Hacker News Reader

Comment by RobertWHurst | Hacker News Reader

Absolute cringe. I'm not going to say I don't like these sorts of perks, but it shouldn't be considered a norm. If your team works nights to ship product, spends a lot of extra time in the office, sure it makes sense that these benefits are offered, but unless it's in your employment contract, your not entitled to them, and honestly, when staff that work regular 9 to 5 easy does it style days get the same perks as the staff working 20 extra hours a week it's a slap in the face to those who worked for it.

View on HN

It’s not that it should be considered norm, but in this case it’s simply a pay cut. Which, considering the situation, isn’t great. Most of the company has just been laid off and the remaining employees are being asked to work basically as hard as they can. And now, on top of that the wealthiest person in the world is asking them to work for a bit less compensation.

In regards to a pay cut, I'm not moved by that argument. The pay at Twitter was already very competitive, and it seems very likely that people weren't doing a whole lot of work.

As for who the employer's wealth, I don't think that should have anything to do with how staff are compensated. The employer's personal wealth doesn't have anything to do with the value of an employer's labor, which is the only thing that matters when evaluating if compensation is fair. If you're factoring that in then there may be elements of resentment and/or jealousy at play. You should get compensated for the value you produce, full stop.

What you’re talking about should work both ways. Earlier today he sent a message that he intends to make Twitter the highest performing tech company in the world. For such a team, even “competitive compensation” doesn’t sound quite enough.

No sorry, as someone who has worked a lot of startups and helped build companies when they were counting pennies prior to the growth phase, the idea that they are entitled to any of this is a joke, especially in a large corporation where the majority staff aren't putting in nights. Once a team starts to deliver, and you actually have a product that people are buying and profits are good, by all means get the beer taps and yoga mats *but* for the team that did nights for 3 years. Not for rent seeking staff that infest these large corporations. These sorts of perks were largely to thank the staff for making huge sacrifices to get the product delivered, and now for some reason people just expect it. Twitter on the other hand had taken on a massive roster of staff, and was never cash positive.

In a startup setting, sure! The early employees are typically given a significant stake in the company, that might pay off one day. But there’s none of that in Twitter 2.0 so far.

You’re entitled to your choices obviously, but for me personally it seems absurd that a bricklayer would have to wait until a building is finished or sold to actually get paid. He has no stake, he’s no investor, so it’s on his employer to pay him enough for the whole duration of his employment regardless of the level of financial success of the entire project.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com