774 karma · joined September 8, 2013
I'm pretty sure Ben Horowitz doesn't suggest making employee compensation public, but promoting / giving raises on a regular cycle.
[1] http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co...
I chuckled when I read this statement. Having worked for the government, I can say with certainty that transparent salaries don't reduce poisonous politics. If anything, they make it worse. Knowing that certain incompetent co-workers were making vastly more money that me for more or less the same job motivated me to leave for the private sector where I at least had a chance of being paid what I was worth. Of course, such discrepancies can exist there too, but at least the exact numbers aren't right in my face.
I think this concept also describes the essence of "agile" well (along with the four points you quote).
"...early on in my MVP/Community days (2007ish). Microsoft hired some non-traditional devs to head up something in the ASP.NET group. Phil Haack, Scott Hanselman, Rob Conery all came on board and launched ASP.NET MVC which BLEW. ASP.NET. UP."