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]

ref: [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1793095

[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 → bdfh42]

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 → cperciva]

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

[wh-uws → cperciva]

because depending on the developers they might believe in their startup enough to stick with it unless you offer them enough to come to you.