Comment by yupper32
3 years ago
Sure but pointing out $350k executive salaries as somehow lavish is strange. That seems low for an executive at one of the most important (or at least, most viewed) websites on the planet.
3 years ago
Sure but pointing out $350k executive salaries as somehow lavish is strange. That seems low for an executive at one of the most important (or at least, most viewed) websites on the planet.
I guess you have to compare it to the salary of the donors who feel compelled by these heart-wrenching fundraising messages to donate. Here is a senior with $18 to his name promising to donate as soon as his social security check arrives:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6#S...
The Wikimedia Foundation has also just been fundraising in India and South Africa, again asking people there to donate so Wikipedia stays online for them, ad-free, subscription-free and independent.
None of these executives have anything do with the Wikipedia content. All of that is written by unpaid volunteers in their spare time. When Wikipedia first became a top-10 website, the Wikimedia Foundation had less than a dozen staff, and annual expenses of $2 million. I am not saying lets go back to that; I'm only saying this to make the point that the success of Wikipedia was not dependent on highly paid executives. It happened when there weren't any. The main value of the site comes from the volunteers.
Wikipedia should not beg for donations. They should sell ads.
Being envious of something doesn't make it cheaper.
Most in-demand, skilled labour is much more pricey than what the average person makes.
You're answering a point no one made. It has nothing to do with "being envious".
Imagine you were asked to donate to "keep the animal shelter open", and went you went there you found that they were using gold water dishes for the little critters. You would be within your right to complain. You thought you were donating to keep it operating, but now you find that they're using funds on frivolous expenses. Is there something a dish made out of gold does that one made out of plastic doesn't, to justify the expense? Is there something a $350k executive does that a minimum wage one (or even none at all) doesn't?
Any organization that asks for donations would be subject to criticism if it doesn't optimize its operations as much as possible.
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I honestly question the value added by these execs. The other day, you and I discussed some of the expensive C-Suite disasters Wikimedia has bought. They actually set Wikimedia back by years. Dozens of valuable, experienced staff left.
And Wikipedia became a top-10 website in 2007, when there was no C-Suite. There seems to be little awareness these days that the main value of the site to the public was and is built and maintained by unpaid volunteers.
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>Sure but pointing out $350k executive salaries as somehow lavish is strange.
It's not, really. It's about how you frame things, and the follow-up tweets touch on that:
>You wouldn't think so from the fundraising emails currently being sent out, telling people to donate "to keep Wikipedia online", saying it's "awkward to ask", etc. A recent poll of Wikipedia volunteers condemned these emails as unethical and misleading
>If people want to throw money into a bottomless pit, fine; but let's not pretend that the money is needed "to keep Wikipedia online".
>And that story is not the story told to prospective donors. Wikipedia and its unpaid volunteers – the people who actually write and curate Wikipedia – deserve better.
I'm not disagreeing with the overall premise of the tweet chain. I'm just saying that $350k is pretty cheap for an exec at one of the most viewed/important websites on the planet.
$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.
In a sense they are, but comparable to executive salaries at companies with roughly comparable tech/services, those salaries are probably very low.
Probably any tech company of note is paying "executives" far, far more than that, at least in the US.
I don't think it's valid to think extravagant pay rates are not extravagant simply because other executives are also paid extravagant rates.
They are all a bit over-the-top.
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It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.
Of course, judging performance like that is very difficult, and predicting it in advance is even harder, so it's possible that the highly paid executive would actually perform worse than a volunteer (or a random number generator), but if the complaint about "lavishness" is really about inequality (i.e. the executive's standard of living being much higher than they need / the median citizen's) then that criticism should probably be directed at the tax policies of the relevant governments.
> from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap
But from any normal person's perspective, it's expensive.
The difference is who is in control and what are their priorities and influences. Since "the organization" is making the decisions - and, completely incidentally, "the CEO" is the head of "the organization" - it just so happens that "the organization" finds that "the CEO" should be paid lavishly.
Rich people gonna prioritize rich people.
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> if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.
True, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that's a realistic hypothetical at all.
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I don't see any reason for an executive to be less likely to make a mistake. And considering that the core business is rock solid and didn't change much in last many years, I don't even see a potential for such mistake.
> It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.
They're not though. Especially not multiple of them providing the same service.
I suppose they meant relatively speaking. Taking into account how massive of a project Wikipedia is and hence how much responsibility the position has.
I don't understand this. Do you think that an executive's responsibilities scale with the size of the enterprise? I don't think that's true.
In fact, I would argue that an executive at a small operation has more responsibility than one at a large operation.
Sundar Pichai gets ~$250M. Parag Agrawal gets something like $30M.
Apples and oranges, you should instead compare it with other non-profits. According to top links in search for 'non profit ceo salary' give me average salary numbers about $150k
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People working for them earn 100k+, Wikipedia has volunteers writhing the content for free.
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Not in SF. Maybe there is a case to be made to move Wikipedia operations outside Bay area.
Maybe there is a case for moving much of it outside the US? Lots of staffers work remotely anyway.
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Uh, what?
SDEs with a few YOE are getting this no problem at top companies. Why wouldn't the CEO of the fifth biggest website on the internet?
But that's apples and oranges. People who work at those companies are presumably being paid that because they are (or at least believed to be) making more in profit for the company than they are being paid. It's the same reason why professional football players and movie actors make so much. But consider ballet dancers or stage actors -- they may be just as athletic or as good actors as the football players or movie actors are, but they are in a far less profitable field. So they make less. The people in these jobs are just motivated by their passion rather than by salary.
Those SDEs are also paid extravagantly.
Its SF salaries. Why are these nonprofits based in SF anyway? Same goes for Mozilla.
Seems like anywhere else it would be pretty insane money for nonprofits.
that's a lot of salary for something that is going broke and needs donations now.
Is requesting donations better or worse than selling advertising?
Better. The real question is, is this way of soliciting donations better than another way of soliciting donations? Answer to that is not clear.
How about they start spending their money wisely instead of growing infinitely? That way they can keep Wikipedia up and running for the next decade or so without bothering us with these solicitations.
What do they do, though?
I wonder how much the contributors are being paid...
It's pretty lavish for a nonprofit.
It's lower than total comp of senior engineers in the bay area, just to give a point of reference.
It's about twice the salary of the Nordic prime ministers (not combined though) as another point of reference
Is the PM's salary before- or after-tax? Do they get free housing as the prime minister? How's the housing market in their cities? In SF, where Wikipedia is based, it's completely whack. What else does a PM get? Household staff, personal assistants, drivers etc?
The executives don't live in Norway, they live in the bay area; hence my (relevant) particular point of reference.
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100% agreed. $350k salaries for people that have basically built and maintained the modern-day Library of Alexandria is a pittance. These people deserve it.
Most of them are recent hires. They have built nothing. Wikipedia was built by volunteers.