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Comment by ctvo | Hacker News Reader

>> We canceled our upcoming team retreat to Berlin. Savings: $400,000.

Compared to all their other costs that one stood out the most. 500k savings laying off 10% of your workforce compared to 400k for a team retreat in Berlin.

Is this typical?

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That does seem astronomical. $4,000 per employee if they have ~100 employees like they say.

Anyone think their salaries are absurdly high for some locations and positions?

They've got Adnan working as an "Advanced Backend/Frontend Developer" in Sri Lanka, making only $65,104. This actually makes sense to me because Sri Lanka's cost of living is pretty low.

But they've got an Advanced "Happiness Hero" which I presume is an email support role making $77,397 in Kentucky. Last time I checked, $77,000 is an extraordinarily high salary in KY, especially for someone doing email support.

That may be a customer retention role, in which case I think that's within reason.

Yes, I agree with you. Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what a "Happiness Hero" is, it appears they are paying a developer's salary for email support. $77k in Louisville, Kentucky would be about $135k in NYC.

$77k is not "extraordinarily" high for Kentucky without any context, but it would be very surprising for an email support role. In fact, I would expect $70k to be a very upper bound for technical support in NYC.

That said, there might be a very technical component of the job role that we do not have any insight on.

There are a few of them on their salary list and pay does not seem to have an correlation with working location. Could simply be level of ability and/or amount of quality work performed.

That's assuming what they do is straight e-mail support. I'm not sure what a happiness hero does but they might be expected to do much more than e-mail support. In many companies the "success manager" role tends to require people with more education and technical background to do in-depth troubleshooting and real customer interaction.

$4,000 would barely cover business-class airfare between SF<->Berlin for one employee. Not to mention accommodations, event space, meals and entertainment.

Are you saying it is customary to fly people business class in the Valley, rather than coach? Especially for a team retreat?

Are you saying you can fly coach from SF to Berlin and actually still engage in a "retreat"?

I am trying to learn about the business habits in the Valley. I wish someone could inform me.

To answer your question, obviously I am not from the valley, i run my own business, it is quite profitable, i don't do retreats, and i fly quite a bit, always coach. So if i ever organised a retreat, i would expect everyone to fly coach. Hence my question.

FWIW, the US Government's regulations for civil service workers (civilians working for the federal gov't) are pretty strict, and are often used as a basis for private companies. (EG, mileage reimbursement is usually a rate set by the feds.)

Their policy is business class for international flights over 8 hours.

Given that, I think it would be seen as common/acceptable to mimic.

Interesting, ... that would basically mean that all flights from San Francisco to outside of the Americas should be business class.

Keep in mind: government employees who travel international are often diplomats. Gov rates for diplomats are, overall, luxurious. (I'm not sure of the bleedover here, but would not be surprised.)

Above comment about business class / direct for long trips, and at least direct/convenient economy for ~startups (not 2 guys & a laptop) sounds right.

That is surprising and disappointing.

I know we didn't send our guys over to Iraq and Afghanistan in business class. It's shameful that a rando in USAID or something would be afforded better accommodations for a conference in Tokyo.

considering coach tickets are more than half the price, I don't see why anyone would not buy them.

Some people are too large to comfortably sit in coach seats for fourteen hours. Torturing an employee before a retreat is not very nice.

You'd be welcome to literally burn me with cigarettes during the flight if you paid me that $5,000 difference in fares.

Isn't that a felony?

It's incredibly rare for startups to fly people around the world in business class. And I say this as someone who flies long-haul exclusively in Business and First—I still would never expect my employer to put me up in business. As a personal decision, it can make sense. I'll buy the fare outright when it's $3,000 or less for an international round-trip, and I make sure of credit card points and frequent flyer miles.

If I worked for a big public company, I'd expect them to put me up in business for anything longer than 6h. For a young small startup, I'd expect them to put me in a reasonably convenient economy ticket (e.g. not flying out of OAK instead of SFO, and not forcing me to take long connections, or really ultra-low-cost carriers like WOW Air).

I have no experience with SF, but when talking about trans-atlantic flights, business class is less of a luxury than normal. If you are tall, overweight, etc. sitting in a small seat for 10 hours can cause all kinds of joint, spine, and circulatory issues.

Interesting.

I am very overweight, and I never have an issue flying coach on transatlantic flights.

I've found most flights from US to Europe typically have more legroom, than domestic counterparts. Typically I will pay for the 1st class upgrade for domestic flights, but fly coach.

I'm 5'6 and normal weight, I did a standard flight from EU->San Francisco and on the return when checking in I bought pretty much any update that was available to give me more leg room/space. I swear I will never do another 5+ hour flight that isnt at least business class. I had back pain for a month. My feet were swollen for a whole week that my shoes didn't confortably fit, etc that I will easily lose a paying gig over doing a flight like that ever again.

I cannot speak for Valley customs. But all of the (non-Valley) companies I'm familiar with extend business class to employees for international travel as a matter of policy.

I must work at the wrong places (non-Valley). Maybe that used to be common, but in recent years I don't see that for regular employees at all. Maybe for some layers of management.

I worked at 1 company that did business class IF your flight was over 10h or something, but in 2008 that got revoked. Since then not seen any business class for mere devs.

This is a startup...

It's been the complete opposite in my experience outside the valley.

fwiw I've done a fair bit of international flying as an engineering guy over the decades and the only time I flew biz class was when going to an interview at Microsoft 20 years ago. Good times...

For very long flights, it usually is.

You're forgetting Premium Economy which more providers offer now too. It's a facsimile of business class of old, so no lie flat bed, but you get lots more leg room, wider seat, priority boarding (after 1st and Business) and a better meal.

My wife and I will be flying to Vienna next month. It's $1,300/ea including the return flight from Copenhagen (price was the same when we priced Munich when we were planning the trip, in case you're wondering about the fare differences between Austria and Germany).

I would never pay 307% of that price for an extra 3 inches of leg room and a free plate of salt and BHT.

What about 50% more [1] for a seat that turns into a bed [2]? International business class is not "an extra 3 inches of leg room" and can often be quite reasonably priced.

1. https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=SFO;t=VIE,XWW;d=201... *priced at less than $2,000 at the time of this posting

2. http://www.airfrance.us/US/en/common/guidevoyageur/classeetc...

Serious question, how is business from ATL -> Vienna almost 5k? I don't understand this at all, especially given the fact that Atlanta is closer to Vienna.

In general, I'm always perplexed at the costs of flights, so was surprised to hear about such a relatively cheap international flight. Disappointing upon further inspection.

Berlin to San Fransisco and back was 680 euros for me 2 years ago with SAS (last time I've been to SF).

Group travel is really quite cheap. Massive savings with a group booking.

Meanwhile, I was in Berlin for three weeks earlier this year and spent less than $2k, including the plane ticket and my pass to an art festival. You strike me as a person who's never worked very hard to get a deal on airfare.

Buffer is a fully distributed (remote) team. The money they save on offices, they spend on travel.

Do you think an office for 100 people would cost less than $400K/year? (I know it wouldn't in NYC.)

See my notes on this here:

http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-d...

Interestingly, their last retreat (https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/) totaled $111k. The tripling of staff since last year makes the economics more difficult.

One-off versus monthly recurring.

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