Funny how when we talk about executives or investors, "fairness" is never mentioned. A vc deserves what he earns because the market has determined his worth. When it comes devs however, suddenly its a morality play. We should forget about market value and be grateful that our jobs pay more than most of the other plebs.

I do think developers should be grateful (and investors and execs as well) for their good fortune. And I think it's perfectly fine to ask for market value. Just don't have fit - like a spoiled child - if someone is trying to give you less.

What's insulting is for a tech company to tell me that they are "not motivated by money" and therefore I should accept their below market offer. That is insulting to my intelligence.

He said it was an insultingly horrible job in the context of the software world. And requiring someone to do the job of four and paying them for less than the fair market value of one is insulting.

insulting to 99% of the world work population (who have much worst jobs)

Many of the benefits you listed are standard in Europe. Full medical coverage is provided by the government, and they have ~30 days of paid leave.

I come from Europe and I am all for good benefits (which we tried to implement in my company). But the main issue in Europe is people don't see how good they have it. This sense of entitlement (which also permeates the developer world these days) can't be good.

Also I don't see what's the big deal about "doing four different jobs". In a small company most employees do multiple jobs. It does mean that they have to work more, just that they have to be flexible.

When we read "doing four different jobs," there are two ways to take that: doing one job that involves the functions of four separate positions but still maintains a rational workload, or being asked to carry a workload that, if not actually the equivalent of four full-time jobs, is still substantially higher than that of just one job. People who are willing to give Penny Arcade the benefit of the doubt seem to be reading it the first way, whereas "skeptics" like Marco and Christopher Buecheler (the author of the previously-linked post about this) are reading it the second way. I admit I'm inclined to be in the skeptic camp, simply because the posting goes so far out of its way to hammer home that the job has no work-life balance whatsoever and will manifestly not pay you what you're worth.

And, Beucheler's larger point remains salient: Penny Arcade is not such a small company that this is so easily defensible. A five-person startup may require one person to be web application developer, sysadmin and operations manager. But Penny Arcade isn't a five-person startup. They've been around for over a decade, produce multiple comics, and put on massive industry trade shows. They can afford to hire more than one person if they have enough work for it, and no matter how many people they hire they can damn well afford to pay them market rate.

Is 2% good? 9% (soon moving to 12%) is mandatory in Australia. Yes we are an evil socialist state with good healthcare.

Australia's retirement income system is actually substantially to the right of the U.S. Social Security model, as our politics go. Conservative wonks have long advocated to shift SS to a means-tested basic income benefit plus a mandatory personal account. That's essentially Australia's system. But any attempt to move in this direction has been met with cries from our own "evil socialists" that "privatization" will inevitably enrich the robber barons and force the elderly to eat dog food.

To answer your question: That 2% in an optional 401(k) tax-advantaged private account is above and beyond the 12.4% that goes to Social Security. How much of that 12.4% the employee will ever see depends on his lifespan and the continued benevolence and fiscal prudence of the U.S. Congress.

I'm not sure that your assertion is correct. Employers are required to pay money into a super fund of your choice (or an employer default if you don't specify).

You can of course contribute privately to this balance as well, and in fact in some cases the government has matched contributions.

Super is not taxed*, though you can't withdraw till you're over 60.

It does have a lot of flexibility as well. It's possible to set up a 'Self Managed Super Fund' which can be used to buy property, or invest in other ways (though this is fairly tightly regulated).

This is of course not connected to the availability of a pension, should that money ever run out. Which makes it all feel pretty far left.

Employer vs. employee mandatory contribution is an accounting gimmick: The money's all coming from the same place, your employer's bank account.

The difference between the U.S. and Australian systems is that you own an account from the mandatory contribution, while an American owns nothing, it's just a tax to fund current and future benefits that are at the whim of current and future governments.

It's often hard to map political positions across nations. Most recently, George W. Bush was a big proponent of moving toward an "ownership society" with a Social Security system that looked more like Australia's and it was our left that fought the idea.

Australia's system is terrific, performing well and should be a model for the U.S.

And to add to twoddfin's (excellent) response: only half of that 12.4% is paid by the employer, the other half is paid by the employee

Instead of tearing down the people who still have decent jobs, why don't you focus your energy on trying to improve things for the people who don't? There was a time when a factory job that anyone could get was at least as good as the average modern day software job.

What's a perk in USA may actually be standard in other countries.

Yes that's insulting. I better be getting paid at least 200k ON TOP OF those benefits for me to even consider working at Penny Arcade and their "4 jobs in 1".