Comment by jamespitts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamespitts | Hacker News Reader

I am going to go out on a limb and say that fake anything is a bullshit way of doing business. In a small way, you probably have made our corner of the world a worse place to be in.

Why not just ask for 260K? To lie in order to get it may seem like the only way to guarantee a realization of what you are worth, but this fosters a business climate that you ultimately may not want to live in. Companies may feel the need to be more defensive at the negotiating table, put the squeeze on developers in terms of hours or reduced open source contributions, or even to illegally collude in order to force people to stay at their... oh wait that one already happened.

A business climate in which parties are faking information can be a dangerous place. It is in our collective best interest to be honest and to foster an environment in which honesty is expected. Think on that the next time you buy a food product.

Another example that is more general: company leadership feels the need to produce a certain kind of quarterly financial result in order to appear favorable to investors or customers. The company that has the most accolades fakes it the most, leading to a lot of pressure on everyone else to do the same. Someone has to pay for this though, often it is paid in increased risk.

EDIT: removed irrelevant examples.

Like you said, all the negative things you feared would come to pass have, in fact, already come to pass. Companies regularly hide information, mislead everyone they're legally allowed to, and outright lie. And no one is surprised.

No one in business, any business, at any level pays for goods and services what they think they are worth. They pay the minimum that they think will be accepted.

The idea that someone on the opposite side of the negotiating table has your best interests at heart and is going to be as generous as they can with you is naive. Occasionally it happens, but it's not probable and not something anyone should rely on. And this holds whether we're discussing purchaser-supplier, founder-vc, employee-employer, or customer-seller.

This is not to say that the people opposite the table are bad people, and once the terms of the relationship have been agreed upon, they will often go above and beyond to help you out. But everyone will negotiate in their self-interest first.

Any argument against this? Jamespitts seems to make perfect sense here. @jamespitts, thanks for the valuable comments. As per my experience just asking $260K from the professional negotiator would have not landed me anywhere near this figure, he would have at-most increased 10K. Not arguing against what you said, just saying I cannot win with recruiter on negotiation without counter offers.

Thanks for the measured reply, f.u.n... I can definitely sympathize with your point about your not being able to realistically ask for the amount you ended up with!

We are at a serious disadvantage, even though it seems to many outside the industry that we make an incredible amount of money. But our high salaries are actually quite a bargain considering how much value is potentially going to be realized by the founders and investors (across multiple investments and over the long run).

A few days ago I was actually thinking about the challenge for a developer of achieving a salary closer to what one is worth. I was wondering if job searches can be better managed so that offers land at nearly the same time, perhaps through some sort of software-based mechanism that is well-understood and widely accepted.

If the world operated as a true meritocracy, not faking or bullshitting and just being 100% honest would work.

However, has asking for a 50% raise in the same company ever worked? Can you imagine a scenario where it would work? Maybe I am lacking in imagination.

The reality is that in our current business climate, various morally repugnant actions take place all the time. The examples you listed of dishonest climates, you keep getting a raw deal. Do you just take the short end of the stick to maintain the moral high ground?

They could have just said good luck. If it back fired he would have had a hard time saying he was taking a lower offer. it was a gamble and it paid off.

Get off your high horse. Either congratulate or ignore, but in the end just move on.

I am not commenting here to feel good about myself or to spread my moral views. I am attempting to appeal to his personal and our collective self-interest.

That would be honorable, yes. On the other hand so was Eddard Stark.

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