Salary Negotiation - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh-doody/ <comment><USER2> I've heard this "don't name a number first" advice so many times, but personally, it never seems to work. My current comp is significantly higher compared to others with my level of experience. So when I refuse to give a number, the recruiter ends up guessing a number that is significantly lower, and making a lowball offer. I've also had many other experiences where after many hours of interviews, I find out that the company is unable to make me a competitive offer, because my current comp is too high. I'm seriously considering abandoning this advice in future, and simply just naming my comp expectations right at the start.

<comment><USER3> I am a recruiter and I will tell you this: you should abandon this advice, for certain.

It's funny - probably the best advice anyone ever gives on negotiation is exactly the opposite of "don't name a number first." It's "anchor high." You should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and negotiating from a position of strength. This is especially true for senior- and late- career individuals who have some experience under their belt.

<comment><USER4> > You should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and > negotiating from a position of strength.

I very much agree with you and my other comments in this thread are very much advocating for this position. I'd just like to add an important caveat by saying anecdotally in multiple occasions I've seen friends (notably people who are just moving in to the Valley from elsewhere and/or right out of college) tend to widely underestimate the "realistic" estimation in your advice (they know in abstract that salaries are "high" but don't necessarily concretely know _how high_ ), and therefore following it can be dangerous and would mean lowballing themselves. Hence, not saying anything might result in a better net result end of the day.

<comment><USER5> Want to name some numbers? Ideally with context.

I'd like to know how high is high in SV. Especially for junior positions.

<comment><USER6> I'd say if you're in SV, have a pretty good background, interview at top- paying public firms like Google/Facebook, get good scores, and negotiate very well, you can expect around

      - new grad: ~175k
      - 4 years: ~300k
      - 6 years: ~350k

Note that I'm including equity, expected cash bonuses, 401k matching, and sign-on bonuses (which I normally divide by 4, since 4 years seems like a typical period to stay at these companies).

<comment><USER7> the 4/6 year ones are way too high unless you're going for some sort of specific role they need. like if you specialize in robotics or machine learning

<comment><USER6> The 4 year number is mostly from my own experience. I interviewed recently, and my highest offers (after significant negotiation) were

      ~316k from a public company
      290k~350k from a private company, depending on which valuation you use (409a vs preferred)

Again, this is including equity, expected cash bonuses, etc. I have 4~5 years experience and no unique skills.

The key is to get at least 2-3 offers around the same time, do a lot of research, and be mindful about what info you share when negotiating. When a recruiter asks about salary expectations, I think it's good to share a number, but it could be your current salary, a competing offer, or just a (substantially high) target number. And it could be base salary, or blended compensation. Share the bits of info which are most advantageous to you, and keep the rest private.

The new grad and 8 year numbers are from some info friends have shared with me, and some public info (like the spreadsheet that appeared on HN a while ago, and some info individuals have shared on Quora).

<comment><USER8> Are these numbers before or after pitting competing companies against each other?

<comment><USER6> After; my first offer was substantially lower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We're really trying to nail a good way to deal with salary negotiations when onboarding people, at GrantTree - one that gets out of this "gotcha" approach to salary.

So far the best we've figured out is to be the first ones to name a number, and be super-transparent about how we arrived at that number.

The reasoning is that "in a salary negotiation the first person to quote a number loses", so since we (as the employer) are in a naturally stronger position, we deliberately "lose" upfront to avoid forcing the other person into a negotiation dynamic where they're going to try and push it as high as they can, and we end up trying to push it as low as we can. I think everyone loses out from this, and it starts the working relationship with distrust.

Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale), along with the number this maps to, and the full pay scale, and the list of how much everyone is being paid in the company so they know where they stand (anonymised, because not everyone is comfortable yet with someone who is not yet a team member knowing their salary).

So far we've successfully used this process once and it led to a great onboarding experience. It's a recent development. I hope it continues to work, and allows us to avoid the games described in this very helpful podcast. I thought I'd share it in case other employers here are struggling with the same question.

This won't work in every company. Have a read through [http://danieltenner.com/open-cultures/](http://danieltenner.com/open- cultures/) if you want to understand more about how we run the company - hugely important in making this work.

<comment><USER5> _Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion /reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale)_

None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary.

You say I'm worth $X. I go get a job offer for $Y. If $Y > $X, you were mistaken.

It's both as easy and as hard as that, for candidates. If you want to get anywhere close to your earning potential, you'll have to have more than one option when job seeking.

It doesn't matter what you're paying other employees or whether that information is known to employees.

EDIT: To clarify, this is about market value, not intrinsic value.

<comment><USER9> No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc.

Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay scale.

If your main concern is getting paid as much as possible then we're probably not the right place for you to work anyway. We try to pay well but we certainly can't afford to pay as much as, for example, banking, or Facebook. Importantly, we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working with us if money is their primary motivation. They won't like it here.

To answer a likely reflex-response to this: that doesn't mean we think people should be working for free, or that we judge people who want to earn more money. It's totally fine to want to make more money. Different people have different expectations and requirements at different stages of their life though.

<comment><USER10> > Importantly, we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working > with us if money is their primary motivation.

Are you a charity doing good work with orphans? Or are you a business trying to make as much money for the investors as possible? If the latter is true, why wouldn't someone work for you with "money as the primary motivator" ?

(This is not Rhetorical, I actually know nothing about your business. But I do see this argument a lot from companies that are 100% for profit and do nothing to better the world)

<comment><USER9> Neither. We're a purposeful, for-profit, founder-owned[1] company. Just because we are for-profit doesn't mean profit is our only motivation. It's a false dichotomy to suggest that because you want to make money that must be your only driver.

Our view of business is that, much like humans, it can achieve and balance multiple objectives. You want to make money: does that mean you want only that to the exclusion of or above other objectives like finding love, raising children, being a good person, etc? I assume not. We want to make money: does that mean we want only that to the exclusion of or above other objectives like having fulfilling work, working in an open organisation, being respectful of others, etc? No.

[1] Though opening up the shares to employees within the next couple of months... it's taken a while to put the right system in place. Options wouldn't work because we have no intention of ever selling the business.

Edit: Given your clarified question, I will also add that what we do is to help other tech businesses to raise government funding so they can develop cool tech. Many of them have raised money from investors - I don't think that necessarily means that their only purpose is money (though it's certainly true of some). See argument above.

<comment><USER10> So why would I accept less money from you than my market rate, so that you, the founder, can make more money? At the end of the day there is 1 pie, why should I donate part of my pie to you?

<comment><USER11> Because the job is more interesting than the alternatives? Because there is room for major career growth? Because the work/life balance is better? There are tons of reasons it would be preferable to take a lower-paying job. Salary is by far not the only consideration (and for some, not even the most important one).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It was always pretty simple for me personally, If you don't want to pay me what I want, you are free to hire someone else.

I find the most important part is being able to walk away, If you negotiate from a position of weakness or need you are behind already.

If I am hiring I know what I can afford to pay, what I think the position is "worth" and what I want out of it and make an offer according.

I like ideally to pay for work not for hours etc, if you give me what I want I don't care if I am paying you $3000 dollars and you worked a half hour and slept for a week out of town, I would consider that smart and efficient.

I find its the person who is applying that has the power not the company and I think that's an important lesson for people who are applying to learn. If "they" are not willing to pay me what I want, that puts us on a bad start already.

<comment><USER13> > I find its the person who is applying that has the power not the company

I think you are assuming the person applying has some sort of safety net (a current job, savings, alternate income.) That is where the BATNA comes into play. Sure, if you are already making an acceptable amount of money to meet your needs, aren't overworked/over-stressed, and relatively satisfied then you are indeed in a position of power. If you need to get hired some place within 2 months and have been having trouble getting a job then you very well might not be in a position of power. Not all people have the ability to walk away.

<comment><USER12> Then the person applying will be in a position of weakness. That to me is letting "worry" even if real drag you down. I think when you really need something it is even more important to negotiate from a position of strength, if not they will sense it and pick it apart.

In some ways its much like dating, does anyone really want the desperate type ?

<comment> vertex-four "Always be able to walk away" is not very good advice to people who don't have the option to walk away, whether people should always have that option or not in a perfect world. "Pretend you're able to walk away" possibly is, but not everyone's good at playing games like that.

The alternative to not working is, eventually, losing almost everything you have. The alternative to not having a romantic partner is, well, not having a romantic partner. You're not going to die from lack of love.

<comment><USER12> "always be able to walk away" to me includes never allowing yourself to be in a position where you cant walk away. I think of that as an actual survival trait not just a business skill.

I would also say never pretend, actually be willing to walk away. Someone good at psychology or picking up subtle clues will see right through pretending.

Anyway you slice it being desperate is never good, don't be desperate.

<comment> vertex-four What a wonderful piece of advice. "Never get in a bad situation!" \- people don't intentionally get into bad situations, really, believe it or not.

<comment><USER14> Just pick yourself up from your boot straps! Or cash in some of that 2m trust your Dad left you. Come on this isn't hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Let me share my horror story -- I fell for a company that offered me the same salary (no raise despite big promotion.) Then, he (Division CTO of Fortune 500 medical company) started subtracting salary from this baseline for all my "benefits" like free shuttles, 401k matching, etc. I was supposed to take the lower wage in exchange for amazing work, 3 fully paid conferences a year, yada yadda.

Two months into joining, the shuttle went from free to paid. Ouch. Then, the manager expected me to stay late 3x a week, which meant i could not even take the shuttle 3x a week, and instead have to take a taxi. Still not enough salary to buy a car + insurance + parking. Then policy changed and 401k match disappeared. Finally, policy changed and all conference reimbursements ended. Final blow -- my PDP is tied to 3 conference posters a year, so i pay out of pocket for travel/registration/hotel.

By the way, the work is great, but i'm paying so much out of pocket that i'm getting the hell out of there. Sucks for me. Sucks for the manager too -- I spend half the day now doing eLance projects.

<comment><USER16> You are probably trying to show us how bad your employer is. What I'm reading though, is how you should have walked away at least 5 times in the process.

What part of the work is actually "great" btw. I would guess you don't have any other job yet. Because everything sounds very horrible.

<comment><USER15> It has been a year now. I moved to a high-cost-of-living area where even owning a car is expensive. There is a cost to moving back as well. A lot of it is psychological - I cannot believe i allowed myself to be fooled so badly, it has really shaken my confidence in HR and hiring managers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two ways to answer the "current salary" question

\- say that your salary expectations depend on the work, the people, the work hours, vacation policy, etc, so it's too early to discuss salary, or

\- ask what the company pays people in the same position. They won't tell you, but that establishes concretely that it's private information.

If they do share the information with you, you can respond with "my expectations are higher", or "that's within my expectations". And then if they persist in asking yours, you can choose to answer or to stonewall. You got the data, so now the mystery is over and you have control of the conversation.

This comes across weak, phony, and panderish:

> I think the best way to answer the current salary part is to say something, > like that you're not comfortable sharing that information, and you prefer to > focus on the value that you can add to the company, and not what you're paid > at your current job

This sounds clownish, like playing a game:

> "Well, if you're trying to qualify me for a range, why don't you tell me the > range, and I'll tell you if I'm in the ballpark?"

This sounds wonky and comes across as an insincere:

> "I've been entrusted with a variety of information by my current firm. I > intend to keep their confidences on that sort of thing. They consider their > salary compensation private.

<comment><USER18> Agree with most of this. However I'd say that asking "can you share your range" when appended to your first recommended response can be very powerful.

By making clear that you don't have enough info about the opportunity to properly value it, but recognizing that they need to qualify you based on their range, you're putting the ball firmly in their court to bring more data to the table.

Companies who remain firm about not giving out any info but demanding a salary from you are probably not places you want to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've had multiple situations where I did answer (honestly, too - before I knew any better) the "dreaded" question up front and had the recruiter tell me: "Wow. You must work for a really great company! We can't even come close to matching that." Process ended right there, countless time saved. So, as with all things, YMMV.

<comment><USER20> Same here. As soon as I say what I make recruiters usually congratulate me on making what I make and won't call me back. So recruiters are only good for run of the mill, entry level folks, not really for highly skilled or specialized developers.

<comment><USER21> If they're just looking for butts in seats, why do crooters stop talking to you unless you have at least n years experience (n often quite large) in the client's exact tech stack? "They're looking for a candidate who's ready to hit the ground running..."

<comment><USER22> Because they don't want to waste their time on someone their client won't agree to hire. It's a numbers game, and from a time perspective, meeting you for coffee and shopping your resume around isn't completely free.

Years of experience in the client's stack are a pretty good proxy for whether the employer will want to talk to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Whenever I am negotiating a salary, even if I have to reveal what I make now, I will end that statement with "But based on my experience and value that I bring to the table, I am expecting at least xyz for my new role otherwise it is not worth it for me to quit my current job".

This way, you make the whole "current salary" irrelevant. The point is that any good employer will NEVER let go of a candidate who is an excellent fit for their role but they had a huge gap in current vs desired. They only let go of candidates who either are not a good fit OR are asking for a very very high number that is literally out of the budget assigned (more applicable to larger corps.). But then again, it has nothing to do with current salary crap.

<comment><USER24> Completely agreed on negotiating without the "current salary" perspective.

I've always requested to keep my current salary secret, but I've never met a hiring manager/HR recruiter that's ok with this. I suppose knowing what I make comforts them that their offer isn't completely crazy, but I think it's also evidence of a disturbing bias against the unemployed/underemployed.

<comment><USER25> > I've never met a hiring manager/HR recruiter that's ok with this

There's a very simple position to take here: "My compensation is a function of the value I will be providing to your company, not the value I provide to my current employer."

Be assertive. At least in the United States, short of a backchannel reference check, a prospective employer has absolutely no way of confirming anything you say - a fact that can be brought to light if this kind of question ever comes up.

At the moment, for good talent, it's a seller's market.

> evidence of a disturbing bias against the unemployed/underemployed

There is a definite bias against un(der)employed. This has been well studied. Furthermore: your BATNA while employed is infinitely better (for most people).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hi everyone! That's me you hear talking to Patrick ;) If you have any questions about the episode or salary negotiation in general, ask away! As you can probably tell, I love talking about this stuff!

<comment><USER27> Most discussions about salary negotiation are about postponing the money discussion until we know there's a fit. But what do you do when you-as- applicant need to be sure you're not wasting your time (or theirs)?

That is: I'm really senior in my field, with 25 years of experience, and for several years I've been commanding top dollar. (I'm worth it, too!) But often I start discussions with would-be employers (or clients), wherein the work sounds enjoyable, and they clearly are falling in love with me... and then a half hour later (or three days later) we come around to money ranges, only to discover their budget is half what I'd consider accepting.

I can end off with, "I hope you do really well, so that you can afford me sometime soon!" but I'm always saddened and frustrated by the process. Because by that point I'm imagining how cool it would be to do that job.

How do I signal to a client, "I'm expensive -- and worth it!" without saying, "Hey, can you afford me? Because otherwise let's not even talk."

<comment><USER28> Have you thought about lowering the hours worked per week? For instance, if they aren't willing to pay you a 40hr/week salary, would they be alright paying you less but you only work 25hr/week (putting in enough productivity in those hours to warrant paying such a high price for your services)

<comment><USER27> I've done that. In fact, the last client I got responded to my rate by saying, "We can't afford that." So I said, "I can't lower my rate, but we can see what I can accomplish with 50% of the hours." And I got the gig. We're now towards the end of that contract, and now both of us are in a better position to know what/whether I can deliver what I promise.

Still you have to know what you're going into. If I'm looking for a 40/hr week gig (consulting or staff), I'm going to be less thrilled with 20 hours a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So something I'd like to get advice on is: what do you do negotiation-wise if actually salary is not the thing you care most about? Suppose you (for health reasons or just because you don't need the extra money and like the reduced stress) want or need to work less than the usual five-day week -- at what point do you bring up the "hey, how about a four-day week" question, when the typical employer is looking for a five-day-a-week full time employee? If you raise it early then it seems like they're just going to file your application in the bin, but bringing it up only at the end seems kind of awkwardly blindsiding them...

(I can see how it would work negotiating this as an already-established employee where you're a known quantity to the employer and they'd rather not lose you altogether, but not how to get that kind of setup from the start with a new employer.)

<comment><USER30> It seems like the same principle is in play: demonstrate your value first, then talk about terms after they're sold on you and want to make an offer. I can't imagine any company that would flat-out refuse a talented candidate over a 4-day week request, but I think most would sideline you if it was brought up before you'd demonstrated the value you can add to their business. In fact, I'll bet many companies would view a 10% paycut for a 10% reduction in hours (4 days @ 9 hrs/day) as a no-brainer win to get a talented hire.

<comment><USER31> I don't think so. 4 day work week would be a deal breaker for most companies. If Joe gets hired in and never works Fridays pretty soon everyone else will want Fridays off too. Salary is irrelevant, it's human nature.

<comment><USER30> I previously had a colleague reduce days in exchange for a pay cut, it was clearly messaged to us (a small startup) that there was a tradeoff happening, and the rest of us were happy to make more money working 5 days/week. I think the human nature part is wanting to be treated fairly -- it's unfair if you get paid the same and work less, but it feels fair if you make more money for working more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The main thing that I liked about using Hired.com during a previous job search was that they made the salary offers very transparent during the bidding phase and it completely avoided sticking me, the candidate, with the salary question. By the time I started interviewing at companies their initial salary offer was more than what I would have been able to negotiate myself, mostly because I didn't even know to ask for that much.

</comment><comment><USER33> Two things we have done to fix the waste of time, human energy, and shenanigans around salaries:

1) Post salaries with job descriptions. (e.g. seneca.systems/careers/growth/go-to-market-strategist-product-marketer)

2) Pin salaries to job position[1]. We do not allow individuals to negotiate their salary separately from their position. If you have the same position, you make the same salary.

[1]: [https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/mast...](https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/master/compensation/salary.markdown)

<comment><USER34> "We do not allow individuals to negotiate their salary separately from their position. If you have the same position, you make the same salary."

This is great from a company perspective, but it essentially allows a company to get an employee at a much cheaper rate. Employees with more experience will get the same pay rate for the same job as someone with potentially much less.

Since all companies don't do this, I probably wouldn't ever work for your company knowing this is your policy. I bring much more value to a company with all of the experience and knowledge that I've gained.

At my last 9-5 job, I was able to get paid almost 20% more than many of my co- workers because of my negotiating skills and experience.

I just have to shake my head when I see so many people fighting for less power, rights, and inevitably less money and calling it a 'win'.

But, this doesn't really matter to me anymore. I've owned my own company for the last 5 years and don't need to negotiate my own salary.

<comment><USER35> Don't companies that try that sort of thing usually have well defined bands? Software Engineer I, II, III, etc?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My observation is that salary negotiation has little to do with negotiation. The management side of the table is never thinking in terms of economics and has no idea what their BATNA is.

I think this comes from HR and leadership which can't quantify what the right balance is for comp vs their BATNA.

For engineers this is especially challenging because metrics are hard to come by and correlate with the $$$ going out the door.

<comment><USER15> I've been working for over a decade. There is ONE and ONLY ONE rule i've seen universally followed by HR -- your pay rises with the # of people reporting to you. Regardless of whatever managers say about running a lean shop or budget or whatever -- the more people you hire and manager, the more money you make. If you can do the work in six months, tell them 18 and hire two others. If you can do the work with 4 FTEs, tell them 12 FTEs and get a nice promotion. Increase employment, get great documentation and unit tests, and play to the foolish HR policies HR has cooked up. When people get paid for productivity, then switch to lean. Until then, play to the metric they set.

<comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This just seems like a walkthrough how to educate a shitty manager who got their "business-degree" from dilbert comic strips. The last thing a manager wants to do is to lowball a guy who's performance depends on his own good faith. If I have to explain to the manager why this is a bad idea and why he is putting me at disadvantage while keeping key information from me and using sleazy tactics he saw in the "boiler room" against me then how can I trust this guy to have my back in the future?

I got to say this almost never happens in the big5 companies nowadays. There are countless internal trainings for recruiters specifically not to do stuff like that and especially anything remotely similar to what you see in pop- culture. I mean what are the chances none of your candidates would have seen "Suits" or "The Wolf from Wall Str." after all? Even if you manage to hire somebody below their market rate it will be just a few months hanging out with peers and he will find out and be resentful.

<comment><USER38> It turns out there are a lot more than 5 companies out there in the marketplace... And if you think you got a fair initial offer you almost certainly did not.

<comment><USER37> I referred to top5 just as an example of professionalism, possibly backed by tons of data and analytics internally too. Which to me means it's the best methodology currently known.

Well if I didn't get a fair initial offer then the manager must think the risk of me finding out will not affect his goals. I accept that, as long as they accept it too. But I don't want to find out I was lied to and then expect me to be loyal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The original blog post is one of the best reads on the topic. Especially for people who never tried to negotiate before or always failed.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary- negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

</comment><comment><USER40> My fantasy negotiation scenario:

ME: "Ok so you are willing to pay me 200k to work 8-9 hours a day, how about paying me 100k to work 4-5 hours a day?"

THEM: "sounds awesome"

<comment><USER41> What would be a realistic path to negotiating part time when full time work is expected?

<comment><USER40> Yeah, I don't know, hence the "fantasy" adjective. But, somewhat realistically, the cream of my day lasts on average about 4 hours (longer when i'm hot, shorter when i'm not). So this really would be a bargain for an employer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Love these, but patio11 needs a better microphone setup, its so echo-y and robotic! Please take this as helpful feedback rather than hurtful criticism.

<comment><USER43> It's actually less the microphone and more that I recorded this at my coworking space, whose only room for recording is literally a glass box. I'm going to try to find another room to do podcasts in -- the audio engineer flagged it, too, but shipped beats perfect.

<comment><USER44> If you're stuck with recording in that room, perhaps you could try getting something like an SE Electronics Reflexion Filter? It's like a tiny vocal booth just for your microphone, to block reflected sounds.

[http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion- filter-x/](http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-x/) [http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter- pro/](http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-pro/)

Not sure of RRP in Japan, but someone is selling the RF-x on eBay US for $80. (I don't have one myself but I've been meaning to get one for years, didn't even know they had a home-studio model until just now.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Has anyone tried to beat the interviewer to the punch on the salary question? Put them on the spot by asking their range before they hit you with it?

<comment><USER46> Yes, but it's typically a factor of a bad HR department.

Don't let the recruiter hang up on that first phone screen without satisfying yourself that they could make a competitive offer. Otherwise, you're just wasting time. They should have the same desire, hence this is only an issue with bad HR departments.

It's not worth it to jump to salary immediately. You come off as either selfish or naive.

So yes, I've done it. You get to the end of that call, and you realize you haven't talked compensation. So you tie in with interest and next steps: "Sounds like I could be a great fit for this position, and I look forward to talking further with the team to confirm that. I do want to make sure we're on the same page in terms of compensation..." Then you go from there.

<comment><USER25> > You come off as either selfish or naive.

Or, if framed appropriately, expensive and valuable.

Your time is money. You do not want to waste it on a role that has compensatory packages beneath what you'd be willing to take. You are a professional doing another professional a favor.

Framing this correctly is a bit more nuanced, however.

If you're talking to an external recruiting or staffing agency, however: immediately jump to salary. They will not hesitate and have no opinion on you as a candidate. You're saving their time and they're not emotionally staked in the possible negotiations to come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What follows is an honest salary determination process, where no party has incentive to lie. It is also very fast. The rules are as follows. (Can't remember where I read about this.)

The company and the candidate write on a piece of paper a salary. The company should write the number above which it is not willing to pay the candidate. The candidate writes the number under which she/he is not willing to work for that company.

The numbers are disclosed. If there is an overlap, they sign a contract and the salary is the average of the two numbers. Otherwise, there is no hiring.

Edit: the parties can play this game only once

<comment><USER48> you still have a strong incentive to lie, do you not? Since the final salary is the average of the two numbers, employers want to go as low as they can and prospects want to go as high as they can.

in fact, this system punishes honesty even more than the current one -- if I am honest and the other person is dishonest, the dishonest person wins because they will pull the average in the direction they want and I get a worse deal than if we were both honest.

<comment><USER47> Say the candidate is honest, wants 120k and writes down 120k.

Say the company honestly wants candidate ufo 130k or less. Company plays is dishonest card and writes down 110k. Then the candidate leaves and there is no hire. If company had been honest she would have hired a fitting candidate for 125k, less than the most that company was willing to offer (130k).

<comment><USER48> say the candidate wants 150 but would take as low as 120. so she writes down 120. she's actually worth 150.

the company is willing to hire her at up to 150. But instead, they say 130.

She gets hired at 125 as a result. If they had negotiated, they certainly would have settled closer to 150. Her honesty cost her 12k/yr. The company profits immensely from its dishonesty as long as they say a number just above the candidate's lowest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > How to avoid the "What is your desired salary?" question

Already off to a bad start. Just like we assume that advertisements without a salary range will be shitty salaries, employers assume applicants who dodge this question have a shitty BATNA. A good answer to this question is "x% more than I'm making now, and high enough to outbid competing offers from companies A, B and C." But if you want to avoid answering the question, a good response is "you advertised at 80k-100k, and that is admissable, but you will need to beat offers from companies A, B and C."

</comment><comment><USER50> I disagree with the advice on avoiding the "what is your target comp" in current market conditions. Unless the market gets a lot worse- give the number that would make you happy and expect to get it.

Generally, in a startup the last thing I want to spend time on is replacing good engineers because their salary was below market.

In short- If I want to hire the person - I just give them the number they ask for. Recruiting is the worst time sink and better to spend time on retaining the folks you have and improving your business.

</comment><comment><USER51> One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers, by default, maintain a very high correlation with nonassertiveness and dearth of social skills. Those stereotypes exist for a reason. For most of us, these factors are baked into our essence from childhood, and are virtually impossible to break. In the absence of concrete interaction examples or a corpus of negotiation scripts to analyze, none of his vague advice is useful for many of us.

<comment><USER52> "One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers..."

It seems far more likely to me that Patrick has made it such a focus for him to share this advice is that he is _intensely aware_ of it, rather than what you said.

<comment><USER51> Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate his motivation, but I doubt he fully comprehends the psychology he's up against. Apologies if I come across as too un-appreciatively negative toward his efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you aware that he was (is) a developer himself, long before he became an evangelist of charging more?

<comment><USER51> Yes, I'm quite aware of this fact. But he's a socially competent developer, and my point still stands about those of us who are not.

<comment><AUTHOR> "No true scotsman."

Would you prefer advice from a socially _in_ competent developer?

If I'm at point A and want to reach point B, I'd value advice from someone who went A->B (and now comfortably sitting at B) more than from someone who is still stuck in A with me.

<comment> T-hawk Perhaps. If one is a socially incompetent developer, it's quite possible that one might find advice from another socially incompetent developer to be more relevant and actionable than advice from a socially competent developer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Having been on both sides of the hiring process many times, there's some useful tactical ideas in this podcast, but in my experience tactics should only play a small role.

As a candidate for a job, before you go to any interview (even a phone screen) you need to know what the local market salary range is for the type of job in you are applying for. If you don't know that, you're in a position of weakness and any amount of verbal judo isn't going to be useful.

A good hiring manager will not try to cheat you - they will make you a fair and reasonable offer. It might be at the low end of reasonable, but nevertheless it will be reasonable. If they give you a ridiculous lowball, they're not a good hiring manager, and at that point you should just walk away. Even if they come back with a reasonable offer. You don't want to work for a company or a boss that thinks that's ok to do to people.

A good hiring manager will not ask you your current salary. They might ask you early in the process: "what are your salary expectations?". It is acceptable to not name a number and just say something to the effect of "competitive market salary" which should signal to the hiring manager that you know what that range is, as does he, and you're good with that. If you need to give a number, just state range near the top of the local market salary range and move on. Yes, there's a theoretical risk that you've anchored yourself lower than they might pay, but you've anchored yourself at the top of the market range - not exactly a terrible outcome.

Caveat: this advice might not apply when dealing with a recruiter.

</comment><comment><USER54> Go on 2 interviews a year no matter what.

Always ask for more than you think you'll be able to get.

Ignore talk about culture if they think that makes up for salary - it doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER55> Re: stock options: I built [http://optionvalue.io](http://optionvalue.io) as a tool to help engineers at startups understand what their options are worth.

Even if you don't know anything about stock options, it will walk you step-by- step through the numbers you need, give you a value, and show you the math behind that number.

</comment><comment><USER56> I hate salary negotiations. I'm just not good at them. Especially when I'm forced to do it on the phone.

Right now I'm earning a good chunk less than my coworkers with same or lower working experience and it's slightly annoying. On the other side I know of a really good coworker that earns even less than me.

I'm a strong supporter of open salaries. Don't give people who can negotiate better more but implement a system that applies to everyone the same. Take seniority into account, work experience, a base and calculate the salary of every engineer based on that. Fair and open.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think the most important bit about negotiation that I've learned and read is this: if you're not willing to walk away, your attempts to negotiate will fail. If you're not willing to say "sorry we can't come to a middle ground here" and leave the conversation with no regrets, you'll eventually cave in and lose. (This has been my biggest problem wrt salary negotiations. When I get an offer from a company that I like, I'm almost always unwilling to give it up. Having multiple offers on the table is the best alternative to this.)

</comment><comment><USER58> Patrick, it seems like this latest episode isn't available on iTunes. Maybe it's related to the error message I see when I load the feed in my browser [0]

> This page contains the following errors:

> error on line 3559 at column 476: Input is not proper UTF-8, indicate > encoding ! Bytes: 0xE3 0x81 0xA8 0xE3

[0] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed/)

<comment><USER43> It's in iTunes. Sometimes there is a delay for them to crawl the feed. Another issue might be that, if you haven't listened to me recently, your client might not grab updates. (Totally reasonable since nothing was published in several months.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Josh Doody has been doing great talks on this for a while. Haven't read the article, but I've heard some of his other work. Should be a good read.

</comment><comment><USER60> Just throw out the number you want, after giving them the clear picture that you think they're more or less making a mistake. Go high. All they can do is counter.

I've seen a salary number printed in the initial job ad. If that number doesn't work for me, I don't pursue the ad. If they ask me for a number, that's the number they get - with the observation that it was printed on the ad.

</comment><comment><USER61> The problem with more salary is more responsibility. More likely to be cut if you don't perform at the level commensurate with the salary.

<comment><USER62> Yep, and this really becomes a problem has you advance in years. I'm a programmer and have been for almost 20 years. When you're younger, you are always negotiating upwards. When you're at a job making 70k and you leave, you go to a new job and ask for 80k. But then you're 40 and making a lot more. Now the question as to what you are offered is different. If they're paying you to be a "programmer", can they really justify that huge salary? They can hire multiple college grads for what they're paying you. So it's not so much about your direct programming skill, but your experience/knowledge/wisdom that they are paying for. And each company is going to value that differently.

Your options really come down to whether you want to truly remain a "programmer" in which you may have to make some concessions to compete with the other programmers in the market. Your responsibilities remain that of a programmer. Or you have to take on a manager/director/architect role which is less programming skill and more people management skill with a lot more responsibility.

<comment><USER25> Arguably, with that much experience, you would make more money consulting.

Instead of being seen as a curmudgeon who could be replaced by four college grads, you're an external, automatically-trusted authority who commands a healthy day rate.

It's just a matter of optics. Though that life isn't for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Has anyone had much success with negotiating the health care benefits out of the equation? For example, if your spouse carries the benefits, then you don't need them. I'm guessing most employers don't have the luxury of substituting $20k in salary in lieu of healthcare.

</comment><comment><USER64> Anyone an idea what I can reasonable expect as a student in Germany?

I am working for a company in the Metal industry as a software Developer. I am working very independently.

</comment><comment><USER65> What a gross, unpleasant world this article describes.

<comment> floodyberry- "How to trick everyone in to over-paying and over-compensating you, which you can then use to become even more over-paid and over-compensated as you hop jobs"

I guess "How to break the cycle of greed" probably wouldn't go over too well with them or their target audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I've heard that negotiating a higher salary at companies decreases what you can get for bonuses/profit-sharing. Is that true?

<comment><USER66> It's unlikely to be -EV for you to do so.

Technically, the higher the salary they pay you, the less profit there is to share, so absolutely, a higher salary will reduce the profit sharing. (you can immediately see how this is massively beneficial to you, of course).

Also, your future raises might (or might not) be smaller if you come in on the high end of the range. Some companies have a formulaic "X%" type of system, which means you want to start as high as possible. Others target a ratio to some fictitious "market reference" where a higher initial salary will result in lower future raises, which STILL means you want to start as high as possible.

Some company somewhere no doubt has a policy that works as you describe/fear. The overwhelming majority do not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I have always been honest with what I'm being compensated. In six years I've nearly doubled my salary.

</comment><comment><USER68> Why are developers NOT paid proportional to output? A 5x developer should get paid more than a 2x dev but that doesn't seem to happen

<comment><USER69> > Why are developers NOT paid proportional to output?

Because measuring business value of output of individual developers on a team is not easily done, and other output measures (e.g., SLOC) tend to be things that, if tied to pay, would create obvious adverse incentives.

<comment><USER70> Indeed. I had an employer that told me my output was too low for the first few years. Then we had a security audit (following an event) and my code was the _only_ code that came through squeaky clean. They didn't talk about the amount of my output after that.

It's not easy to measure the value of someone's work, even years later, and certainly not immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Are we still linking to this snake oil salesman?

<comment><USER72> We asked you before not to do this. Since you didn't stop, we've banned your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment></comment>


U.S. Ranks 28th in Internet Speed Among Industrialized Nations - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tc-biz-tech-broadband-0825-0aug30,0,2465151.story

<comment><USER2> As a guy living in one of the small countries which does reasonably well on internet speed rankings, let me tell you --- high domestic speed is useless if your country only has a tiny pipe to the places that have all the content you'd actually want to watch.

The in-country content I browse is primarily textual --- the local newspaper, classified/auctions sites, etc. You only need high bandwidth for those if you want to watch all the stupid flash video ads they attach to everything.

The video content producers are all in the US, S. Korea, or China. In the evening when everyone's trying to get on the same overseas sites, it doesn't matter if the "last mile" into your apartment is all built from fiber-optics. So instead of sitting around waiting for Youtube to load, plenty of people choose an alternative method to get 150 megabits/second bandwidth --- walk fifteen minutes to the bazaar, buy ten pirated DVDs, and walk back home. Horrible latency, massive packet sizes.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article, and the so called 'study' is about as useful as a Facebook poll.

A couple of key points:

"Every American should have affordable access to high-speed Internet, no matter where they live. This is essential to economic growth and will help maintain our global competitiveness,"

This is utter crap. There is no reason to run fiber to rural areas where providers lose money. If you care that much about your network speed move to an area that supports the speed you need.

They talk about so called gains. But their study is non-scientific so comparing their numbers from year to year is meaningless.

They included some territories and not others. Something those territories have in common is that they are islands. It costs alot more to run cable to them, therefore they are naturally going to have slower network speeds.

The so called data comes from 'Speed Matters, a site that promotes greater Internet speeds', so the author is basing this article on numbers that come from someone with an agenda and no science. Nice bit of writing.

If I were this guy's editor I'd fire him for being to lazy to go out and track down the real numbers and come up with a real story.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nobody ever mentions the relative geographical area of a country in relation to internet speed. In countries with a high GDP proportional to the area of the country and/or population, infrastructure is much cheaper to build out, so they can move much faster.

<comment><USER5> _Nobody ever mentions the relative geographical area of a country in relation to internet speed_

Nobody? If anything, I see this mentioned dozens of times _every single time_ this discussion comes up, despite the fact that it's _completely wrong_.

Sure, the US is a big place, but if that argument were correct, I would be able to get Japan-level internet speeds in big cities, since the population density there is so high. The costs of running fiber between big cities is minimal compared to the gargantuan last-mile costs, so one cannot claim that it's because the cities are farther apart than in other nations, either.

In reality? With the exception of FIOS, most places in the US, urban or not, have atrocious internet speeds.

<comment><USER4> I was going to reply with some nice analysis, but then I realized how angry your response sounded, and it made me want to stop visiting Hacker News since this seems to be part of a growing trend on here lately.

This is a place for thoughtful and friendly debate, not some arena for trying to rip people apart.

HN may be a smarter version of what Digg used to be, but it has become just as unpleasant and nasty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quote from the article: "The study is not scientific"

<comment><USER7> Whatever the actual number is, I'm pretty sure we still suck. A component of this is that we have so much land, but that's not the whole story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think a more interesting statistic would be the median internet speed. Considering the rural populations in the US which have terrible speed, an average is not a very reliable statistic.

</comment><comment><USER9> 28th is not bad for something as ultimately trivial as internet speed.

(Compared to healthcare, human rights, carbon emissions, adult incarceration, child mortality etc. etc.)

<comment><USER10> That's down there too. [http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/10/26/were- not-nu...](http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/10/26/were-not-number- one/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, what the heck are we #1 at? I need something to hang my USA hat on :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A more interesting list would be for say ranking countries by there fastest internet available at say under $100 a month. I'd say the US would be very competitive on offerings? Just that the vast majority of the population probably wouldn't want to pay the extra or don't have the option in remote area?

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what the U.S. ranks in terms of median income? The United States has a much larger unskilled work force than most countries- something which over the past 100 years has been a blessing, but over next 100 may be a curse.

<comment><USER13> It will be the downfall of the country. The numbers of unskilled are increasing as a result of immigration from the poorest parts of the world and from the offspring from those people who migrated here from those poorest parts of the world. There's a large imbalance of people who pay the taxes and the people who consume the taxes. It's fracturing now, and soon, it'll all come down.

<comment><USER14> Wow.

I don't live in the US, but I've traveled around... your comment about immigration comes out of left field. If there's any generalization to be made, it's that immigrant families tend to be more motivated to achieve something.

Maybe my view is just as skewed as yours, but I wouldn't look at immigrants as the main source/cause of unskilled labor in the US.

<comment><USER10> Currently, the US immigration policies are skewed to accept unskilled immigrants. Read about the difficulties with the H1 visas and the near impossibility for skilled workers to get a green card. Immigration _could_ be an amazing source of skilled labor, if the USA played it's cards right. Historically, it was one.

Sure, many immigrant families often are more motivated, but many of the ones that the process are skewed towards still come with few marketable skills, and, unfortunately, poverty tends to breed poverty. It's harder to pull yourself out of the bottom of the heap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One approach I've been long-interested in is cooperative ownership of local infrastructure and private ownership of inter-city infrastructure. This would mean that, rather than infrastructure representing a single-provider monopoly in a given area, and a high barrier to entry, the local community could open its infrastructure as a market to all providers or to those who offer the most appealing services.

Seems this could make the difference between slow, monopolistic progress of the status quo and dynamic competitive progress.

</comment><comment><USER16> "...[A] study by a labor union for telecommunications workers"

"Of course, when the U.S. spends some of the $7.2 billion allocated to broadband development in the federal stimulus package, the union's members would benefit from job creation."

This should be setting off some alarm bells. I'd be curious to know how the data was collected and interpreted.

</comment><comment><USER17> The average person is going to find a "rank" for internet speed meaningless.

This is better promoted as:

"The U.S. has slower internet than Iceland, Poland, and Korea."</comment>


Show HN: Websee – Naturally Crowdsourcing the Happenings of the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.websee.io/ <comment><USER2> Neat idea! I've been using it for the past few weeks and really excited to see the community grow. Recently talked to Laser (founder) about the direction he's taking it. Looking forward to Websee becoming more community based and being able to implement your own ranking algorithms on the data!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Om :) I think a good holdover before writing a DSL or API to take into account all the privacy/security issues, I could just let people submit ranking algorithms and then manually add them? Unfortunately there isn't really enough data/people yet to do a lot of cool stuff, but hopefully we can get there :D [https://www.websee.io/waves](https://www.websee.io/waves)

<comment><USER2> I saw waves! Looks interesting. Wonder if there's a way to pull other datasets (top 1,000 + votes from Reddit) and see how introducing that plays into the overall ranking since you need more users right now.

If you could manage to stripe enough information or categorize it into some sort of groups would be interesting. Only issue with submitting ranking algos and adding them is that it would be a manual process. Maybe having an online process that runs through a set of checks before seeing the results might be a good solution</comment></comment></comment>


What DirectX 12 means for gamers and developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcgamer.com/what-directx-12-means-for-gamers-and-developers/ <comment><USER2> As a software dev who has used and benefited from AVX2, I think the last data point in the chart is quite a bit off. Perhaps their benchmarking software didn't support AVX2 yet (Haswell/Broadwell) yet?

> Blue depicts parallel performance, while purely sequential performance is > shown in orange.

Sequential trend seems to totally disregard up to doubled integer vector performance in AVX2, first introduced in Haswell. Original AVX didn't support 256-bit wide integer vectors. Also Haswell up to "doubled" [1] FLOP/cycle.

[1]: If your workload is FMA. That said, it is a pretty common FPU workload. See for example [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15655835/flops-per- cycle-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15655835/flops-per-cycle-for- sandy-bridge-and-haswell-sse2-avx-avx2) for reference.

<comment><USER2> The chart seems to indicate about 25 GFLOPS for sequential performance, while real value is up to 100 GFLOPS theoretical at 3.1 GHz on Haswell/Broadwell on a single core.

While realistic single core performance won't of course be approaching 100 GFLOPS, 25 is a pretty lowball value.

<comment><USER3> Is it possible that they're using "sequential" strictly, to mean that the arithmetic isn't vectorized? What's the scalar throughput like?

<comment><USER2> Scalar output would be way less than that number, 25 GFLOPS. At most 2x clock frequency. It's likely their benchmark just doesn't support AVX2 (and FMA [1]).

You get about 25 GFLOPS if you use SSE only.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMA_instruction_set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMA_instruction_set)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> *What DirectX 12 means to Windows gamers and Windows developers.

The complete lack of mention of Vulkan in this article is suspect.

<comment><USER5> Not really. DirectX 12 has incredible mindshare among consumers and, I sadly suspect, game developers simply due to the name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That article talks like Mantle was the first version of this kind of API. Sony Playstation has been doing this for nearly ten years.

</comment><comment> rational-future Not much. Almost all high-budget games are still developed for consoles first. The hardware inside Xbox One doesn't support DX 12.

<comment><USER7> Xbox One literally runs Windows

<comment><USER8> It certainly doesn't _literally_ run Windows for games. The Xbox One is a hypervisor based system where a Windows 8 based OS is used for utility applications and user interface, but a custom OS is used for the games[1]. The believe the latter has as much in common with Windows as the Xbox 360 OS (not a huge amount).

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software)</comment></comment></comment>


The Pulses of a Distant Star Hide the Golden Ratio - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-pulses-of-a-distant-star-hide-fractal-patterns <comment><USER2> > "two of KIC 5520878's characteristic frequencies—with a 4.05- and a > 6.41-hour cycle, respectively—had a ratio of 1.58, close to the golden mean, > an irrational number,"

there are lots of things in nature - and everywhere - that are "close to" the golden ratio, but few that are extremely, tantalizingly close. 1.58 is not close; there's no story here. call me when it's 1.618*

see #5 here [1]

[1] [http://www.goldennumber.net/golden-ratio- myth/](http://www.goldennumber.net/golden-ratio-myth/)

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, this is just confirmation bias at its finest. Whenever you /want/ to see something, you suddenly see it everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just to clarify. We first saw that the ratio was "near" the golden mean. The closer one comes to that ratio the more likely one will see "strange non chaotic behavior". So yes I agree it is just close (although now there seem to be hundreds clumping just above and just below the golden mean and we think we have a dynamical reason why but are still running simulations). Thus near golden mean -> higher probability of seeing SNC which is what we saw. It is evidence in support that we are near enough to the golden mean to be irrational enough to see SNC behavior. Hope this helps. Regards, Bill Ditto Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa</comment>


ITU reports 3.2B interconnected humans – looks to an IoT future - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/3008495/internet-of-things/with-internet-connection-reaching-new-heights-itu-looks-to-the-iot.html <comment><AUTHOR> The number of connected people on the planet has reached 3.2 billion, according to a report from the International Telephone Union (ITU.) Managers, marketers, engineers, and designers who are building mobile and internet products for international consumption should read the full report. The many charts and graphics make the 252-page report on fixed and mobile internet and telephone services around the world an easy read.</comment>


"I just can't be a college student without Facebook" - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/13/i-just-cant-be-a-college-student-without-facebook/

<comment><USER2> Facebook launched at Pitt in October of my freshman year. The adoption rate in one week was amazing. It was just word of mouth... Facebook launched at Penn State before Pitt, I knew lots of people at Penn State that said Facebook was great.

I was banned from Facebook for 48 hours about a month ago and I felt lost. Too bad I didn't think to email Mike Arrington.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's an amazing thought.

When I was a freshman, no one had heard of facebook. When I was a sophomore, it was literally everywhere. It is interesting to me to think about whether or not it made any difference in my life at college.

My guess is that it probably did, but maybe not for the reasons one might think. The only difference I can think of that it made is that it allowed me to stay in touch with friends when I transferred who ordinarily I would have lost contact with.

I don't think I ever used it for any of its intended purposes (whatever those might be) relating to the college I was currently attending when facebook exploded.

</comment><comment><USER4> When I was in college it was cell phones. One year, no one had them. Next september, everyone did.

</comment><comment><USER5> "I just can't be a college student if I'm too goddamn stupid to open another account."</comment>


Germany vs. Elsevier: universities win temporary free journal access - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00093-7 <comment><USER2> The stated goals of the German universities are:

• Teilnehmereinrichtungen: alle zur Teilnahme an Allianz- und Nationallizenzen berechtigten Einrichtungen in Deutschland.

• Die DEAL-Einrichtungen haben dauerhaften Volltextzugriff auf das gesamte Titel-Portfolio (E-Journals) der ausgewählten Verlage.

• Alle Publikationen von Autorinnen und Autoren aus deutschen Einrichtungen werden automatisch Open Access geschaltet (CC-BY, inkl. Peer Review).

• Angemessene Bepreisung nach einem einfachen, zukunftsorientierten Berechnungsmodell, das sich am Publikationsaufkommen orientiert.

Basically: Give us access to everything you have, publish all our authors open access, and we'll pay you an appropriate amount, relative to how many papers of ours you publish. They call this the PAR model, for publish&read. Springer and Wiley have in principle agreed to negotiate a PAR license [1].

This would be enormous, especially as other countries would have a blueprint what to ask for. It also shows just how poorly the UK has handled their renegotiation (it was generally seen as the UK caving completely) [2].

[1] An English presentation from the end of last year on the state of things: [https://www.projekt-deal.de/wp- content/uploads/2017/10/2017-...](https://www.projekt-deal.de/wp- content/uploads/2017/10/2017-10-16_ICOLC_DEAL_final.pdf)

[2] [https://gowers.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/time-for- elsexit/](https://gowers.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/time-for-elsexit/)

<comment><USER3> I thought UK research councils now require open access publications, either provided by journals ("gold") or by placing manuscripts on open archives ("green"). While this typically involves grant holders paying more for publication (since open access journals usually charge more), it's hardly "caving completely", unless I'm missing something...?

<comment><USER4> I don't see how requiring grant holders to spend money on the Elsevier "open access" fees is a win for the council? You can always pay more, the point of negotiation is to get more for less. _Mandating_ that researchers pay the Elsevier fees seems like a clear-cut win for Elsevier...

You start out with full rights to your paper. Then you hand over a exclusive "do whatever you want license" to Elsevier for free. Then the UK council requires you to further _pay Elsevier_ so the paper is downloadable from their shitty-ass website. That is an unmitigated disaster.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree this is a stupid system that profits mainly Elsevier and other toxic journals. But this still seems to me to be a step in the right direction compared to before, when researchers were not obliged to public their publicly-funded research publicly. Now they are, which is the way it always should have been.

It seems to me that the current peer review model is dying anyway, and new technology (especially the web) is slowly but surely killing it, especially in the fields of computing science and mathematics. I commend Germany's approach, but I don't think the UK's approach was a _complete_ disaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So many people in the open access community are holding their breath waiting for what happens when access is cut off - with the expectation that there will not really be a backlash, making the negotiating position stronger.

This move by Elsevier implies that they share this expectation, in which case this would be the best move they could do, but by giving away that they don't think their position is strong, they effectively still weaken their position.

So all in all, if the German negotiators remain firm (and it looks like they will), the prospects for open access appear to be pretty good.

(Note that when I talk about open access, I mean the entire set of ideals usually associated with it as described at [1], not just "pay $3000 to $5000 to make a single article available.)

[1] [https://fairoa.org/](https://fairoa.org/)

<comment><USER6> Sorry for the naive question, but why don't the universities collaborate to publish their own open access journals? Don't the ivy leagues have enough prestige to pull it off? Why is Elsevier needed in the information age?

<comment><USER7> Universities are not a monolith, they are composed of many independent individuals. It is difficult to convince young researchers (PhD students, Post-Docs, Assistant professors) to "gamble" their future by publishing in new journals. It requires some push from the top, e.g. NSF making it mandatory to publish results from their grants in open access journals.

<comment><USER6> So it's basically one big game of prisoner's dilemma. :)

<comment><USER8> Just like nearly all parts of human society.

<comment><USER9> And it's somewhat disheartening to see that even academics (who should be in a position to see what's going on) frequently can't come together to cooperate and be better off.

<comment><USER10> My experience with academia is that it's a kindergarden. Everybody has silly personal 20+ year vendettas going on. I'm not at all surprised that academics are unable to co-operate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> "Most papers are now freely available somewhere on the Internet, or else you might choose to work with preprint versions. Clearly our negotiating position is strong. It is not clear that we want or need a paid extension of the old contracts."_

Awesome! It's going to be fun when Elsevier eventually tries to go after SciHub in Germany for copyright violations. I can imagine state prosecutors asking: "So you want us to prosecute someone for not paying you for access to public research?". One can hope...

<comment> semi-extrinsic I don't think Elsevier see SciHub as the biggest threat. No, the biggest threat is that now the EU has told researchers "You have to publish OA", researchers have two options: publish preprints of everything, or start paying Elsevier loads of cash. Obviously everyone is now starting to do the first option (usually via institutional repos, which at least Google Scholar indexes). And people are finding it to be a good low-effort system.

Elsevier lost when they agreed to allow people (mostly just some people in math and physics back then) to post preprints online.

<comment><USER5> I think you are overestimating the system. Researchers are going for the second option in large droves, as that's the one that helps their career forward, and it's often not their own money they're paying with.

If you're interested, I've written about why they're forced to do so at [1] and [2]. (And the reason I'm following it so closely is because I'm trying to fix it - if you want to follow that, see [3].)

[1] [https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of- scholarl...](https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarly- publishing-eef794937c9c)

[2] [https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that- ca...](https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-can-make-or- break-academic-careers-704e00ae070a)

[3] [https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic](https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic)

<comment><USER12> Well, it's not their own money (to spend on coke and whores), but typically those are still their research funds so they have to make a decision as to whether to publish or buy new equipment, supplies, or get another TA/RA position. Often the funds are pre-loaded with overhead for the department so it's more expensive than it appears.

Indexed preprints make a whole lot of sense, if they'll let you do it.

<comment><USER5> Well, to some extent. If it's their own research funds, they will have to consider what's better for their career, and often, that publication will win over new equipment, for example.

That said, there are often funds available from e.g. the library, your funder, or even nationwide funds such as in the Netherlands and I think the UK, that will cover the costs of making articles available as open access. It's pretty much a no-brainer to use them for researchers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting move, to give free access. You would think that, withholding access is a great way for Elsivier to increase pressure in the negotiation. The fact, that they are not doing it, shows how weak their position really is.

Researchers will (and have) find effective ways to share research results w/o traditional publishers. This would surface very quickly once access was temporarily revoked.

<comment><USER14> > _shows how weak their position really is_

Or Elsevier's belief that the opposition is tenuously formed. If temporary free access prompts a critical mass to decamp, Elsevier will have staved off both permanence and precedent.

<comment><USER5> Why would that prompt them to decamp?

<comment><USER14> > _Why would that prompt them to decamp?_

People tend to become politically involved (loosely defined) when desperate. Remove the source of desperation and engagement fades. Convincing people to come to a meeting or go to a rally or draft a letter to the dean or call or write to their representative gets harder when the problem goes from specific, _e.g._ I need X study to write my paper, to abstract.

<comment><USER5> But there was no source of desperation yet - there has not been a period in which researchers have not had access.

(Well, technically, there was a short one at the start of last year IIRC, but Elsevier prolonged access then just as well.)

<comment><USER15> I'd guess most researchers use libraries' copies of these pricy papers. So it's mostly about tax money Elsevier forces university libraries to pay all around the world. And also independent researchers.

<comment><USER5> Yes, and those libraries are the ones whose access was extended free of charge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here is a list of universities and other institutions which have cancelled their contracts with Elsevier: [https://www.projekt- deal.de/vertragskundigungen-elsevier-201...](https://www.projekt- deal.de/vertragskundigungen-elsevier-2017/)

<comment><USER17> Basically everyone... All top universities are in the list...

<comment><USER9> Reading that list warmed my heart. Hasta la vista, Elsevier!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The nationwide deal sought by scientists includes a open-access option, > under which all corresponding authors affiliated with German institutions > would be allowed to make their papers free to read and share by anyone in > the world.

This is a very good clause to the German institutions. Everybody will like to exchange letters, informations, get in contact with German authors. And when we have communication, we have knowledge and data sharing, and everybody benefits from it. Specially the corresponding authors.

<comment><USER5> That's already often allowed. What the negotiators will want is that all those papers will be free to read (or actually: use, under a permissive Creative Commons license) by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great developments. I am a bit pessimistic, however, as Elsevier still has all the publications related to the life and medical sciences in a stranglehold. I think the lacklustre adoption of preprint publishing in these fields is partly to blame.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is an increasing awareness of the "reproducibility crisis"[1] where it seems a large portion of published scientific studies have dubious findings.

I wonder if this is another argument to overthrow Elsevier to as clearly their peer review for publication is a poor filter. Or, is it possible the peer review process will become even weaker in a new more open paradigm?

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-39054778](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778)

<comment><USER21> Maybe for open Internet publishing, instead of publish/don't publish peer review, it'd make sense to have a rating of the reproducibility. If you could search only for reproducible papers that met a threshold, you'd know what you were reading.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, that requires people to actually attempt to reproduce papers and to publish about that, and often nobody wants to fund that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Elsevier and their lackeys and running dogs of documentary oppression are nothing more than an elevated street gang that uses the assigned mandatory copyright. Copyright has expanded without limit and now acts as the weapon that Elsevier wields against the people. Look at how the Disney Corp lobbied for ever longer copyrights. This can only be solved by national governments taking back academic authors rights by law. Sadly Elsevier bribes (AKA 'lobbys') with their war chest of money stolen from authors. With current cloud tech, they could be replaced in days. All the prior archives should also be freed by legislation.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is there a service where I could pay around $5-$10 a month and get access to all (most) relevant papers?

I'm not a scientist, I'm not affiliated with any academic institution at the moment (I still TA here and there though).

<comment><USER24> You can simply use Sci-hub. I don't see any moral argument against it. The research that you want to access was probably entirely done by researchers who don't get a dime of the subscription money of publishers.

<comment><USER9> And research, writing, and peer-review was publicly funded most likely anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Most papers are now freely available somewhere on the Internet, or else you might choose to work with preprint versions."

This is a huge win for proponents of free information sharing like Scihub and others. Germany's argument seems to basically boil down to, make us a favorable deal or we'll just pirate or obtain from other sources and Elsevier will lose out completely. Brilliant! I love their boldness and willingness to have some balls to fight for science instead of corporate greed in this negotiation.

<comment><USER5> While I'm sure they're aware of Sci-Hub, they're not referring to that (well, not explicitly...). For example, another option is inter-library loan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That's hilarious. Elsevier will lose this fight for sure...it's exactly the type of thing Germans will stubbornly dig in their feet out of principle for.

</comment><comment><USER27> I get recruitment spam from Elsevier recruiters a lot, I wasn't entirely sure of what they did (at University we had subscriptions to IEEE and ACM and another one I can't recall the name of for CS stuff) so the name wasn't familiar to me.

I'm still not enitirely sure what value they offer?

<comment><USER28> A lot of life sciences papers are published in Elsevier journals. Unfortunately, there are very few pre-prints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Someone should use this to download all the papers available for 'archival purposes'.

<comment><USER30> The will ban you quite fast if you attempt that. In fact, I think they ban (and have banned) entire IP ranges/whole universities for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> meh. sci-hub.tv has permanent free access

<comment><USER32> How exactly are the DNS blocks happening? How did you find this domain that is still working?

<comment><USER33> Wondering why SciHub is not yet on some sort of IPFS / FreeNet / Tor Storage something. Plain file storage obviously would not be enough, metadata and possibly full text index would have to be stored with each entry. Searchable. could even come with a recommendation service like Mendeley or Researchgate based on which papers you pinned in your client.

<comment><USER5> The Sci-Hub website is (and will likely remain) reachable through Tor, Wikipedia lists its Onion address.

<comment><USER33> Okay cool, but still it is only run by one single entity. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone in the community could contribute to keep it running?

<comment><USER5> Ah, yes, but given the perseverance of the publishers in prosecuting them, I'm afraid it's unlikely for a community to step up to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What is the role of the publisher? I think there are many ways to publish things nowadays... Is the publisher responsible for peer review? Or how does that system work?

<comment><USER35> The value that rests with the publisher is mainly the reputation of specific journals it maintains. In some (most?) scientific fields, publishing in a high-reputation journal is of primary importance for grant funding, author's job prospects, attracting top talent, etc.

For example, the _Journal of Membrane Science_ is one of the most highly regarded journals in my field. Anyone in the field can be pretty confident that an article in that journal is a high-quality work, meaning it's scientifically rigorous and representative of the state of the art. Researchers want to publish in that journal so that they are associated with 'the best' in their field.

Articles in another journal, _Membranes_ , which I just discovered now on Google, would not receive the same amount of credence from professionals in the field. This is partly due to practitioners themselves unwilling to trust lesser-known journals; however, professionals are busy and need an easy way to filter feed from the chaff. The value provided by Elsevier in that sense is that they maintain a type of filter of quality.

I'm sure all of the same authors and professionals could start a new journal and immediately stop publishing in _Journal of Membrane Science_ , but it could be a less-than-optimal career choice. In a sense, timing would be everything.

<comment><USER5> Well... The value Elsevier provides is that it attracts the people who maintain the filter of quality - namely the editorial board.

An interesting case is Lingua, an Elsevier journal. A few years ago, its editorial board (i.e. regular researchers not employed by Elsevier) collectively resigned and founded the new journal Glossa. That is now the journal that provides that stamp of quality, proving that its not Elsevier itself that provides it.

See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossa_(journal)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossa_\(journal\))

<comment><USER35> Cool thanks for the link on Glossa. I always thought it was possible for a collective resignation of an editorial board but I've never seen it realized.

I'm curious why/how it was possible for them to do it. The Wikipedia link mentions that there was a disagreement between the editors and Elsevier. How were the editors able to collectively organize and leave en masse? What can editorial boards of other journals learn from this?

<comment><USER5> There were a number of favourable circumstances. I think the most important two were that 1) the editorial board had many who considered Open Access to be important, and 2) it was a relatively small field in which they managed to get their transition relatively well publicised, which allowed people to submit their articles there without negatively impacting their career.

Interestingly, I'm working on a blog post right now on what others can learn from this (because I'm trying to make it happen more often), so if you (or others reading this) are interested, you can follow along via [https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic](https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The insider gossip is that the CEO ordered for access to be kept open.</comment>


Effective problem solving using SAT solvers - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.06251 <comment><USER2> It's cool seeing this posted here, I authored this paper. The inspirational quote at the beginning was actually from a comment on a HN post a month ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19953213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19953213)</comment>


What startups can learn from Motown - <AUTHOR> http://madhatted.com/2012/10/8/process-tips-from-hitsville

<comment><USER2> Nice analogy to the startup world and definitely has that entrepreneurial spirit as part of it all. I recommend watching the documentary 'Standing in the Shadows of Motown' -- the behind-the-scenes of the people who backed all the famous artists (analogous to the people who make startups work but aren't the "CEOs").</comment>