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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

This bit surprised me:

>Expected salary is c. $200,000 - $300,000 USD

I know that W3C is non profit, but my expectation was that such an important org would have the funding to pay more than what a senior ranking IC at a big firm makes (and can often make more). Though I think being CEO of W3C would be very fulfilling (to me) by comparison, I wonder if this limits the candidate pool a bit in a way.

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Seems pretty much in line with what executives at other technology companies make. They are not in the bay area either. You can’t use FAANG as a measuring stick for everything.

I don't work at a FAANG and I make within that range with presumably less responsibility than a CEO of any org as a Staff Engineer, and thats before we talk about stock options etc.

I think the measuring stick is still valid, but I think importance of the job overrides some salary expectation here, I imagine. W3C is a very meaningful organization for tech on many important fronts.

You make an enormous amount of money, far more than the average nonprofit CEO, and far more than basically everyone in the world with an important job. I'm not criticizing you personally, I am also overpaid compared to every other profession, I'm just saying that if you see an issue here it's not with W3C, it's with capitalism or the structure of society or something. This salary range is in line with, to give one example, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

I do make better money than most, that I concede, but its by no means enormous. Its not F U money, its not guaranteed and I disagree that I'm overpaid, I work hard (and smart) and the company is making 20x what they pay me by comparison in exchange.

It is, by all means, enormous. That puts you in the top 2% earners in the US, top 0.5% worldwide.

You can certainly be in a situation where it doesn’t feel like a lot, but let’s not lose perspective.

I'm not. I genuinely feel that I am at least worth what I'm making, and its not enormous, its inline with my inputs to the companies success, as mentioned, they make fair more just from my labors than they pay me, by a wide margin.

My perspective is that we should raise the minimums across the board, but that is a different discussion entirely than what I put forth here I think.

That's base without equity. There's no equity play here.

> Seems pretty much in line with what executives at other technology companies make.

"Seems" is subjective. In reality, it's below average for a CEO.

Current data says the median is around 160k: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Executive_Off...

That is not as low as the Zip Recruiter number, but it's not an especially credible figure.

In fairness, the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers are, while higher than what you shared, a lot lower than what I anticipated.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes111011.htm

Salary.com offers a median number over four times higher than the BLS, more in line with what I anticipated. I expect the job is defined rather differently between the two organizations, and Salary.com probably filters somehow to account for tens of millions of home businesses with "chief executives." BLS does not use the word "officer" once in their discussion of the position, which is interesting.

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/chief-execu...

That's reasonable for a nonprofit under 100 employees. FAANG salaries are unusually high for ICs, as you know.

Nonprofits pay with purpose as much as cash. You can work on a widget or do something meaningful with your life.

by working on stuff that helps people make widgets.

The CEO of Mozilla, for comparison, receives an order of magnitude more compensation.

While W3C is globally impactful, they do only have 48 listed employees on their website. So there is less management complexity.

But Mozilla actually produces a product and makes deals for cash w/ google. W3C CEO baby-sits a standards pipeline.

Probably more apropos to compare W3C CEO to Andy Sullivan, the ISoc CEO, though I don't know what his salary is.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/541... (Schedule J)

In 2020 Sullivan earned $315k base, $100k bonus, and $37k retirement compensation for a total of ~$470k.

Wow. Thx for the link! Andy makes way more than I thought. He is, however, a reasonably nice guy. Or at least he was the two or three times I met him.

The W3C CEO won't be working for money, they'll be working for the opportunity and the purpose. There's relatively few people who bring the necessary qualifications to do that job, too.

I'm kind of surprised the JD doesn't describe more qualifications and requirements. It's a pretty high level role.

There's no fast hires for that kind of position, especially in the non-profit space. You meet everyone, you have long and deep conversations on what the goals are on either side, whether all the necessary things are in place so it can work, etc. I've been on the sidelines of hiring for similar positions and I've seen it take 5-10 months from beginning the conversation to closing the deal. You also tend to end up hiring from a "scene" so the candidates aren't really unknown, they've been around the block, working in the partner ecosystem before. The skill set is not interchangeable, you are bringing in a style, a mindset, a network. A life.

The people who take these kinds of positions are busy and end up traveling and communicating a lot. They don't need that much money for their private lifestyle, their goal isn't to retire in a beachside villa.

Compensation is not nothing, and there is plenty of negotiation, of course, but it's hardly the priority in this transaction. It's whether it makes sense.

I think it's the inverse of resumes of people who have really achieved something impressive being relatively short.

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