Paying more than what the job is actually creating in value isn't a fair wage. It's the type of thing that is likely to put a company out of business. Then instead of having a 70k job they didn't earn they are unemployed.

It's funny to me how many people on HN are criticizing this decision and making semi-insulting comments about how people aren't creating enough value for the company to deserve the pay increase.

First, paying the CEO less and employees more isn't going to put the company out of business because it's all just payroll.

Second, the people actually making the decision know far better than you how much value their employees are adding to the company and whether it's worth cutting into profit to pay them more.

When you've bootstrapped your own company, hired hundreds of employees, and are making millions of dollars in profit, you can pay your employees whatever you want. Until then, stop shitting on this guy's plan to do something cool for people.

But the employees are creating more value than they are being paid. The company is a going concern and are still making a profit even while paying everyone at least $70k.

OTOH, take a startup that's paying everyone over $120k and is running in the red on VC money. Those employees aren't (yet) creating enough value to cover their salary.

It's just that it's become so ingrained that companies must maximize profit for their owners at the expense of the employees that we've lost sight of whether it's right or not. (I posit it's not.)

Indeed. I think it's pretty ridiculous how critical people here are of these raises. It's as if Dan is doing something unnatural when he's not maximising his own profits.

A reason we have seen through history is that company owners often use as an argument that it can't possibly work for all kinds of reasons. If someone pays more (or cuts working time) and remains successful it creates an example of viability, and also changes the market - even if only slightly in the case of a single small company like this - and at least some people worry it will affect them to.

If the employees aren't creating enough value, then where is all the profit coming from? Did the CEO catch a leprechaun?

It's never a particularly compelling argument to start from the position that you can't understand that other people hold opinions different from yours.