Transparency at the Office: Psst...This Is What Your Co-Worker Is Paid

On the other hand, in countries like India where salary is usually the third thing a complete stranger asks you about have a strong sense of social hierarchy and see frank discussion of income differences as an important part of establishing where they sit in it (and their potential for moving up). Meanwhile, I wasn't even mildly curious about how much they earned relative to me and their peers because it wasn't going to affect my perception of the conversation in the slightest, but was a little embarrassed that I could afford to spend months travelling in their country without having to do much to earn the privilege and a salary I'd been unhappy with was usually a large multiple of theirs.

I always viewed the "that decision was made above my paygrade" as mildly sarcastic in its implications.

In my family, it was always taboo to talk about money --my father hardly ever discussed money with friends (that I recall). So it was instilled in me that "money-talk" was somewhat "vulgar". To this day, I can only guess my siblings' fiscal positions.

On the other hand, when I lived in the East (Asia), people there openly talked about money/salary, etc. It was one of the acceptable topics at personal intrductions, in addition to where are you from, what do you do and have you eaten.

So, I think it's totally cultural.

My wife doesn't even have any idea of what I make ;-)

Law firms manage to pull this off with a standard $160k base, and probably something similar works in other spaces?

First, interns at big-name tech companies are highly overpaid for the work the company gets now; it's seen more as a hiring cost than a salary. The company pays ~$50k (~20k is three month's salary; add in housing stipend, taxes, and overhead) per intern in the hopes that a decent proportion of them will be back. Those that are back are solid engineers that are known quantities; false positives should be much more rare than in your general hiring process because you get to see them work in your company for three months before deciding whether to make a full-time offer. Given how hard and expensive engineer recruiting is, this is an ok deal for a lot of companies. But regardless, comparing to intern salary isn't meaningful because few companies actually believe that they are paying for what the intern will produce in their three months when they pay top dollar for elite interns.

Furthermore, while higher salaries are certainly available, those salaries don't seem absurdly low for the stage of company they were (tiny staff, no product released). Most companies at that early of a stage do expect employees to accept a nontrivial cut from their market rate in return for more interesting work, more autonomy, and fairly significant (if high-risk) equity.

Of course it also helps the company get an unfair advantage in negotiations, but it does have a social purpose too.

Yes, as long as you consider your career to be an extension of your penis.

This does seem to be a popular point of view in English-speaking countries.

With the exception of starters and a few semi-autistic outliers, engineers that have no idea what they're worth generally aren't the best of engineers. Not asking for it however is a different matter.