up his slack is going to be slower than Tom is
even if they're a better programmer overall.

------
throwawayblizz
Here is the sheet, if anyone wants to peek. These salaries are really bad for
Irvine, and the raises seem really bad too.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/119RI3oS9XNOjq2X8VLpU...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/119RI3oS9XNOjq2X8VLpUOMpyarcMsNzid-
nA1OqbXkA)

~~~
stevenwoo
You know what's crazy? I worked at Blizzard last around 2000 and I made more
than 150K in base salary as a programmer, so it looks like salaries haven't
increased without inflation adjustment for 20 years.

------
wwright
Sharing your salary is absolutely not a “revolt” in any sense; this is
literally a national worker’s right as an American. Bloomberg framing it as a
“revolt” is a not very subtle attempt at casting workers using their rights as
the agents of chaos when employers mislead, manipulate, and obscure.

------
mlthoughts2018
> “ The anonymous document, reviewed by Bloomberg News, contains dozens of
> purported Blizzard salaries and pay bumps. Most of the raises are below 10%,
> significantly less than Blizzard employees said they expected following the
> study.”

When oh when are midrange tech companies going to get their shit together with
raises and bonuses.

10% should be mostly seen as a (shock) _normal_ raise when the company is
doing well, above and beyond annual equity and a bonus at least in the range
of 10-15%.

Stop giving people reasons to job hop every few years. If you want loyalty and
you want your investment in employees to pay off over time, give them good
stuff! Give it to them _before_ they reach any point of questioning if they
want to go to the next company down the street for that extra 15% raise you
were too stingy to give them on merit.

As a manager, I can safely say the worst compensation mistakes I made were
cases of not giving enough compensation sooner rather than later, and giving
good people a reason to leave over money.

I learned my lesson fast, and can say later in my career I take compensation
planning much more seriously and absolutely do not ever settle for company pay
band crap and scheduled 3% / 5% raise crap. If someone is doing good work for
you, pay them!

~~~
darth_avocado
^This.

I've always had the philosophy that if you want to retain good employees, pay
them more before they ask for more. If they have reached a point where they
had to ask for more, they're probably going to leave soon.

I don't understand how do companies fail to realize this. Say an engineer
leaves because you didn't get him that 20% pay bump. Even in the highest ranks
of engineering, that's like what a 100k? 30k-40k on an average. Now imagine
you go through the whole recruitment cycle. You have anywhere between 8-12
weeks of productivity loss of an engineer. Then you waste time from the
productivity of recruiter, hiring manager, hiring engineers on the team, etc.,
all of whom are highly paid. You cycle through 8-10 candidates. Then you
finally get the person you need. In my experience, it takes at least a month
to get onboarded, usually more. And it takes at least 6 months to get to
productivity levels of the engineer that just left if your new candidate is
good. All in all you wasted almost 6 months of engineering time worth of
productivity, which easily exceeds the money you saved not giving that 20%
raise. All of this, assuming the new guy didn't negotiate more than the
previous one. Seriously, get your shit together.

~~~
missedthecue
It's basic economics. Everyone acts in their rational self interest, including
your boss. Your boss doesn't get in trouble if you decide to leave. Your boss
gets in trouble if his budget gets way out of control by giving promotions and
raises left and right.

On the converse, your boss doesn't pay the cost of hiring new people. It
doesn't come out of his pocket. But giving 20% raises to everyone he has the
suspicion of leaving will get him canned real quick, imposing a real and
sizeable cost on him.

The tippy top dogs of the company aren't completely stupid for running things
this way. Budgets would get out of control in a hurry if they let managers do
whatever they want with wages. Nepotism would run rampant without costly
oversight and surveillance. Employees would learn to take advantage of easy
raises.

So the company bears a smaller cost (employee turnover) rather than the bigger
and unpredictable costs of frequent and decentralized wage raises.

There's not a great solution to this. It's an example of market failure.
Everyone acting in rationally on an individual scale does not lead to group
rationality.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
In every company I’ve worked in, a manager gets in much worse trouble if a
good engineer reporting to them leaves rather than exceeding budget.

Most typically middle managers are not allowed to significantly alter budget
for bigger raises that retain important people, yet are then punished or
admonished over the comparatively worse budget loss taken through recruiting
and onboarding to hire a backfill, as well as getting a reputation for being a
bad manager if you can’t work miracles and retain people who deserve raises
without giving them raises.

The economics don’t work out the way you describe at all, and few parties in
the situation act rationally.

~~~
missedthecue
Acting rationally is not what I said. I said that they act in their rational
self interest. That's a specific concept.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
You are trying to split hairs. “Acting rationally” and “acting in one’s own
(rational) self-interest” are widely synonymous and it’s beyond unreasonable
to expect readers to view them differently. My response to you was already
treating them synonymously.

It’s not acting in self-interest for executives to create unnecessary turnover
due to withholding appropriate compensation. This leads to _worse_ financial
loss than paying high raises, and ultimately executives and managers get fired
regularly by acting against their own self-interest by withholding
meritocratic raises.

~~~
missedthecue
'Rational self interest' is a fairly widely known economic principle. Everyone
acts in their own rational self interest, including infants, cats, and
horseflies. Infants, cats, and horseflies are certainly not logicians, but
when they want something, they will generally take the steps necessary to try
to achieve it.

[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-
macroeconomics/chapter/...](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-
macroeconomics/chapter/reading-rationality-and-self-interest/)

A great way to think about this is voting. If we were all acting logically,
everyone would vote, because in theory, we'd all be better off. But because of
the principle of rational self interest, many or most people don't vote
because the cost of researching candidates and policies and going to the
effort of voting is very often higher than the benefit (a 1 in 100,000,000
chance of influencing the outcome of the election)

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Why do so many social science researchers publish research and write books on
widespread ways in which people act against their own self-intetest?

Like topics from Predictably Irrational, Irrational Exuberance, The Winner’s
Curse, Moral Mazes, Thinking Fast and Slow, countless articles on LessWrong
sequence on cognitive biases and heuristics, research on Last Place aversion,
etc.?

Your comment seems to presume a textbook definition of rational self interest
actually describes the behavior of living organisms, but it profoundly does
not.

~~~
missedthecue
Those are ways in which people acting in their own rational self interest
create a situation in which they are all worse off as a result. This is called
a market failure, and there are plenty of examples where this happens (for
instance, why voting seldom produces the best possible candidate, or why
armies run away).

Remember, someone acting in their own rational self interest does not mean
they will never experience deleterious consequences. It simply means people
will take actions they think will result in the best const/benefit for them.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I’m sorry but you are not engaging. You’re basically creating a No True
Scotsman fallacy out of what “is” acting in self-interest, almost verging on a
tautology.

The research is clear that even when confronted with proof their actions will
not result in the outcome that people self-identify as the outcome they
desire, they nonetheless knowingly engage in behavior that makes them worse
off (under their own preferences and utility) than other options available to
them.

------
kevc
I worked in the game industry on the business side and saw all salaries. Game
developers are paid well under software engineers at “traditional” software
companies. Similar software engineering job requirements, except one pays less
and demands far more in terms of hours worked. Of course the depressed wages
are consistent as you move to lower paid roles at game companies.

It comes down to supply and demand. There are legions of young, passionate
gamers who want to “work with their passion”. Why they stick with it, I’m not
sure. I certainly didn’t.

------
daenz
>Several former Blizzard employees said they only received significant pay
increases after leaving for other companies

That's the key quote in the article for me. If you feel that your compensation
is below market rate, switch jobs and prove it.

~~~
xenihn
Riot is the only videogame industry employer I can think of that tries to pay
fairly. My friends' Riot SWE offers are the only ones that I've seen come
anywhere near FAANG compensation. Sadly they still fall short due to no RSUs,
but at least they try. Riot offers are ~75% of FAANG TC, and on par with
SF/Bay Area base salaries, while Blizzard offers are more typical for the
industry and approach 40% of FAANG TC at best.

~~~
baron816
Someone should do a study comparing the two labor markets. There’s definitely
a thesis somewhere in there for an economics PhD student. How is it that two
very similar industries that nearly share the same talent pool can have
radically different outcomes for their employees?

Imagine how many game devs there are who are roommates with web devs, or who
went to college together. How is it that the web devs don’t tell their friends
“you need to quit that awful 90hr/week job that pays you shit and come work at
my company”? Or why don’t startups try to lure game devs? I’m sure many of
them could figure out Rails or React in no time. They would surely be able to
offer slightly lower wages in exchange for a (comparatively) better work life
balance.

------
CarbyAu
I have previously mentioned that employees should be seen as significant
investors in the business and should be treated as such.

Apart from "The job" work is not a mental and emotional void. You invest
yourself. And it hurts when your investment is ignored or treated as lesser
than another human.

Employee pay should be two parts: \- salary as per usual \- significant stock
in the business. NB: significant. 50% of stock(non-voting, purely monetary) is
for an "employee fund" and come dividend time it is shared equally among
employees. People get their salary they can preen over. And company profits
are tied to individual motivation.

Why should I care if the company does astoundingly well as opposed to being
mediocre if I don't have a stake in the outcome?

~~~
cleong
Although this sounds like heaven and from your perspective as an employee it
makes sense.

But the system you built doesn't necessarily achieve the goals you want. If
everyone gets the same dividend it becomes a tragedy of the commons since an
individual player can do the minimum while profiting off other players
actions. Even if its varied in dividend for example one person gets 10% while
another gets 40%, this still applies as a player with the strategy of being
mediocre will still get benefits of the hard work of all other players while
minimizing the amount of work he has to do.

Not only that, businesses are meant to make money if the people who start the
business is giving out half their money away this system better make 2x the
revenue every single quarter or why would they do it.

~~~
CarbyAu
Well, I don't expect this is a simple perfect system. It isn't new. I just
think it might be better than what most places have currently.

US business has a history of "stock options" and "yearly bonuses". So this
isn't new. (I haven't seen it here in Australia as a common thing.)

> If everyone gets the same dividend it becomes a tragedy > of the commons
> since an individual player can do the > minimum while profiting off other
> players actions.

They still don't get the same salary as you. Unless they do in which case, no
real change.

Alternately, if the company is making megabucks to the point where salary
becomes insignificant, then I am ok with others being better off too, even the
dead weight.

Also, you could argue that with _everyone_ in the company wanting a bigger
share, this puts pressure to remove the dead weight. 1 less employee means a
bigger share for me. 1 more _productive person_ (as opposed to dead weight)
means more for me.

> Not only that, businesses are meant to make money if > the people who start
> the business is giving out half > their money away this system better make
> 2x the revenue > every single quarter or why would they do it.

This doesn't change the idea of businesses making money. Just who they should
be making it for. It doesn't force a bonus every year. It just says that if
rentseeking investors get dividends, employees do too.

Do we want a society whereby rich people can buy shares and then seek rent
forever, using that rent to buy more shares etc.

Or where the people who do the work, get the rewards?

I understand that floating publicly is used to draw large sums of money for
business to do great things. But it is also used as a forever debt, to pay
shareholders forevermore for doing nothing more. Under this scheme, those
investors would do their sums differently, obviously and it may well come down
to the business getting "less for their float action".

But I like the idea of trying not to trample salaried employees to make others
rich.(Many startups do in fact operate on stock option basis. I'd just argue
the stock options should be equal value, from the CEO to the cleaner.)

Honestly, I'd prefer more than 50% go to employees - I hate "rentseeking" \-
but lets not go crazy.

------
DarthGhandi
If they were based in Norway you could just go to the government website and
type in their name.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239)

~~~
riffraff
Funny story: data on tax declarations in Italy is supposed to be public, but
_not easily accessible_.

I.e. you can go to the tax agency (or town hall) and ask for data on a given
individual since 1973, but you can't just publish it willy nilly.

In 2008 the tax collecting agency decided to put all of them online, as that
seemed like a reasonable extension of the 40 year old rule, and there was a
huge shitstorm[0].

At some point the privacy authority stepped in and imposed them to hide it
again, citing a lot of more and less valid concerns.

[0] which in my modest opinion proved it was a great idea

------
yurlungur
Well, for one I can say I do feel lucky to have the choice not to work in the
video games industry. It seems that these companies in general just treat
their employees worse when compared to big tech. Video games are my passion of
life and I will gladly never put my work in that realm. Being viewed as
deriving pleasure and meaning from your job just puts you in such an
exploitable situation.

------
egypturnash
I am all for this. I have always said that if I end up running something, I
will have a sheet posted in the office that has _everyone 's_ salaries (or at
least the salaries of everyone willing to share that info) along with their
job title.

This probably hints at why I am unlikely to actually end up running anything,
but in the off chance lightning strikes...

------
BadassFractal
Interesting that their senior software dev is in the 140-170k range, which
isn't too far off what you would be making at mid stage startups. Sure, it
doesn't compare to FAANG, but most jobs don't, especially if you factor in the
"startup tax" or the "passion tax".

------
langitbiru
This is the premise of the application that I am building: PredictSalary
([https://predictsalary.com](https://predictsalary.com)). It's a browser
extension to predict salary from job opportunities currently. Right now it
only supports two job opportunities. But I'm adding more job opportunities
websites.

In the future, I plan to add support to predict salary from Linkedin profile.
So based on education, experiences, role, the browser extension can predict
the salary range. I'm thinking of adding a way to share the salary range in
this application in a safe way. The mission of my application is to
democratize the salary ranges.

This way, in the future, workers in other companies (other than Blizzard) have
the ability to know the salary ranges in a convenient way.

------
xenihn
Blizzard has always treated their rank-and-file employees poorly, and
underpaid/exploited them. The latter is generally expected from the videogame
industry, but I don't think that excuses it. It's worse when you consider that
Blizzard HQ has always been in one of the richest cities in the world.

There's a thing that happened last year that wasn't picked up by any major
news sources. It was really troubling to see it completely swept under the
rug. I can't even find a "reputable" news site that covered it:

[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-01-09-former-
bli...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-01-09-former-blizzard-
employee-alleges-racism-and-discrimination-drove-him-to-leave)

------
umvi
Yeah well, I would imagine with the opposite extreme (equalized wages) I would
find I would not care as much about work. Why go the extra mile? Everyone gets
paid the same anyway. Just min effort your job and save your work ethic for
when you are off the clock.

------
stunt
I can't think of any good solution for this. The only way to get what you
believe is a fair salary is by negotiating that directly with your employer or
switching to another job that pays better.

Unless you are an executive, don't expect someone to give you huge salary
increase for your performance. At best, even when your manager is very
satisfied about you, (s)he is limited to the percentage range that is defined
by HR for salary increase. Even if you get better title, the salary increase
is still limited.

------
sytelus
Unpopular opinion:

For big companies, if you take all of the exec pay (C suits) and give it out
to rest of the employees, the average employee income only rises by 3-5%.
While CXX packages are extra-ordinary, one has to understand that its often
drop in the bucket for big balance sheets and even less relevant when you have
couple of hundreds of thousand employees around.

So the metric of disparity we should use is not max/min salary but rather avg
% increase if CXX salaries were all given to employees.

~~~
pembrook
If I embezzle $10,000,000 from a giant company like GE, its also a drop in the
bucket on their balance sheet. But that doesn’t make it right.

American public company executives are grossly overpaid, and there’s been
numerous studies proving this. Both historically in the US (exec pay has
ballooned here since the 1980s) and currently in most other developed
countries, companies with lower exec compensation don’t show lower ROE when
sorted by industry.

Exec compensation in many American companies is basically normalized theft
from shareholders given the revolving door of incestuous boards and C-suites
and the constant conflicts of interest.

However, the money execs are looting from American companies doesn’t belong to
employees. It belongs to shareholders. So a metric of giving that money to
employees is irrelevant. Employee salaries are (and should be) set by broader
market demand.

~~~
sytelus
If you are _responsible_ and _accountable_ for $5B revenues and associated
decisions, won’t you agree you deserve 0.5% of that revenue? This is generally
accepted reasonable management fees for things like index funds. Your credit
card company or your iOS platform or Uber takes much bigger cuts.

~~~
zxcmx
Maybe we should give the president a share of GDP?

~~~
maerF0x0
Recently I had been thinking what if we pay all elected officials this way,
except as something like a multiplier on the median income in the country...
GDP growth could be few getting a lot richer or many getting moderately
richer.

Their pay increases would be inflation indexed and tied to "rising tides lift
all boats"

------
obilgic
Link to the spreadsheet?

~~~
nathanaldensr
Presumably it's on an internal server and not public.

~~~
aaomidi
Would be great if they make it public

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I'd like to see it, but the optics would be challenging, since Blizzard
workers probably make a substantial bit more than most game industry people.

~~~
Thorrez
Why? The article mentions people making minimum wage.

------
bkuehl
I believe all employees should be paid a decent wage and it's clear Blizzard
is severely underpaying a good part of their workforce. But it's unfair to say
that all employees at one level should get the same salary. We try hard to
make sure good employees get raises, cause we want to keep them! If someone
shared a document around with salaries and someone came to us demanding why
they were paid less we'd either have to come back with, ok this is awkward but
you're just not as good/productive/etc of an employee. Or you just didn't
negotiate enough when hiring.

------
marcell
At Google there was an internal spreadsheet to track this also. US law
protects the rights of workers to discuss the terms of their employment, which
of course includes pay.

------
LockAndLol
I don't know what's in their contracts, but they all leave and make a new
company to pay each other fairly? One of those old style companies where
employees have a say in the direction of the company, have invested in it and
feel like a real part of a family?

Or unionize. You are tech people. You can setup setup your own loomio (or
whatever decision making software exists these days) server and start making
decisions today. Be the change you want to see.

------
dayjobpork
“We are constantly reviewing compensation philosophies to better recognize the
talent of our highest performers and keep us competitive in the industry, all
with the aim of rewarding and investing more in top employees.”

This is execspeak for screwing the majority and only giving their chosen few a
decent raise.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/TDfsD](https://archive.is/TDfsD)

------
mensetmanusman
Where is the spreadsheet? Googledocs?

~~~
galoisgirl
Yes

------
turing_complete
Wage disparities do not necessarily mean that someone is treated unfairly. It
is fair to pay people more (even a lot more) if they are more productive or
they contribute in a higher-value way.

------
ConcernedCoder
The real problem is the artificial caste system of worker vs. executive as it
currently exists in the United States today.

------
tonitosou
i dont understand why salaries should be same for a similar role. If I work
twice as fast and with a better work quality than my collegue why shouldn't i
get double his salary? are we in a communist country?

~~~
Pxtl
I work in healthcare where this is handled by job titles and it seems a lot
healthier.

Job title makes it clear that it's about greater responsibilities.

"Why is Jeff paid more than me"

"Because Jeff is senior dev and you're junior dev" is a much easier
conversation to have, and everybody's job title is very visible.

~~~
tonitosou
im not sure. in a perfect society if the junior dev is better and works harder
and bring more value to the company he should be better paid than his senior.
it is capitalism and if a company is judget by its output an employee should
too

~~~
Pxtl
If he's better and brings in more value, he'll _become_ a SR dev quickly.

~~~
tonitosou
so 1 senior dev = 1 senior dev? you're surely thinking same for a doctor
right? and you will trust with your life a guy who studied less and got 10/20
at all his exams all his life and went party while the other one was
practising surgeries?

