Are they? These salaries are much lower than most tech competitors. I know we like to call out "high" salaries when a useful service is struggling - but they'll struggle even more if they can't retain good talent because their pay is too low. There's a reason tech skill in government is generally lower than that in industry, for instance.
That really depends on the location these people are working from. In most of the world, those are insanely high salaries.
A company like this doesn't need to be based in SV.
Why didn't this start from say Mexico? Or Singapore or Vietnam? Or at least Germany which has a good record of freedom conscious tech scene .
My bet is in something related to the "maslow pyramid": people in SV have so much money that have everything solved in their lives, so they have the luxury of spending their time in this sort of problems.
• Telegram - Founded: Russia, Headquartered: Dubai, Users: 500M+
• WeChat - Founded: China, Headquartered: Shenzhen, Users: 1.2B+
• LINE - Founded: Japan, Headquartered: Tokyo, Users: 84M (Japan)
• Viber - Founded: Israel, Headquartered: Luxembourg, Users: 1B+
• KakaoTalk - Founded: South Korea, Headquartered: Jeju City, Users: 52M+
• Zalo - Founded: Vietnam, Headquartered: Ho Chi Minh City, Users: 100M+
• ICQ - Founded: Israel, Headquartered: Cyprus, used to have big market share
• Skype - Founded: Estonia, Headquartered: Luxembourg/USA, Users: 40M daily
2. It's probably a matter of Venture capitalists. Even if you aren't from SV, you may strive to go there to get funding for a pitch or find talent. Similar to your prospective actor that moves to Hollywood. Go where the crowds are.
Now, we can ponder why SV became a tech hub, but current market forces makes it ripe for tech startups.
This only makes sense if you ignore the world outside the Bay area and assume it's a talentless wasteland. Bay area salaries are vastly inflated in terms of value for money.
There is lots of talent elsewhere of course. I live in Europe. Lots of smart people here. I think I personally know quite a few people that could do at least as good a job as Signal has at building a messenger app + platform. No offense, but this isn't exactly rocket science.
And of course the elephant in the room here is that money is running out because this organization has a cost problem. Inflated salaries, insane cost for things that they should arguably get rid off (like the SMS bills), etc. That's a leadership problem. They aren't even getting value for money despite those salaries.
They are building a secure communicator that a normal person can reasonably use - and succeeding. Something nobody else before them managed to pull off. If this isn't rocket science I don't know what is. Not to mention that they pioneer cryptographic protocols in this area, which other messengers later use.
>This only makes sense if you ignore the world outside the Bay area and assume it's a talentless wasteland.
I'm also from Europe (and love it, despite its flaws) but this comes off like whining. If it's really so easy, maybe the smart people here should create their own Signal and reap that overinflated salaries, what do you think?
Or maybe smart people are not enough and you also need VCs, reasonable taxes, laws... Oh btw, did you hear about those plans of EU to get rid of E2E encryption?
But it's hard to compare EU and US salaries directly. You got taxed way more and your health care isn't bound to your job.