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Comment by lallysingh | Hacker News Reader

It looks like the CEO of Wikimedia gets paid roughly as much as a Staff/Senior Staff-level FAANG engineer. That looks about right. And they got 6 months severance. Also comparable.

I don't get why people are upset. Somehow everyone working for a nonprofit should bring home less money to their families. In truth what that assumption would mean is that nonprofits get less skilled people.

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18 months' severance.

US$623,286 when their last full year's base compensation was $400K.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/14/Wikim...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikim...

Oh yikes, staff with a larger severance. I'm not surprised, I can't imagine it's easy to find a new CEO job after losing your last one.

It's not as if someone who has already been making several hundred grand is in dire need of financial stability between employment opportunities.

You could say the same about any professional. You do it because it's the right thing to do, and if you don't do it, people are more likely not to work for you in the future.

> You could say the same about any professional.

False.

Case closed I guess?

It's not about anything but resentment here

Is it? They beg for money and then $600k+ of it goes to a severance for one person. So much for charity and donating to support a public good.

I think you assume a lot about other people's finances.

It's not assuming a lot to think someone who made several hundred thousand dollars has enough to live comfortably for a few months.

I could move into a very nice apartment in any city in the world for less than $5,000/mo. I have no doubt that with that kind of cash, I could move in today. Surely after making $300,000 you would have enough left over to do the same!

If not, then you are obviously not qualified to be making that kind of compensation in the first place.

Yea everybody knows that if you’re not capable of living frugally and/or have mastered the art of personal finance you couldn’t possibly have any specialized skills or technical abilities.

Master? It doesn't take a genius to save a few percent of your income, especially when you are making 10x the average salary!

People are upset because it was working fine 10 years ago when execs were paid a fraction of the amount. They're upset because wikipedia asks for donations every year even though they've collected enough money to run wikipedia off interest from treasury bonds.

What was FAANG developer salaries like 10 years ago? Was that 'working fine'?

then don't donate?

To take a global perspective: Would you be happy to donate to charity that uses the money to pay executives 10x-100x your salary?

It depends. If the charity is doing amazingly good things and the executives in question are making a big impact on being able to do those good things, then yes I'd be fine with that.

I would be happy to donate considering the value I get from their work. Given the market where they operate, the salary and severance is actually low in my opinion. I would like them to pay their people well.

It's this question about value for skills or resentment for income inequality? For the latter, wikimedia would have to move somewhere with lower labor rates yet is somehow to keep talent from leaving for better paying places.

I would be happy. I'm not an executive so I don't get executive pay. The executive salaries at Wikimedia seem low compared to what you can earn at a similarly sized business.

The thing is, what exactly does something like Wikipedia need executives for? What strategic shifts does it need to adapt to? What new product lines does it need to move the entire org around to create? What hard decisions does it need to make to shut stuff down?

It's not really a business.

You're giving a business definition of a few responsibilities for an executive and then saying it's a poor fit. Now try giving an NGO definition of an executive to see if it's a better fit and if they have any significant responsibilities.

Non-profits shut down all the time. If you're concerned about a lasting impact you'll pay for a talented executive team.

Under what circumstances would Wikipedia shit down, if it still has money for operational expenses?

The biggest set of responsibilities charites I didn't list is sales (aka donations). But Wikipedia doesn't do more good work (as donors think of it) the more money they get. It doesn't scale up much that way.

Mismanagement could help those funds disappear pretty quickly. It's rare that any kind of organization or business needs no governance.

Only "mismanagement" used as a euphemism for self-dealing or embezzlement, which is what I think many people suspect is occurring now on some level. Wikipedia has a small, constrained remit and if no one ever edited it again, it would still be very useful for decades.

Not only that. Name a big business or big NGO that runs well and has zero leadership.

Valve?

Valve may have a flat or open structure but GabeN is their god. Find a better example.

You’d struggle to find one that doesn’t.

Where are you getting 10-100x? None of the salaries in the linked article are even over $1M. As the upthread poster explains, these numbers are merely FAANG-competetive. None of these Wikemedia execs are making more than they would in a routine private sector position of the same seniority.

I don't think I ever heard any engineer leaving WMF, voluntarily or not, getting 18-month severance. I'm not sure why the CEO should. It's not like she is going to be destitute otherwise. I mean good for her for getting cool half mil just for leaving, but I don't see how it makes any sense for WMF. It's not like "nobody is going to want to be WMF CEO unless they are promised to get half mil for leaving", is it?

Generally WMF's salaries are on the low side - their VP Eng was getting 220K in 2020, and 255K in 2021, which is kinda low for a VP of a decent-sized engineering org - but that doesn't answer the question of severance.

Were they fired or did they quit because they got a better job? Do people usually get a severance in the latter case?

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