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Comment by mrshoe | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a good way for Google to guarantee that every one of their engineers will apply for a job at Facebook, just for the chance of getting an offer.

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Example of perverse incentive: "In Hanoi, under French colonial rule, a program paying people a bounty for each rat pelt handed in was intended to exterminate rats. Instead, it led to the farming of rats."

19th century palaeontologists traveling to China used to pay peasants for each fragment of dinosaur bone (dinosaur fossils) that they produced. They later discovered that peasants dug up the bones and then smashed them into multiple pieces to maximise their payments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

This is definitely what happens in academia, and is not really great for a lot of reasons imo. Quickest way to get a big raise, to be fast-tracked to full professor, to get appointed director of some lab, etc., etc., is to get made a good offer by another university, and get all that stuff in a counter-offer. So of course, everyone is always soliciting offers from other universities. The few people who don't, end up paid less and with fewer perks, even though they're often the people actually long-term building the department's research and education programs.

I could not agree more. This has happened to a few people I know... including myself. As with most places, they never value you until you are almost out the door.

And at the same time, test with absolute certainty your worth to Google. Your offer might turn out to be.. ummm somewhat less than millions.

The engineer who wanted to leave had a combination of skill and institutional knowledge that Google decided would cost more than $3.5M to replace. How many engineers could possibly be in this position at Google?

I don't think anyone thinks they'll get $3.5 million, but I bet a lot of people now think they can squeeze Google for a hundred thousand.

Everyone is talking like this is such a huge number. If it vests over four years (They mention vesting, but not period.) then it is roughly $900,000 per year. If typical is $150,000 , then we're asking how many people could possibly be worth six times that much? Maybe 10%?

Another way to look at it is that this looks small in comparison to early equity positions in startups that go on to work out. It sounds like a good way to combat a desire on an engineer's part to roll the dice on that.

"Everyone is talking like this is such a huge number. "

That's because it is. It automatically puts you in the top 0.1% of wealthiest persons in the world.

http://www.capgemini.com/services-and-solutions/by-industry/...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire

(note: edited from 0.001)

How did you get 0.001%? It says there are ten million HNWI (millionaires). $3.5M is (assuming that one uses half of it for a primary residence, not unreasonable in the Bay Area) somewhat more than a million, so say seven million people are as rich as this guy will be. Seven million / seven billion = 0.1%, not 0.001%.

You're right, I think I misread some number somewhere :) .

Still, the distribution is not even, of the 7 million millionaires, a huge percentage are probably just over the one million mark.

You made me download the Capgemini report (I love data and reports :) ), and it says:

"A disproportionate amount of wealth remained concentrated in the hands of Ultra-HNWIs. At the end of 2009, Ultra-HNWIs represented only 0.9% of the global HNWI population, but accounted for 35.5% of global HNWI wealth."

Btw you can download the 2009 report (PDF, requires registration) here, though it's lacking in the "actual figures" department and it's more of the "text and graphs" variety:

http://www.capgemini.com/insights-and-resources/by-publicati...

As an Uruguayan (South America), I'm always aware that you really can't comprehend really how rich people in the U.S. are (and Bay Area in particular, the Bay Area has probably one of the highest per capita incomes in the world).

That does happen quite a bit, but I'm sure the $3.5 million engineer was recruited by Facebook, and did not apply for a job at Facebook.

This seems like a dangerous precedent to set.

It makes me wonder if this programmer was strategic, ie, he could have brought a very specific / useful skill set to Facebook -- or if he knew a lot about key Google developments.

And those who don't, might be able to bluff offers too.

That offer will never happen again.

I'm sure it could. At least a handful of these engineers directly contribute a lot more than $3.5 million in value to the company.

Isn't that a usual practice? (It is, in my country, not sure of valley culture)

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