I also read a topic about “salary” recently here on Radar with great disdain and I was surprised that everyone missed one critical thing, the fact that for some people they are even happy to even take a pay cut when they find the place with the right culture that matches their aspirations. I worked for my uncle for 14 years without a salary and gained quite a lot. That knowledge formed who I am today.
I sometimes wonder if the culture in African ecosystems is about “Salary” comparison and pissing contests? How about a culture that aspires to own a market?
How many African founders actually give a stake to their team and why is that not part of the compensation discussion?
Everyone has to be honest with what their motivations and aspirations are about. Wanting a salary which is in alignment with your skillset/level is a good thing, but we need to consider things on a more holistic level. If salary is the most important thing to you at the time, go for it, if culture, go for it too, if skill development, go for it. Authenticity is key.
One of the reasons people talk about money a lot (esp in Nigeria) is that they assume the culture will be shite. So better pay them. Also, living in African countries can be quite harsh and brutish, and money eases the pain.
That being said, I think it’s completely impossible to build a great company on paying money alone. That is the problem with not going to mention them and not going to mention them either. Eventually, people just leave.
But @asemota, in your book, what are the elements that are required to build a winning culture?
That’s good that that worked out for you, but there are people out there who have dependents or external commitments who can’t afford to make peanuts or nothing because the company’s culture is awesome, especially when they have enough talent to earn more.
People go on and on at the culture at some places like Google, but trust me they won’t be as positive if they were earning a fraction of what their peers are earning.
Culture is important to me, and I would gladly take a job that had great opportunities but not a huge pay. There is a line though, because even the greatest places become a soul-suck when you aren’t earning enough to live comfortably. I mentioned this in the Salary thread and I’ll say it again, environment matters. We can’t keep copying and pasting principles that work in SV and wondering why they don’t work out the same way here. Imagine someone living alone, earning N60k and living in Lagos this past couple of months where power has been non-existent and fuel has been scarce or almost twice the actual value. The underpaid engineer abroad is not facing the same challenges an underpaid engineer in Lagos is.
This feels like a veiled attempt at shaming people who want to earn a better salary (disdain, really?) in a generally low-paid, risky industry. Stock options are unpredictable, reliant on too many external factors, and in more cases than none will end up being near worthless no matter where you are, but especially in this environment where the concept is still fairly new and very few companies get any funding or do anything that actually takes off. That said, like @fran said, I’m hearing more and more of local startups giving this option to their staff.
I doubt it really is a culture versus compensation conundrum. Culture is important. Compensation is equally important. Compensation can influence the culture of an organisation (positively or negatively) – e.g. poorly paid and demotivated employees. The culture of an organisation can influence the compensation structure – investment banking is a good example.
It is about a balance which will differ from person to person, scenario to scenario, organisation to organisation. Also culture means different things to different parties. The reality is people have bills to pay and culture is by no means a legal tender. If the compensation isn’t market-aligned, in the longer-term employees will look for greener pastures.
The employee-employer relationship is a two-way relationship - both parties bring food to the table in one shape or form. Many organisations however treat this as a one-way-top-down monologue - with the employer dominating the conversation.
I recently saw someone tweet “I am looking for an experienced intern…” Who really is an experienced intern? Heck, you might as well say you are looking for Kunta Kinte.
I see only two people actually saw the article I referenced. Maybe I don’t know how this Radar thing works yet but here is it and maybe it will help the conversation
One of the companies we try to benchmark in our own industry is McKinsey. One key thing about Mckinsey is not the money which they pay (and it is very good) it is the culture. We had a session last year where I asked everyone how they would describe who they are and what they do? I got long stories and I responded by telling them that a McKinsey consultant just has to say that they are a McKinsey Consultant and you know what to expect. In fact McKinsey is so confident that they encourage their consultants to go work elsewhere and return. That is how strong that culture is.
I also think that in tech this is very important. The rule is to pay enough so that the issue of money is taken off the table then you focus on culture. When I do interviews and the first thing a person asks is salary, I don’t continue the conversation as it is obvious the person does not realize that money is a given when the quality of the person is not in question. I think someone who worries about salary first is just insecure period and environment has very little to do with it. You can be financially insecure for many reasons but to be professionally insecure is worse.
In an ideal world, the points raised in the article are nothing short of great. The importance of a great workplace culture cannot be downplayed. However, that you read the said thread with great disdain is being highly judgmental and oblivious to the harsh realities many of the commenters probably face. It’s unfair to draw conclusions without first walking a mile in certain shoes and working for your “uncle for 14 years without a salary” isn’t a shoe many are privileged to have.
Back in 2010, I took a pay cut (by half) to work with a technology consulting startup because of the apparent culture I was presented with. That is despite the fact that I had my mom and two siblings as dependents, plus being totally disenfranchised (too strong a word perhaps) from my extended family. I was happy about my decision regardless, had a seat on the board, (edit: an official car too) and was able to see my own ideas built into a product I was proud of - Eyowo. Two years down the line, it turned out it wasn’t the smartest decision. The culture had eroded, focus was lost, greed of gargantuan proportions had set in, and I ended up calling it quits. Today, the product no longer exist, company no longer operational and whatever stake I had is now worthless.
When I do interviews, I appreciate the jobseeker’s concern for how much they would be paid if hired. I don’t pretend to know what realities they are faced with. I believe it is my responsibility to sell to them the company’s culture with honesty, and if in the end it turns out I cannot afford them, fine. What I wouldn’t do is turn anyone down because they consider the monetary value of their livelihood important, culture regardless.
The absurdity of these comments–especially that last one–aside, sounds like you have some personal experience with trying to hire someone you couldn’t afford and they didn’t buy the ‘but our culture is great and stock options111!!!’ alternative you spun. Or maybe you’ve been doing well for so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to struggle.
If not I don’t understand how you can even suggest being professionally insecure (whatever this means) is WORSE than being POOR.
Like the others have said, it’s a balance. A good salary is not a guarantee even when you’re talented, which is why people enquire about it. Hell yes, they’re ‘insecure’, have you seen how much most local devs earn? How many companies sell the pipe dream of big things? You sound like those freelance clients that say that the experience/referrals will be the reward for a dev’s work.
Culture, Compensation, and Equity are all important for the long term commitment and success of your team. The degree of importance is subjective.
Economic parity is often overlooked when seeking co-founders or employees, and initially it is assumed that equity would suffice until it’s too late. Everyone has a risk threshold (which is perhaps below zero for Elon Musk).
The Buffer App salary model addresses this problem in dignified way. Everyone get’s a basic salary, and then more or less based on how much equity they want in the startup.
I use the word dignified because I have learnt not to be quick to judge in these matters, people are different and everyone has their unique challenges.
A good read on this topic could be Ben Horowitz’s ‘The Hard thing about Hard things’:
“We could not afford air-conditioning, and all three children were crying as my father and I sat there sweating in the 105-degree heat.
My father turned to me and said, “Son, do you know what’s cheap?”
Since I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I replied, “No, what?”
“Flowers. Flowers are really cheap. But do you know what’s expensive?” he asked.
Again, I replied, “No, what?”
He said, “Divorce.”
Excerpt From: Horowitz, Ben. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.”
> Put people first and every other thing will be added unto you. Thanks @Tonianni
“X”, Thanks for your more dignified and mature response to my comment in spite of personal experience and pain. This isn’t an AMA but I will respond to this comment with some personal experience.
I also worked for a company many years ago called GICEN Technologies where the pay was shyte and we had to wait until “Oga” was around before we got paid. It was the catalyst that propelled me into entrepreneurship as I realized I could not continue to earn “18k a year” (yes that low) all my life. It was even more damning that my fellow grads got that same amount monthly in the oil and gas industry. GICEN was however the place I learned first “what not to do as an entrepreneur (VERY IMPORTANT) and secondly, where I met my co-founder”.
Someone said recently on Facebook that you rewrite your CV daily and each new day adds to experience and whatever I felt were shortcomings in that workplace was countered by the freedom they gave us to learn and choose the type of clients we work with. It was really bad for me financially after NYSC with only one pair of shoes and no permanent house but the relationships I managed to build there ended up becoming those that allowed us to build a new business for the rest of my lifetime.
I went for a couple of interviews while there but never left because those other places did not give me the same freedom to learn.
What happened after was that I made a choice. A conscious one after I believed I had learned enough and also had enough of Lagos. I went back to school to increase my externally perceived value with an MBA. It was while there I started a business and made all my blunders then understood how easy it was in the same environment to fall into the traps the founder of GICEN did. I also made a conscious choice to get apprenticeship under my uncle for 14 long years as I realized I knew nothing and was making too many blunders.
In summary, it is all about personal choices. There is no point talking about circumstance when as a techie you actually have the power to change it. I believe that is what those in tech fail to realize and should be the last to complain about compensation.
I am currently at I/O in San Francisco and yesterday I watched a presentation by the founder of Udacity. He mentioned something that in the past (compensation) was an issue when employment was for a lifetime. Now things change so rapidly that you are really more in control of your destiny by what you know and what you can do. As the owner of human capital you carry around, how long employment lasts is usually determined by you and not those external forces. If you leave yourself to those forces then you are entirely to blame.
A lady in the audience in a tearful testimony mentioned how 7 months before she had no knowledge of how to code and no job but now she has a startup with 12000 paying customers.
The world has changed, so lets change with it. I mentioned to the Nigerians at the event that their competition for jobs was not those in Nigeria but everyone walking on the streets of San Francisco and other global cities.
Francis, with the right culture, people put themselves first. You must have heard of the philosophy of “Employees first, customers second” at HCL? That is my mantra as well. Read more about HCL and their culture then you will understand where I am coming from. Don’t believe the Capitalists or the Socialists. Believe in People.
In summary, “tech culture” is not “civil service culture”. We do ourselves a disservice by not understanding that the forces shaping tech are not local but global. There is the marco then the micro culture that are both linked. Compensation is important but really it is determined by culture and how much you have improved your personal capital. There is no entitlement in tech, it is a meritocracy. Because it is meritocracy, the power shifts to the provider of the knowledge and not those paying the provider. It is something I struggle to explain to people who complain about “jobs” and “pay”.
You can have your 12 with 1 Judas
You can have your 12 with 11 Judas
But the Possibility of Having a 12 with no Judas can very much mean that every person (including the leader) displays genuine willingness founded on a mutual understanding to put the interest/welfare of the group above her/his own. And that’s CULTURE. It’s source is a fundamental human need (Love and Belonging) and a deeper connection to WHY the organization exists (Think the Military). This does not mean that it cannot be ABUSED.
Compensation on the other hand is not Pay. Pay is just one form of Compensation and indeed, there are other forms…
Paying Huge Salaries, Giving Employees Limited or Unlimited Time off Work, Resting in Pods, Playing Games, Getting Heavy on Free Meals, Embarking on Fun-filled Trips and the likes are just different ways of compensating employees for belonging to an Organization. Some/A Lot never truly Belong.
And so, I choose to see it not as a ‘Versus’ thing but rather, as an ‘In-Sync’ thing. For just Like a Front-End has to come in perfect Synchrony with the Back-End for that Software to work properly, so also Compensation will have to be in Perfect Synchrony with Culture for that Organization to work properly.
For when Compensation pays weak respects to Culture or comes to be as a stand-alone, then Compensation in itself can also mean Manipulation. For a deeper self never felt connected to the cause or to the belief driving that organization.
The Organization may belong to you, but you belong to the Culture. The Culture doesn’t belong to you and it draws its Strength from the Group.
