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Comment by lemevi | Hacker News Reader

As an engineer in the bay area, I don't really want to share my salary information. It's very personal. I don't want people to know that I'm making far less or far more, I just don't even want to think about it. I already have enough things that cause me social anxiety, I don't really need another. If I'm happy with my salary, why can't that be good enough? I'm fine with people being allowed to talk about how much they make, but if I don't want to share my information, that should be OK too.

I would probably consider not working for a company if they said they made salaries public. Some people value their privacy to a greater extent I guess.

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For the record, I don't think it should necessarily be posted everywhere what salaries are (even though I do in fact believe that would be net positive), however I think the culture around salary discussion needs to change. People need to not be offended by the question (you can of course deny the information).

As I mention in a comment below. Compare this to other transactions: if grocery stores convinced everyone that the price of eggs was a very personal matter, and impolite to share, such that I couldn't ask you "hey how much did you get those eggs for at the store?", then they could absolutely start charging incredibly variable rates. All of a sudden you'd need to do your research on "market egg rates" and "egg negotiation tactics". You have to know your stuff to make a good case for spending 5 bucks on those eggs. This happens today with car dealerships and any bart-based system, where of course the seller has much more information than the buyer.

So too your boss has much more information than you during a salary negotiation. He knows if your proposed salary raise is bogus because he can compare you to similar performers, you can't. You have no idea if the raise he offered you is good or 10% what everyone else is getting. If after raises were handed out everyone shared them with each other, I ASSURE you they'd at the very least make sure that the people that deserved good raises got it.

The point is not for employees to share their personal information, but to manipulate employers into transparency about the prices they are willing to pay for employees' time. People are sharing their salaries not because they are personally keen on revealing their own information, but because convincing enough people to do it all at once effectively forces their employer into transparency whether they like it or not. At that point, it's harder for management to argue that continued secrecy would accomplish anything positive.

The real goal is to create a new norm where companies publish their salary ranges openly instead of being cagey about it, so that it will be obvious when particular employees are being underpaid, and so that prospective employees can make rational, informed decisions about where they want to work.

The idea is that transparency would mean that companies have to keep things more equitable and/or be able to clearly articulate why some people make more than others. That seems like less social anxiety to me. But I don't see any reason why it couldn't be voluntary and achieve more or less the same end. If employers know that it could be made public, they'll have to behave as if it will be made public.

So don't disclose it then. No one is trying to make salary disclosure mandatory--just more socially acceptable.

He may have been referencing the choice of Buffer to disclose the salaries of all employees: https://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buff...

In that situation, he does not get to choose wether or not his salary is disclosed

I am in the Valley, and while I don't want my salary publicly disclosed, I am willing to reveal it in hopes that it helps everyone else get more competitive salaries - better salaries = happier employees.

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