I have several friends who have received large salary increases when they were about to quit. This clearly shows that they were payed too little before. The kind of transparency buffer shows in this sheet can prevent such a situation.

Having a transparent formula for salary limits or removes the effects of negotiation, which likely benefits engineers (typically bad at negotiating compared to e.g. sales people) and women/minorities (worried about increasing "otherness" further and sometimes lower leverage, at least in tech).

There are potential downsides such as increased politics or income inequality pressures, but it seems like a viable policy at least. I'm curious how someone like Google's Laszlo Bock would respond to this approach in comparison to their "pay unfairly"[1] mentality.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-policy-to-pay-unfairly...

It's part of their ethos, be totally transparent on how much everyone gets paid. You can't negotiate or ask for a different salary, there's a calculation.

They've got blog posts about it.

https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-...

Not only salaries but also expenses and income, among other things.

IIRC, Fog Creek does the same and also have some explanatory posts.