What is it with companies doing this? It never made sense to me that a company would pay me more or less depending on where I lived. If I'm doing the same work why should my location matter?
But on a side note, this should make us blatantly clear that, all else being equal, our work has no inherent value.
They are also paying significantly less than their competitors. No wonder they are falling behind.
I have no clue what this "foundation" is, the wording is extremely vague.
Every time GitLab comes up someone will bring this topic up.
San Francisco salaries are not a worldwide benchmark of people's worth.
There are valid reasons why GitLab doesn't pay engineers in Kenya $200k.
Should I also swing your logic the other way?
If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say you're being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth?
If people don't understand why companies pays local labour market rates, either look at GitLab's income statement and multiply 2000 employees by your definition of "worth" or start your own business and show how everyone in the world can pay 8 billion people the same salaries. Good luck.
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-ra...
No. If GitLab thought the work was only worth $50k, they wouldn't pay anyone anywhere $200k for the job.
If they do pay $200k for the job anywhere, they must expect to receive more than $200k in return, and pocket the difference.
It needs to be pointed out that, although an ex-googler may not be as productive as our imaginary highly productive Kenyan engineer, they could bring valuable experience with things such latest/secretive tech, hot contacts in the business with the resulting network effects, great communication skills and novel and healthy work habits and team culture.
It's like saying "wow Red Cross, why not just invest in your own employees before you talk about improving other people's lives????"
Yes, exactly. Gitlab reached their ability to deploy capital and need to scale back head count.
Using your Red Cross example, it's like the Red Cross announcing a new initiative outside of their area of expertise to help people while actively scaling back programs they had in place to help people.
I'm not sure you understand what layoffs are...They happen when a company grows their headcount faster than they can monetize it. Layoffs don't mean "zero ideas", they mean "growing slower than their headcount."
You can have layoffs but announce new initiatives in the same week.