That's a very strange comment to make for other people's fiscal situations where you know nothing about their particulars.

At least 10k/yr/employee.

How much revenue are those people generating? Don't you think being able to hire and retain more highly-skilled people might be worth more than the $5/hour “saved”? (For example, how much does it cost to hire someone — most places spend many thousands doing that)

IDK, I'm just show a concrete value. The person I replied to said it was "not hard". S I mentioned a minimum dollar amount that I've observed at many places seemed reasonable (it can be much much more, like if you cover 100% health for employees and family)

Seems it wasn't helpful.

My point was just that this seems more like an issue for a business with low profit margins and low wage employees — not engineers, especially for a profitable company (i.e. not some early-stage startup relying mostly on equity). In this case, if they were making $20M/year with on the order of 50 employees it seems very short-sighted.

That's all true; I also think it's a wise choice to invest in your team for long term.

My point was to simply define a quantitative-value that folk who are not familiar with these costs could see as a minimum. Because "not hard" and $10k mean very different things. Hoping to help those HN readers who aren't familiar and/or are planning on starting a company.