A remote company has no office, hasn't it?

The post does say that this is the minimum regardless of position, not just developer salary. Of course the cleaners could be (and more often than not are) outside contractors.

Step 1) outsource low paying positions to temp/service companies. Step 2) pay all employees at least $70k.

This is a tough problem to solve but nice they are trying. Paying a receptionist or cleaning person $70k doesn’t make much sense because it’s way above market rate. But outsourcing to a company paying $11/hour doesn’t fit into the “everybody makes a good amount” message.

I don't know why you were down-voted. Practically every company does 1 these days.

I'd have more respect for a company that says "we pay everyone at least 40k" and doesn't outsource the janitor.

If you have one office location that takes a crew one or two hours to clean per week, why would you have someone on staff to do that?

That's completely irrelevant or disingenuous. Obviously you can prorate an annual wage to Basecamp's advertised hours per year of work.

I would think that most small companies don’t own their own office and are renting space in a building where the building owners contract out cleaning for all of the tenants.

It's irrelevant if market rate is below what you pay, as long as you can afford it; employees won't complain and leave for being overpaid.

The Google masseuse got $millions (in the IPO).

Or you could get the best receptionist and cleaner in the world.

usually that's external companies....

That’s the point of the statement.

While it is probably nigh impossible to find a facilities company that would pay the staff that much, I don't think simply saying it's another company and therefore out of their hands is a valid argument. You could've said the same about Nike in relation to the factories that used to supply them and use child labour.

People are paid depending on their worth.

I think people are paid based on supply and demand. I don’t think it’s accurate to say this is the person’s worth as it’s easily confused with other factors.

> I think people are paid based on supply and demand.

Not even that. People are largely paid based on the power (real or perceived) that they have.

Spending a day employed at any Fortune 500 company should disabuse you of this notion, in both directions.