Comment by darthrupert
2 years ago
I'll ask the question you're implying out loud.
Why does an organization with about 50 employees need 4 C-level executives, totalling about 2M compensation per year? Or perhaps it's 7 C-level executives (3 hiding under the "Software developer" title) totalling about 3,7M compensation per year?
I'm absolutely not donating money to such a thing without an answer to this question. As a counterpoint, I am a member of a local (Finnish) non-profit organization, one of whose many services is Matrix. This costs me 40 euros per year and none of that money goes to C-level executives.
I find this hypocritical. C executives of tech orgs with world class products often have eight figures compensation -- if not from salary then from stock options. I do not see any excess here. You need to pay to compete.
> I do not see any excess here. You need to pay to compete.
What you mean with pay to compete? The goal of Signal to exist is to offer a privacy oriented chat app. Non-profit companies serve a propose, and people not aligned with that, shouldn't be working there in the first place. If you join a non-profit to make money, you are doing it wrong.
So all the programmers who work there should live on thin air? I agree that ideally the management should not be there for profit, but come on, the salaries are not even that crazy. I suspect FAANG key employees in that area easily earn multiples of that.
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Signal is competing with for profit companies for talented engineers and their talented leaders. You can't just cobble together something "good enough", this thing must be airtight given some of the dangerous situations it is used in.
And you get a world-class service that a lot of people can use for free and keeps their communication private in return. I'll happily keep donating for that.
I'm sure there are some costs that they could theoretically cut without consequence. Because the same holds for any other product I buy.
Indeed, I’m blown away these numbers are so low. I know multiple senior software engineers at FAANG companies who make more than the software engineers on that list, and they contribute roughly nothing to society. I have zero qualms with Signal executives and employees being paid at that level.
> We estimate that by 2025, Signal will require approximately $50 million dollars a year to operate
And from the link: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...
- Other Salaries and Wages $9,665,761 - Executive Compensation $744,037
So about $10,400,000 a year in compensation and wages, or about 21% of their running costs.
So if I give 5 euros, 1 of this will go to salaries. I'd say not terrible. I wouldn't be surprised if most charities are worse.
One just have to get over the feeling that I'm donating to a charity of people who make 50x more money than I do with a comparable skill set.
2M in comp distributed between 4 people is not a lot at this scale in my opinion.
It is for a non-profit asking for donations. If they want half a mill salaries, they should become for-profit instead.
The beauty of non profits is everyone thinks they're staffed with saints, when the truth is far less beatific.
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Profit or non-profit is not about paying market rates. Even non-profits have to pay reasonably competitive salaries to attract and retain good employees.
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we ought to be well past this, if they want to be donation based they need efficiency.
it's possible to run this from, let's say, Andalusia, and hire competent folks for a fraction of this.
For a nonprofit?
A nonprofit doesn't mean it's a charity.
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