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Comment by nathan_compton | Hacker News Reader

What is disturbing to me about the idea of having skin in the game is that I really struggle to imagine a work situation in which I would even _want_ to have skin in the game. Skin in the game means responsibility at some personal level, and the absence of that personal responsibility is precisely the nice thing (perhaps the only nice thing) about wage labor.

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Two ways to have a healthy organization that promotes skin in the game: workers receiving shares in the company as compensation, and having a healthy, system of promotion.

Expanding on that second one, if the most reliable way to get promoted is to create something of value to the company, that's a very good sign. If the main way to get promoted is for your boss to like you or owe you a favor, run away.

Receiving shares in the company only creates skin in the game when the typical worker can materially affect outcomes. My employer has ~$1T market cap. I can move the needle on the projects close to me, but I can't do much to move that market cap, or our earnings, or anything else. I receive shares each quarter, and happily sell them immediately, precisely because I have next to no control over the outcomes. They are guided by systemic forces and leaders much more powerful than me.

(I don't see any of this as a problem, BTW, but I think it's worth pointing out.)

Side question - won't it be more profitable to sell some and keep some for potential future profits, so the overall risk is lower but you still profit potentially?

> Side question - won't it be more profitable to sell some and keep some for potential future profits, so the overall risk is lower but you still profit potentially?

Selling all your stock comp immediately is more about diversification of risk.

If rsus are a nontrivial aspect of your comp, then you're already extremely exposed to risk in your company's stock price stock price (if it tanks take a big pay cut and they might even lose their job).

All depends on if the stock goes up or down! And therein lies the rub. If I had held on to all my stock that was ever granted to me, I might be worth $1-3M more than I am today. (Large range because I never bothered to calculate it.) But on the other hand, there were periods where the situation was seemed dicey and it was unclear if the company would stagnate. If that had happened, I might be worth $1-3M less than I am now!

So, rather than gamble, I did what I felt was prudent and sold all my stock. I've got plenty tied up in the well-being of the company already, from my unvested stock to my future career trajectory. Even the value of the real estate I own could rise or fall with the fortunes of my employer. I don't need my fate any more tied to or correlated with the company than it already is.

No. If you wouldn't buy a company's stock before being gifted it, you should sell your company's after being gifted it.

yeah "responsibility at some personal level" is very _very_ expensive in my book. The compensation would have to be extraordinary.

Well, if you save the company a million dollars, do you get even .01% of that?

Nope.

Large companies are like communism, even when there are opportunities for internal competition, it is stamped out. And for all the talk of "market pay" and "executive rentention bonuses", there is little in the way of incentivizing employees with revenue sharing tied to what they produce.

Which underlines the entrenched oligarchy of the USA. Like a meta-conway's law, our government is just a reflection of large corporations in the age of cartel/monopoly/consolidation in virtually all sectors.

0.01% of $1mil is only a $100 bonus. You better get that factored in at your annual bonus review!

Oops, math in anger :-)

Ironically, under communism the workers would directly get get a share of the money they make/save for the company.

I have never heard of that happening in _any_ real-world version of communism. Maybe you are thinking of an employee-owned company?

Right. Immoral is a loaded term. Some might like and seek out these mazes.

Digging holes and filling them back up might not help humanity progress, but it probably doesn't have much stress either.

The point is less about the bullshit-job nature, and more about how the job warps you as a person (i.e. to make it to upper management, you end up having to do unethical things, and rearrange your life/hobbies/etc to be the things that get you ahead)

You would be surprise in how much stress there is doing pointless jobs! It is not easy at all, at least from a psychological point of view.

responsibility sucks I'll agree, but autonomy and profit participation are cool

I wish I could join a cooperative which could afford to pay my current salary.

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