Never accept a counter-offer - <AUTHOR> https://vtorosyan.github.io/never-accept-counter-offer/ <comment><USER2> Recruiter here, almost 20 years. Do a search for articles warning about counteroffers and you'll find almost all are written by agency recruiters. Why is that?

It's because agency recruiters lose probably millions in fees every year when candidates accept a counter. I have personally lost 30K on a single fee due to counteroffer on more than one occasion. It hurts quite a bit - that's a car - which is why if you accept a counter you'll get calls and emails from the recruiter saying it's "career suicide" (it isn't) and that you're making a huge mistake.

Then they quote these stats. I've heard things like "90% of people who accept counters leave the company in 6 months", and they might add "whether fired or through resignation" just to throw some fear into the candidate. These stats are pretty hard to find, and they should be, because companies don't report counteroffers to some agency. They happen in the dark. It's only surveys, and usually conducted by recruiting firms who have a vested interest in the results.

Some counteroffers are a mistake, but the people who scream not to accept coineroffers the loudest are the ones with the most to lose.

I've written about counteroffers as well, but didn't take the typical recruiter path ([https://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/02/19/counteroffers/](https://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/02/19/counteroffers/)).

<comment><USER3> My recruiter practically broke down in tears when I accepted a counteroffer in 2013. Counteroffers can be great tools to increase your salary, whether you accept or reject them. In my case it was purely about money. I was making $117k and I wanted a raise, but the company only wanted to give options. If it were an early stage Google or Uber, I'd go for it, but not this company. I wanted cash.

They played the old "not in the budget, lets revisit in 6 months game" but my ace in the hole was an unsecured network share drive where I found an offer letter for a coworker showing he made $135k. I was genuinely ready to leave so I contacted my recruiter (who had placed me at 2 consecutive companies) and she got me an interview at CAA (the Hollywood talent agency) as a node.js dev. They beat my salary with an offer of $125k, plus some perks like 2 week company shutdown around the holidays, half day before every gov't holiday, generous bonuses and 401k match. The downsides were a commute to Century City, and having to wear a suit everyday.

I went back to my employer and handed in my resignation and told them about the offer. They came back (unsolicited) with a counteroffer of $140k and an extra week of vacation. I took it and told my recruiter. She told me horror stories about people who take counteroffers who get fired or quit within months and how I would never work in this town again, etc.

I stayed at the company for 2 more years and was promoted to director of engineering, and got raises to $155k and then $175k before resigning to work freelance. On my way out the company was begging me to stay and I could only imagine what they'd offer if I chose to entertain them.

<comment><USER4> I worked at a savings and loan back during the 1988/1989 crisis that took them out and we were no different. Hired as a 'C' programmer I was quickly turned into a Sybase DBA, sys-admin and anything else I could handle. In fact I ended up writing an in-house payroll system so like you I had inside information.

When the sys-admin left I asked for a raise since I was doing his job and my own. They made some excuses about his better education (he was a few hours away from his PhD in music) and the fact the company was under FDIC control.

I found a new job at a local oil company but contracting: my new salary was more than double what the bank laid. My bosses exact words when I quit were "Oh, shit" because he knew all along he'd been screwing me and he was never going to get a programmer/DBA/UNIX sys-admin for $27k/yr.

He asked if he could make a counter offer it was with great satisfaction I was able to reply "Vick, I now make more than you do. What's your counter offer?"

<comment><USER5> I had a similar experience. I was brought on as a junior fresh out of university and quickly made a name for myself in the company, I wasn't the top developer by any means, but after a few years and a couple of pay rises, the £32k/year they were paying me (in central London) was definitely much lower than what I should have been getting.

One of my colleagues had the year before, and had recently got funding for his startup. He offered myself and another developer a job, so we went to tell our boss together who obviously wasn't too pleased. He then spoke to us separately about negotiations, and he offered me £55k/year. The look on his face when I said "Sorry, but they are offering me much more than that" was priceless.

A few years later (after all the team I'd worked with had left) I went back to what was left of the company as a contractor for a few months. I was earning more per week, than I was per month, when I first started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This couldn't have come at a better time, as I just navigated this last week. I kind of disagree with most of what the author is saying. Here's why.

The author posits that you've begun looking for a new job for a reason. There are things that you dislike about your job. That's logical, and it's the number one reason that I went on a search of my own.

The problem is that there's always some level of information asymmetry. You know everything you dislike about your current job; you can't know what you'll dislike about your new job until you begin that role.

However, once I was given another "great offer", it made me realize that part of every job is disliking certain aspects of it. No matter where you are, it's impossible to find a role that you like 100% of the time.

When I received another job offer, it made me realize that there were a lot of things that I was taking for granted about my current job. And when I notified my current employer that I was leaving, they reminded me of how valued I was with the package that they put together. In fairness, they could've done a better job with this throughout my employment.

At the end of the day, the compensation and future commitments (all of which are in writing) made it compelling to me to stay and not risk disliking my next role.

Have you ever heard the saying that you should flip a coin to make important decisions, because as soon as the coin is in the air you'll know what you want anyway? Well, I went through the coin flip process and realized I had taken a lot of things for granted at my current employer. And that's why I stayed.

<comment><USER7> > And when I notified my current employer that I was leaving, they reminded me > of how valued I was with the package that they put together.

Yea, you were so valued that they DIDN'T offer it to you until you threatened to leave. That doesn't sound like an employer that values you, it sounds like an employer who got away with a great bargain while it lasted.

<comment><USER8> > Yea, you were so valued that they DIDN'T offer it to you until you > threatened to leave. That doesn't sound like an employer that values you

This sounds insightful, but I don't think it's fair. It's almost always true for everyone that you don't know what you have until it's gone, or almost gone if you're lucky. Your employer is no different. Give them a break, just a tiny one.

<comment><USER7> That's a lot of benefit of the doubt to give. More likely is that they know exactly what they have, and have done the math. For every salary level, there is a probability P that the employee will leave. If it costs $C to replace them, then they are coming out ahead by paying you $N below market rate when N > P x C.

EDIT: To be more exact, it's probably more like: N > [P(N) - P(market)] x C

<comment><USER9> First, the cost of a valuable employee leaving is very, very high in terms of their salary. The inefficiency in training someone to fill their shoes is awful and risky, and good engineers are seldom fungible in any short-term meaningful sense.

Second, this isn't how decisions get made on real-world software teams. In the real world, you find yourself just working with managers who need to make judgment calls with limited resources and time. Pursuing a raise for an employee is expensive to do proactively. A valued employee leaving sends a manager into crisis management mode, which expedites the process and helps them prioritize it up whatever chain they report to. The manager (+chain) make a judgment call about whether to make you a counter against a backdrop of company policy.

Their failure to proactively get you a raise before you went seeking other opportunities is usually due to a failure of communication, timing, or time budgeting on both your and their part. You can't expect people to read your mind and figure out if you think you're being paid what your time is worth. Sometimes it's obvious (oh look, the last of X's stock grant just vested), but usually it's not.

Your suggested envelope math might help inform general company policy, but it doesn't inform day-to-day managerial decisions in any but the vaguest way. Most management I've worked with has not been formally sophisticated; I imagine this is the case in the industry broadly. Managers do not wake up in the morning and consciously wonder "what do I need to do today... hmm... does the marginal utility of working on a raise for X exceed the marginal utility of writing this operational improvement plan?" They think "Is there a crisis? If crisis, expedite. Otherwise check shit off checklist."

I told my most recent manager I was pissed off about my salary a few months ago (after a year at the company). He got it kicked up the chain, I got up- leveled at the next review session. It took him a lot of time and effort, it netted me a large salary increase. I think we're happy with each other still.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Counterpoint, I accepted a counter offer two years ago. Since then, I have been promoted twice. I am now one of the highest-paid, and highest ranked individuals in my organization.

Additionally, I have been given many opportunities specifically designed to help me grow my career in the direction that I preferred. This has included everything from project assignment, to introductions to board members and VCs, to educational opportunities.

One must always be careful when considering a counter offer, however any blanket advice stating to never accept is going to be wrong, and harmful.

<comment><USER11> You got really lucky. Normally when a company extends a counter offer what they're doing is buying time to ease you out on their terms.

<comment><USER12> I always hear this, but where do you people work that this is the case? As some who has been on the other side of the table this was never how it worked. Losing a team member sucks. A counter offer is an attempt to avoid that. The idea that your boss would secretly interview your replacement before firing you just seems silly to me. At the most practical level doing something so cold hearted would send every other member of my team searching for a job.

<comment><USER7> > Losing a team member sucks.

But being paid below market rate also sucks. By making a counter-offer and having it accepted, you're now setting a precedent. All of that person's peers will now see that the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave. Is that the environment you're trying to foster?

<comment><USER12> I think the disconnect is that most people imagine their boss is allied with their company against them. In reality they are a mediator between the two (or maybe I'm in the minority with that line of thinking, but it is the best way I can both do the job and sleep at night). I want everyone on my team to be paid fair market value. I fight for it come budget time. If someone who I think is underpaid comes to me with an offer, I will go to my boss for more money. If someone who I think is fairly paid comes to me with an offer, I might simply shake their hand and wish them luck. A counter offer is not guaranteed. It is only offered to employees that we want to keep long term at whatever their new rate would be.

Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.

<comment><USER7> > Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with > that fact that you might be called on that bluff.

I think you meant to say "without another offer". When you indeed have an offer, it's not a bluff. Whether you get a counter or not, the outcome for you is you win. Now, if you DON'T have another offer, but try to get a raise by claiming to have another offer--well, that's an advanced tactic and very risky.

<comment><USER12> I meant it as I wrote it because it was in response to your original comment below:

>the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave

If your goal is to get a raise and keep your job, coming in with another offer is a bluff. The way to get a raise at my company isn't to constantly be interviewing because we won't counter offer everyone and we generally won't offer repeated counters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I completely agree. I went through this at my first job 13 years ago. I was hugely underpaid. I'd gotten the highest rating and highest raise each year for two years, but still made barely more than new grads coming in as the job market had improved.

I did a job search, found 10 jobs I was overqualified for that were offering 60% more money, and took the list to my manager as part of my argument for a raise. For six months he delayed, said he was looking in to it etc, but in the end said there was nothing he could do, he had no flexibility.

I found a different company that I liked, accepted their offer at about 60% higher salary and told my manager I was leaving in two weeks. Within 24 hours they had matched the other salary, and thrown in some stock too.

They could clearly have done this at any time in the past six months, when I was pressing my manager on it every single week.

Of course I left. If you are worth the money, you should be paid the money, and not have to beg for it. I was at the next company for a very enjoyable four years, and even got promotions and raises without having to lobby for them and explain my impact.

<comment><USER14> > They could clearly have done this at any time in the past six months, when I > was pressing my manager on it every single week.

They had no incentive to.

I was recently in the same situation - doubled my salary after years at another place.

Until you bring proof positive that you could bring in more elsewhere there's no reason for them, there's no reason for them to take your word for it that the market would pay you more.

Companies often rely on the sunk cost of employees laziness/sunk cost.

Depending on the company, if companies gave out raises whenever anyone asked, they'd be broke pretty soon (this applies more to a company like Walmart that relies on a lot of low-paid workers compared to Bell Labs).

> I was at the next company for a very enjoyable four years, and even got > promotions and raises without having to lobby for them and explain my > impact.

It's likely that you started working a lot harder at the second place. I know I did.

<comment><USER15> > They had no incentive to.

It's usually cheaper to keep an employee than to hire and train a new one.

Sorry, as someone who runs my own company, such short-sightedness as seen above is stupid.

I keep my employees happy, and make sure they don't want to leave. I get more out of them than I would if they were underpaid, overworked, and treated like shit.

<comment><USER16> I don't know you, but thank you for being a good boss.

I said this to a manager right before I quit. There are a million ways to demotivate your employees and precious few ways to motivate them again. Finding out that you've been totally screwed and then not having that fixed will kill morale damn near instantly. The best managers I've had gave me a fair shake and they had my loyalty.

At my first software job I worked there while I was going to school. I hated the program for myriad reasons so I dropped out. At the time I was getting paid hourly and there wasn't budget that year so my boss commuted my hourly pay into a salary which ended up shafting me due to overtime, but promised to give me a raise at the first review. He was a man of his word and gave me what I perceived to be an insane raise (something like 60-70%). To my incredulity I got another raise a year later of something like 30% and suddenly I'm a twenty year old kid making more than anyone in my family.

Thing is it wasn't the money that earned my loyalty and hard work, it was the fact that I knew I had people looking out for me and that I could trust. There was many a day where I'd go to the office 6.00 - 16.00 or so, go to the gym, go home and then get bored and go back to the office for an hour or two. I sure as shit wouldn't have done that if my boss fumbled around and made excuses, put things off. All of the great managers I've worked with knew that if you treat folks with respect and treat them right, you get results and that goes beyond salary. Simply having your manager come to you and point out you've been busting your ass and should take a couple days off really kinda clues you in that you're not just a widget factory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The "never" bit seems like bad advice. Terrible advice, honestly.

I've worked happily at one of the "big" tech companies. Without going too much into details, I ended up getting a really big offer from another one of the big guys (i.e., in the seven figure range over 4 years, obviously with the bulk of it being equity).

I was really torn. I was happy at my job, but that's a large enough of money to make a material difference in the lives of my loved ones. And like a lot of people here, I value the happiness of my family over my own.

I didn't expect my existing employer to do much. So I gave my boss an early heads up this was happening, partly because I thought there was a small chance there would, but mostly so I would leave on good terms.

Again, long story short, they not only matched the offer but came over the top of it. I went home to think about, talked about it with my wife & decided the next day to accept the counteroffer.

That was a few years ago. I've honestly been happy since then. I don't feel this was ever held over my head or held against me. (To the contrary, I was recently promoted.)

When it comes to counteroffers, a lot of it comes down to two things: 1) why you were looking in the first place, and 2) how you handle things with your existing employer.

Regarding (1) - if you were unhappy, money isn't going to fix that. Staying just because of money is dubious at best.

Regarding (2) - the main thing is don't be an asshole. Nobody is going to hold you advocating for your own best interests. Senior execs know the game. They would do the same thing in your place (if they haven't already). If you're an asshole, well, nobody wants to keep an asshole in the first place. But if you're pragmatic & even–keeled, you don't damage the relationships (even if you stay or go).

<comment><USER18> That's amazing! Well done on pulling out off man :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Let's take an example and say that some Problem A has triggered a need of change. As you are a good employee you have tried already to solve the problem (e.g. you asked for more money or you tried to change the process), you failed. Now, all of a sudden Problem A gets solved in just some 10 minutes. Why wasn't it solved before? How long will it take until this kind of a Problem B will appear? When Problem B comes, it's going to hit harder. Things won't change."

This paragraph bugs me. It's as if the author assumes the workplace to be swarmed with malicious agents, and you, some ambitious, innocent and pure- hearted employee.

Why wasn't it solved before? Because it was cheaper to leave it unsolved.

Suddenly, you introduce a _significant_ cost to leaving the problem (your leaving the company), and so it gets resolved.

And whaddyaknow, it'll happen at any other company too because its pretty damn effective way to operate a business.

<comment><USER20> Its only a problem if you assume a supportive employer, one that is looking out for your productivity and success. When you find out your company is only in it for the money, it can be a shock.

I agree its wrong to moralize about it. This is business. You sell your skills for cash. You should be prepared to get the best deal you can. Just asking meekly is a losing gambit. It will take more than that to put wheels in motion (get considered for a raise). Like showing an offer you received.

Now, that said, my son works as an ME at a contract house. The company owner threatens that anyone even looking for a job will be fired summarily. Childish. It just means resentment simmers, and nobody gives notice which has to screw up schedules and hurt their bottom line.

<comment><USER21> > Its only a problem if you assume a supportive employer, one that is looking > out for your productivity and success. When you find out your company is > only in it for the money, it can be a shock.

You know what really would be a shocker to me? A company that isn't in it for the money or a company that isn't trying hard to have employees that are highly productive.

<comment><USER22> Eh, you could make the argument that the company makes more money in the long run by keeping the most productive employees with the most institutional knowledge around long-term, which requires really paying attention to what they want before they start looking elsewhere, keeping up with what market rates are and giving raises and bonuses appropriately, etc. As a rational business owner, would you rather pay out an extra $25k or whatever a year to keep your team intact, or let people leave and suffer months of lost productivity potentially worth many times more, paying recruiter fees of up to $20-30k for the replacement, a few more months of degraded productivity while the new guy ramps up, and still be paying that extra $25k on their salary anyways, because you wouldn't be able to hire anyone otherwise?

It's essentially a cultural thing. Many employers and employees only want to get/keep as much money as possible in the short term, and don't care about anything else. Others care about long-term relationships, stability, and realistic plans, and are willing to sacrifice a little short-term money for it. I'm not here to say either one is better, but do know which one you want, watch out for signs that anyone you do business with doesn't have the same values, and treat them accordingly.

<comment><USER23> When it comes to business owners, rationality is overrated. I've seen a lot of companies that are perfectly happy hiring a less competent dev that accepts 20% less, and takes more than twice the time to do the work.

<comment><USER22> There certainly are plenty of companies out there like that. I tend to think that generalizing like that is dicey, though. The good, well-managed companies out there tend to keep the same developers for a long time, and any that leave tend to not have many complaints. The poorly managed companies tend to churn through lots and lots of developers, many of whom will go on to write blog and forum posts on how irrational and cutthroat business is. Thus the noise about poor management is louder than the reality.

<comment><USER23> Everything you say is correct; I wonder if there's a way to tell how many well managed companies are there and how many poorly managed ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > employees who accepted a counter-offer are leaving the company after an > average of 15 months.

15 months MORE. Damn. I wish I could stay that long in a single company.

Either the project is long finished, or the startup went bankrupt, or the entire department is redone, or there is somewhere else offering a significant raise, or...

Sometimes, I wonder what's the average tenancy for competent employees in a hot tech hub.

<comment><USER25> I've heard it's about a year in Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER26> In my own experience, I see an average of 3 years. Then there are those who do short stints and more on while others will stick around as long as things are interesting. Also the length of projects vary from industry to industry. When I was doing hardware/firmware, an average project was 2-3 years long so people would atleast stick through that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd like to suggest a rule of thumb from the employer's/manager's side that I was given by a mentor once (and I've seen the consequences anecdotally both when I followed it and when I didn't);

Just like the article suggests not to accept a counter offer I'd say don't ever GIVE a counter offer (or try to keep the employee resigning).

Of course always treat your people well and try your best to resolve issues and keep on top of their aspirations and desires but when they've already made up their mind to resign and they actually resign rarely (in my limited experience) can anything good come from you persuading them to stay because:

A) they'll likely leave anyway within 1-1.5 years B) they might never actually have left and they're using very poor/immoral negotiation tactics C) it sends a horrible sign to the other employees saying they (only) get ahead if they threaten to resign

And you have to be pretty fil with whatever your convictions are here I believe. So in my view the article is right - never accept a counter offer (I did once and while it was a bit promotion it was a huge mistake) but also never give one!

<comment><USER28> Giving counter-offers is just as bad as accepting, you're right. This has been written on as well, [http://bramcohen.com/2011/12/04/never-make-counter- offers](http://bramcohen.com/2011/12/04/never-make-counter-offers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't know what triggered the author to write this, possibly a personal experience.

But whatever it was, he seems convinced that he has seen the light, and even distilled the message to "Never accept a counter-offer", which is nothing but a loud, attention grabbing, media-optimized title, but also, ultimately too- general-to-be-useful type of advice.

The text itself is lacking useful information, maybe with the exceptions of the link to the surveys.

As I get older I observe how smart people tend to put in a large amount of work before they feel ready to disseminate their carefully created, validated, humble in scope, and very often valuable message.

This is the opposite of that.

</comment><comment><USER30> I accepted a counteroffer once and it ended up being a huge mistake. The company was struggling and they felt they couldn't lose me etc, it was near the end of the year and everyone was already upset because it was announced that we wouldn't receive end of year/xmas bonus'. After I accepted the counter-offer I was at a lunch xmas party for our team (around 15 of us) and one person said to 'thank god this isn't a going away lunch for rick (me).', to which everyone was like 'you were going to leave???'. I was the tech lead so this news hit the other devs hard... at some point i was chatting with a few different employees (non-devs) and they said to me 'so you had to go get another job to force them to give you a raise, good move', to which I just smiled and didn't know what to say back and finally threw out 'I suppose so'.

The next work day - monday 12/24 - I'm working from home and I get a call from HR; they fired me over the phone on xmas-eve, apparently the 3 employees I had the late conversation with went to HR and claimed I was bragging about the raise and that the only way to get a raise at the company was to get another job and threaten to leave. No amount of explaining that's not happened would appease them, and as they put it they had '3 peoples word against just you'.

So yeah I will never accept a count-offer again!

<comment><USER31> Bummer, what a terrible outcome. This is why I always mind my business and abide by the 'your co-workers are not your friends' dictum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I once was moving out of the city where I was employed, so naturally looked for opportunities where I was moving. The city I was moving to was larger and had nearly 50% higher salaries.

When my boss realized I was moving, he offered me to work remotely. I said I had already accepted the new offer, and left. Boss said I was always welcome back if I changed my mind (The idea of a big raise never came up at this point). A year later, the old boss contacted me and offered me to work remotely, and matched the salary of the bigger city I was living in, so I signed back to the old company with a deal that was likely better than what I could have gotten had accepted to stay initially.

Bottom line is: \- Keep good relations with employers where you like working: \- A good way of getting a raise might sometimes be leaving and then returning.

</comment><comment><USER33> A note of agreement:

The money is a symptom. Even if your current employer counteroffers, the fact that you got them to cough up the extra dough doesn't change the fact that they didn't value you enough to retain you with it in the first place.

If money/title/growth/etc. are important, and you've made it clear to your manager sufficiently, and they still don't act: go. The counteroffer won't change the underlying dynamic, and its other symptoms will continue to manifest.

<comment><USER34> It's not that they didn't value you, it's that you made an agreement to sell your services at a given price. If you no longer like the agreement let them know. Anyone worth working for won't have hard feelings that you've decided you're worth more.

Labor is part of a market where people get to decide how much their labor is worth. Take full advantage of that, as employers certainly will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm not a recruiter (anymore?) and I will say that I think the advice in this post is pretty important. I've had two bad experiences with being tainted after accepting a counter, and the logic behind why that happens is extremely straightforward.

Clearly, there's a lot of dramatic license built into the word "never" in the title (a less baity title would be "Be wary of counter-offers"). Clearly, there are employers that will make counters in good faith hoping to retain you for the long haul. But business is business, and many employers, even very good ones, aren't going to make irrational decisions just to be nice.

<comment><USER2> I think it's important to differentiate what type of counter it is and whether or not it solves the problem reasonably. A counter can be a pay raise, new role/promotion, or even something like letting someone telecommute. Those are all very different scenarios, and the stereotypical "walks into managers office with shiny offer from competitor demanding more" may have less positive long-term results than the more common less aggressive approach.

<comment><USER35> I once accepted a counter that included a pay raise, a substantial equity grant, and had my requirements for role adjustments mostly met --- all offered entirely to prevent me from moving to a new job.

I shouldn't have! Things were O.K. for about six months, and only then did it clear that I'd been sidelined --- after the company had put in motion its plans for post-me continuity. Basically: they bought themselves time, and used it to deal with the presumption that I would inevitably leave.

The specific terms of a counter don't mean much. The problem is that declaring your intent to leave can (maybe: usually does?) mark you as a flight risk. Flight risks get managed differently.

If what you value about your job is compensation, that might not matter!

But if what you want is escalating levels of responsibility, being perceived as a flight risk is a real problem.

<comment><USER36> _Flight risks get managed differently_

Assuming a large percentage of software developers leave for new gigs every 2-3 years, even in the best companies [that is an assumption on my part; I don't know if it's true or only anecdotal], why do you think the overhead for "flight risk" is so high? I mean, getting tagged as someone heading out the door is a temporary situation for most devs, not a long-term debilitation.

<comment><USER37> Ideal situation is to have contingencies in place for every member of the company. Realistically it is relatively easy to have backups for producing employees where there are multiple in a team anyway - devs, ops, designers - than for managerial employees. (Managers groom their own backups iff they want to get promoted.)

So if you are a flight risk, you are unlikely to become a manager or given any additional "unique" responsibilities in terms of tech-lead or customer-facing work, unless your skills are really extraordinary and indispensable (and usually they aren't).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you want to keep working in a place where the only way to get a substantial raise is to threaten to quit? Accepting a counter-offer basically encourages this bad behavior on the part of companies, and I would not accept one on principle. When you get a counter-offer, whatever they say, you should be hearing "Ahh, we got away with paying you this little for so long--now I suppose we have to pay you market rate."

<comment><USER19> What it's more of is that your rate of pay-raise doesn't actually match the market-rate. You were hired presumably at market rate, and your pay has presumably gone up/down based on a percentage of that initial rate. Especially if the market is volatile, there'll eventually be a significant discrepancy.

And now you have some new company who _is_ paying the market rate, in other words, evaluating your position against the total market. Your company, which was at best evaluating your position within their own corporation, is now forced to do a market-scale re-evaluation. With the poaching offer as the baseline, since you've been tagged by _someone_ as being worth that much (and willing to pay it).

And now you've got a big boost in pay. Not because your C_Os were gathering together in the dark halls of the Bedlam basements, black robed, circled around the _Sefer Raziel Ha-Malakh Liber Razielis Archangeli_ , poring over your _employee review_ , whispering amongst themselves "yes, yes, he's a quiet man; he won't complain and he won't tire; give him a penny more and he won't trouble another year; _the fucking fool_ ".

All it is is that there was never a reason to do more work than necessary. And no reason to pay more than necessary.

Y'know, don't programmers have a similar saying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I will have to disagree with this on the following grounds:

1) As others have pointed out, look who's doing the suggesting. Recruiters profit from your movement between jobs, hence they will always encourage/justify it. This prioritizes their interests, not necessarily yours.

2) You were thinking of leaving, then the employer gave you a reason to stay. Sometimes life isn't worth overthinking: you got what you wanted through negotiation (your willingness to leave), so enjoy it!

Now that's not to say things always go well with this scenario. A counter- offer is not something I would want to normally do as an employer. It sets a bad precident: if I value you as an employee and my cost of replacing you is very high, you can just threaten to leave an get an automatic salary bump.

Furthermore, when word gets around (and it probably will...) my other employees might not be so happy that someone got an ad-hoc performance review. Now everyone wants their contract re-evaluated.

It's tough, and not black-and-white.

</comment><comment><USER39> On the other side of this, I accepted a counter-offer and enjoyed another four or so years at the company, finally leaving after being there almost eight years.

Never say never.

</comment><comment><USER40> Counteroffers are poison for both the employee and the company.

The employee now knows that he could have gotten the same thing the employer is now offering before the counteroffer.

The employer knows that the employee is spending a non-trivial amount of time to interview and talk to other employers.

I agree there should be no trust here, but we are conditioned to think that there should be.

Exceptions aside (and you don't know if you're in one of those exceptions), a counter offer allows you to exist in a poisoned relationship for a few more months.

<comment><USER41> Some times office policies prohibit giving employees good raises and precipitate an environment where a counter offer is necessary to get a good pay bump. The act of the employee looking elsewhere usually removes those internal handcuffs.

Its not always about shafting an individual so much as managing the entire business.

This can also be wholly subjective to the company, culture, boss, and employee.

<comment><USER42> > Its not always about shafting an individual so much as managing the entire > business.

I read this as: It's not always about shafting an individual so much as shafting all the employees who will let you shaft them.

<comment><USER41> I don't think of my employees this way,in fact I just had one raised to the new "average" because it turned out they didn't negotiate well and were below average ( not my hire, just now my report) - it was a 12% raise.

Play devils advocate and see how a "mega corp" runs things. If you could pay everyone discretionally (ie decided by mid level manager) you'd be out of business tomorrow. Those companies keep cost controls just because they are so large. Larger businesses offer more employee security, but there is also less chance for financial growth. The counter offer is essentially a hack on the system.

<comment><USER42> > I don't think of my employees this way,in fact I just had one raised to the > new "average" because it turned out they didn't negotiate well and were > below average ( not my hire, just now my report) - it was a 12% raise.

That's very good of you.

> Play devils advocate and see how a "mega corp" runs things. If you could pay > everyone discretionally (ie decided by mid level manager) you'd be out of > business tomorrow. Those companies keep cost controls just because they are > so large.

This is true, and a clear indictment of large corporations. Unsuprisingly, this logic only applies to the lower end of the pyramid, however--upper-level management rarely chooses to put cost controls on their own pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I would say that before you consider all offers, you should be aware of your circumstances. Are you integral to your current company? Do you have an open relationship about your career with your current employer? Do you like your current job? Are the benefits something you think about regularly (4 weeks leave time, work from home, fully covered health insurance)?, having researched pay for your level of experience, where are you? (knowing this is critical). If you're on the low end, ask your employer why. If you do get offered a new position, is "total compensation" better (salary - taxes, medical, dental, leave time, additional benefits)? If offered a bonus, remember you have to pay taxes on it.

I tend to agree with the rule "don't entertain counter offers", but if you think you may get one, discuss it directly. A lot of employers will be very honest about your total comp and why they level you there. It's often about their own costs, their own "grid" of salaries, and because they have a "system", they can't really pay you more unless you're promoted to management. It could be about you and if that's the case, they probably view you as expendable and you should almost certainly move on.

Whatever you do, try to minimize the emotions and focus on all of the tangible aspects.

</comment><comment><USER44> My father once received a pre-emptive counteroffer.

Basically, he did his job well and took on steadily increasing responsibilities as the company expanded rapidly, and in five years he went from a minor role in a small business to a critical role in a large business. One day his bosses suddenly realized that their senior system administrator was working for peanuts and any of their competitors would love to have him.

They gave him a 50% raise on the spot. He hadn't even been thinking about other work.

</comment><comment><USER45> "Never" seems awfully absolute. For me at least the decision would depend on the terms of the counter-offer.

<comment><USER46> The article has this near the end:

 _There are always exceptions, even more, there are cases when accepting a counter-offer is a right decision (your cat dies and you need bunch of money to save her)._

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I've had a counter-offer at each of the jobs I've resigned from. Neither got much beyond the stage of "Would you stay for more money?". The first, I gave my employer the courtesy of saying I would think on it overnight, although my mind was already up (but you never know). The second I judged not _as_ serious an offer. Neither time I left was it about the money, anyway.

It did make me curious. I think an alternative way to read it (as opposed to the "why didn't I get this sooner?" attitude from the article) is "why didn't I ask for a pay-rise sooner?". This has made me more confident in dealing with employers; I'm about to ask my current one for a rise and I think I'll get it.

It's quite nice to leave it open-ended, too. If an employer dangles the promise of 'more money' in front of you, but you don't actually go into details, you can always fantasise that it was going to be twice as big as it actually was. That way, you'll probably aim higher in future than if you'd found out the full details.

</comment><comment><USER48> Got called into SVP' office. "Oh Crap," I thought. Marched into secure Exec area.

SVP:Is Joe Blow good?

Me: yes. Critical

SVP: why?

Me: runs acqusition system. Only one that knows it. Smart too

SVP: thanks.

\-- I left with my escort and called my boss. "What was that about?" said Joe quit and his salary request to stay needed Executive approval. So SVP asked to talk to someone who directs his work (me).

<comment><USER49> That's a cool story. It's nice that you were able to help a coworker like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I accepted a counteroffer with mixed results. I was given an offer at a company in Europe which pretty closely matched my salary and perks. It came with a small pay bump but most importantly, extra vacation time and a solid relocation bonus. I had submitted notice with my current employer, who gave me a counteroffer matching the money, increasing my holidays and giving me the ability to work remotely from wherever I chose. I accepted the counteroffer because I still liked the company I work for and they now were meeting my other requirements.

About 6 months later I was planning my relocation when I was notified by HR that they would not be fulfilling that part of my contract citing nothing but "legal requirements." I have been intensely bitter towards them ever since.

<comment><USER51> You still work for them?!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I generally agree. Unless the reason for leaving is just money those reasons have not gone away by accepting a counter offer, and your current employer's expectations of you will probably change markedly after a large (from their perspective) pay increase potentially making the situation worse.

</comment><comment><USER53> I get not accepting a counter-offer, although I know one employee that took a counter-offer that was insanely good and has been in golden handcuffs ever since, but couldn't be doing better financially.

However, I think that retention agreements and other "bonuses for staying on" can be helpful, even though I think that really what employees want typically are positive changes that would keep them from leaving (like firing a terrible manager or changing a policy) that cost less than retention agreements or counter-offers in many cases.

The best case is never to get in this situation by paying really well, hiring really well, and firing bad employees when necessary.

</comment><comment><USER54> To clarify: it may come off as expecting mind-reading if hypothetical employee doesn't raise deal-breaker Problem A through channels first. If all channels are exhausted, then sure, move along away from a shop that can't/won't remedy underlying issue/s to a more civilized place that tries harder to make the work community as enjoyable and productive as reasonably possible.

Finally, two points: both avoid perpetual grass-is-always-greener-itis and there is an always-moving trajectory for both the organization and each contributor, best to leave at the right time to maximize effectiveness and rewards.

</comment><comment><USER55> If a counter-offer (or the reason you interviewed with other companies) is about money, accepting it is IMO a bad idea -- the company wants to minimize the pain of your leaving _now_ , not the pain of your leaving in general.

If you want to change what you do (coding to management, UI to AI, etc.) and the management offers you good options to consider, this is likely to be a genuine desire to keep you working for a company in whatever capacity. In this case accepting it should not put you on a path to the door.

</comment><comment><USER56> "I have seen researches showing that more than 90% of the employees who accepted a counter-offer are leaving the company after an average of 15 months."

Can you add a link to those studies?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out. I've added a link and removed the number as actually there are different studies with different numbers.

Here are few other resources of such examples

[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/counter-offer- could...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/counter-offer-could-be-at- your-peril-survey/articleshow/53275324.cms)

[http://thevetrecruiter.com/news/a-perfect-case-study-for- not...](http://thevetrecruiter.com/news/a-perfect-case-study-for-not- accepting-a-counter-offer/)

[http://www.careercast.com/career-news/pros-and-cons- countero...](http://www.careercast.com/career-news/pros-and-cons- counteroffers)

<comment><USER2> Look at how poorly these articles describe the surveys. One mentions a Pittsburgh recruiting firm - they couldn't even give the firm's name? These surveys are mysterious - nothing even on sample size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I guess that if you want to go because salary is low but otherwise the work is fine, accepting a counter-offer is the best thing you can do :-) However if one does not like the company, to stay for the money may not be a good choice. However this is also true when you have to manage people, it's _hardly_ a good thing to force people to stay at your company if they are unhappy, unless they just want to make more and they deserve it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Yeah, except most of the time, in my experience, employees rarely try to solve problem A. They may say something or be passive aggressive, but quickly give up and become disgruntled.

As someone who has been an engineer at all levels and now an exec at a public company, I rarely give counter offers in this situation. I think there are some cases where it can work, but in most cases; if someone wants to leave, you wish them the best and move on.

</comment><comment><USER21> Okay, so if I were to believe what this person wrote, in specific that no one is going to profit from accepting counter offers and that on top of that the relationship between employer and employee will alway get worse and that there will be lots of apathy then I have to ask why would any employer ever make a counter offer?

What do they have to gain from an employee that hates working from them?

> Now, all of a sudden Problem A gets solved in just some 10 minutes. Why > wasn't it solved before?

Because this employee is very likely a weak person in this regard. If it can be solved within ten minutes then it is very likely that you would have been able to get what you wanted without threatening to quit your job.

The one thing that I agree on is that one should follow through on his decisions, but this shouldn't be done in an irrational way. You usually decide to do something because you want some kind of improvement. If it is possible to reach an agreement with your current employer that gives you exactly that then why shouldn't you accept?

</comment><comment><USER59> Anyone who gives you absolute advice like this one has a hidden agenda.

Except me, right now.

</comment><comment><USER60> Some counter offers are easy to reject. A while back I applied to another part of the company for a position that was a promotion, and got offered the position.

My manager, who was notified (inner company), comes to me and says, "Hey, if I could get you the promotion, would you stay? Even though I don't think you deserve it?"

"Mmm... no thanks."

</comment><comment><USER61> I've taken 3 counter offers at the same company. Will probably do it again if my current job search goes well. In a company like mine you can't just ask for a raise and expect to get it. However, if a key resource resigns wheels start turning. All the sudden they can give significant increases. Otherwise you grind it out year after year hoping for 3% but some people get nothing. I'm going to hate my life no matter the job. So I will work for the highest bidder or most leave time.

</comment><comment><USER62> Five letters: BATNA

What is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement?

In _any_ negotiation, with _any_ party, your strength lies in your ability to walk away. If a vendor isn't offering you the product, or features, or price, you want, then having the alternative to walk elsewhere gives you strength. It's what lies at the foundation of the concept of a competitive market (though there are other elements as well, many involving information access).

Businesses, and recruiters, such as the one offering this exceptionally poor advice, have far more data, _and far more experience_ than any given single worker in engaging in labour negotiations. Hell: _It is their core competency._

Accepting the terms of an employer or recruiter _in engaging in the battle directly_ is the worst possible thing you can do. Which includes this still- born advice to never accept a counteroffer.

Are there counteroffers you _shouldn 't_ accept? Yes. Are there counteroffers you _should_ accept? Yes. You'll find discussion in this thread on both sets of circumstances.

(A general guideline: if it's the money that's been what's making you unhappy at a given job, go for it. If it's been other matters, that is what you should be negotiating on, though sweetening the pot doesn't hurt either.)

The degree of ignorance exhibited by far too many technologists on the concepts of negotiating, power, leverage, and advantage is vast. I include myself. I can only suggest: go out and start studying the literature, including Machiavelli, Hobbes, J.K. Galbraith's _The Anatomy of Power_ , and books on sales and negotiation. I'm finding older works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries particularly informative -- there's much more openness about direct tactics, and a distinct lack of embarassment in discussing them. More recent material can be useful and will show additional tricks, and advances in psychology, but I find that the traditional insights themselves are quite telling.

Michael O. Church has much to say on the inequalities, including overt blacklists, which exist within Silicon Valley and elsewhere, which may be illuminating: [https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/what-i- fough...](https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/what-i-fought-for/)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negoti...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement)

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure the author of this story isn't a recruiter, no?

<comment><USER62> Per his posted bio, no, so I'd flubbed that. From discussion on page and reading the article, that wasn't clear.

Note that recruiters, founders, and hiring managers can have similar biases though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Accepting the counter offer may not be a great strategy, but listening to it is. When changing jobs the last time, my old employer offered a salary bump to keep me. When I told this to my new employer, they immediately offered to match the salary. I ended up making more money than I would have otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER64> > I have seen surveys showing that majority of the employees who accepted a > counter-offer are leaving the company after an average of 15 months.

So? That stat is quite meaningless without a control group. I.e. how long does a typical emplyoee stay with a company? Probably not much more than 15 months on average...

</comment><comment> alex-yo Yea, funny. I'm looking for a job now.

The most funny thing is that I get no counter-offer. I always here (or rather read) "yes, we are impressed by your experience, it is really great, but you know, you wanted too much, we have lots of others who want much less". When I asked for a counter offer I get either no reply, or something like "We don't give counter offers at this moment, you wanted much above the average that we pay".

And I wanted just about the same money I was earning in my previous job.

From my perspective the job hunt is a one shot thing. I give some figure, they stop being interested. No negotiation, no counter-offer, no other things.

So it seems like the market is not that good for programmers, or I'm just so unlucky.

<comment><USER65> I mean no insult by this: were you possibly paid more at your previous employer than the market thinks you're worth?

<comment> UK-AL There can be huge variations in the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> > "I have seen researches showing that more than 90% of the employees who > accepted a counter-offer are leaving the company after an average of 15 > months."

In an industry where the average tenure is about 23 months; this seems neither surprising nor alarming.

</comment><comment><USER67> I agree with you in spirit but I have a friend who got A LOT more money for just two years. He thinks it was worth it and I agree. Your rule holds unless there's a lot of money (or some other compensation) that makes it worth it.

</comment><comment><USER68> Counter offers are a little silly. People in our industry are already making far above the median, which makes it extremely unlikely that money is the motivation behind resignation. More often it's a bad manager—there's a saying that people don't quit jobs; they quit bosses—uninteresting work, change in direction, or some other environmental factor. If you're going to make someone a counter-offer you should also be sure to address the real issue that caused them to want to leave in the first place, or they're just going to leave after a short time anyway.

<comment><USER69> > People in our industry are already making far above the median

Well, half of them are.

<comment><USER70> The median income in the US (in 2014) was $29k. The median salary for a software engineer is supposedly $95k. That's more than triple the overall median.

Sources: [https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html) [https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer- salary-...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary- SRCH_KO0,17.htm)

<comment><USER71> That's the average salary for a software engineer, not the median. Also, the SSA site uses "net compensation" for their numbers, which they define as "compensation (wages, tips, and the like) subject to Federal income taxes, as reported by employers on Form W-2" and "includes contributions to deferred compensation plans, but excludes certain distributions from plans where the distributions are included in the reported compensation subject to income taxes". It is not clear to me how that maps to salaries reported on Glassdoor.

<comment><USER70> I could have sworn that page said median, not average. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> It really depends on the reason you're leaving. For example: if you were leaving because of mismanagement, then a counter-offer without any promise for change in management will not be enough.

</comment><comment><USER73> > When it's all about a feeling, things are hardly going to change even with a > great counteroffer, so staying in the same place because now you have a free > public transport ticket is just an apathy. That feeling will stalk you > forever, it will make the relationship between you and your employer worse > and there will be no winning side.

Does anyone have any personal stories about this -- having no hard / defensible reason other than not feeling right -- and leaving? How did it work out for you?

</comment><comment><USER74> I accepted a counter-offer which contained a significant amount of equity, and has now paid itself off multiple times over.

I feel you can't give black-and-white advice on this.

</comment><comment><USER75> I'm a bit surprised this thread is getting this much attention. Honestly there is no magic answer to stuff like this, it always "depends".

</comment><comment><USER76> Did anyone else find this article borderline incoherent?

</comment><comment><USER77> A better way of looking at this is to be honest with your employer about your happiness in your role. Feel like you're not paid enough? Not challenged? Difficulty with teammates or manager? Raise these issues. If you are not taken seriously, then you know you are in the wrong place, and can look for something else without even needing to consider entertaining a counter-offer.

</comment><comment><USER78> I don't know about you people, but if I received a counter-offer which involved an unlimited amount of free snacks I'd take it.

</comment><comment><USER79> If a boss give counter offer without providing road map on solving your concern. I agree the counter offer should reject.

But there is chance, counter offer can be change of department. Which can be different story.

If just money raise, I think the don't really want to solve your problem. But just don't want to hire a new one. Everyone know hiring is difficult. Hiring is boss problem.

<comment><USER44> > _If just money raise, I think the don 't really want to solve your problem._

What if your problem is that you wanted more money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> We had a couple people accept our counter offer then use it as leverage to get a better third opportunity a couple months down the road.

<comment><USER20> Which is ok. Every paycheck is a renewed offer to stay. Every employee should periodically reevaluate their employment deal, and survey whether a better deal is available.

Folks like to throw in 'loyalty' and 'responsibility' here. But I've never seen a company mention those things at layoff time. It has to be a two-way street.

And even if a company _does_ try to be 'loyal' to employees by renegotiating terms during economic hard times (job-sharing, reducing hours etc) the cynic in me says "they're trying to reduce costs so they don't have to retrain later".

You've got to look out for #1 first. Nobody else is looking out for you after all.

<comment><USER80> I guess my point was for those people they ended up with a much better third option by accepting our counter offer. If they had said no to our counter offer they would have been worse off.

<comment><USER20> Agreed! You get what you negotiate, not what you deserve!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I once worked in a company where the only way to get a raise was to get a counter offer. Each year even the best people were getting raises lower than the cost of life increase.

The employees were so unmotivated, all they wanted was to find another job.

Don't take a counter offer, flee those kind of places.

</comment><comment><USER82> It depends on the situation.

If the codebase is a mess and you're the only person who understands it and the boss is aware of this; and your absence would cause the business to lose a ton of money and the boss offers you an amazing deal then you should definitely accept the counter-offer.

</comment><comment><USER83> I'm not a recruiter and I completely agree. Never accept a counter offer. Having said this - I work in sales, and a lot depends on trust between you and the company when you work in that profession. It may be different for developers etc.

</comment><comment><USER84> I accepted a counter offer as a senior sysadmin at my last job and then ended up getting promoted to Dir Ops. I never regretted accepting the counter offer, even though the recruiter tried to talk me out of it.

</comment><comment><USER85> Interesting post, though am I the only one who finds it strange to see it upvoted so many times on hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER86> Not very good advice, these things are always highly situational and any clear cut answer would prove ignorance

</comment><comment><USER87> just remember that not everything is about earning more money, sometimes the best career moves may involve making less and with reduced stress and angst

</comment><comment><USER88> If you take the counter-offer you'll be dumped after the job is done :)</comment>


Ask HN: How to turn job offers into consulting gigs instead? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN. I run a small dev shop and am getting some really nice offers from companies I used to dream of working for. However, my priorities have changed and I now want to build my own company.
We do consulting to be able to bootstrap product development.
Have any of you guys managed to pull off being called into interviews and leaving with a consulting gig instead? How did you do it?
Thanks /devdad <comment><USER2> A long time ago I got a year long consulting gig from the opposite coast because the people really liked me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Were you open from the start that you didn't look for employment?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What was your best $1000 investment? - <AUTHOR> What is the best investment you have done or are planning to do under $1000? <comment><USER2> It feels like this question wants to be saying "what price did you buy bitcoin"? :-)

<comment><USER3> He said best investment, not _luckiest_ :^)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Buying a 1 year commitment to my gym; I went from a bad cholesterol of 421 to 189. Amazing drop, 3 months in and I've lost 30 pounds and significantly reduced my A1C and other factors. On target to lose 100 pounds.

<comment><USER5> Did you change your diet at the same time or it was just gym?

<comment><USER4> Diet too. Dropped lattes in favor of Americano's. Stopped eating office snacks and eating really clean. Did the Whole 30 for a month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This might not be the answer that you are looking for, but a good set of peripherals for my PC.

A good mechanical keyboard, 3 decent screens, a stand to mount them up high and make room on my desk, and a few other smaller things.

Those parts have done more for my career and sanity than anything else I could have spent my money on at the time.

I spend 40+ hours a week at or around this desk, I want it to be comfortable and work well for me. Not to mention that even if something makes me 1% more productive, it's worth it to spend $1000 a year on it and still "break even" in terms of cost (in theory)

<comment><USER4> A good chair?

<comment><USER6> I was lucky enough to have gotten a good chair from my wife as a present already, so that didn't really apply to me, plus my list of stuff was already getting close to $1000!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I bought a business/website while in school for about $400. This year I anticipate earning about 7-10k from that site.

It was a great investment for the financial return alone, but I also learned a lot about business, marketing, and the technical skills needed to run the website.

</comment><comment><USER8> The AWS bill for my first personal website. Being able to say "I built a website on AWS" in 2009 was probably the reason I got my first job making >100k.

</comment><comment><USER9> technically, it wasn't my investment, but my Father bought me a PC when i turned 13, and that cost about 800EUR at the time (close enough to $1000)... i got hooked on computers, and have been working in the field for the last 13 years full time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Buying 4.16 bitcoins in 2015 for $240 a piece.

<comment><USER11> Have you sold them yet?

<comment><USER12> did you lose* them yet?

<comment><USER13> any more details on this? been hearing from some of my bullish friends that the earlier they got into bitcoin the more likely something "odd" happened to them.

<comment><USER14> Besides having more time to lose them, the farther back you go, the less they were worth, so there was less reason to be careful with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Joining a dating site. Met my wife a week later!

<comment><USER16> one week on a dating site cost $1000?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, there's this dating site that charges $1000 memberships, but all the people are super attractive, wealthy, and looking to get married. Actually with sales tax it's a little over $1000, but close enough. It's super selective, though, and I signed an NDA so I can't reveal the URL or the name of it. You'll just have to take my word on it.

<comment><USER17> Wait, so they do the Fight Club thing where you can only find it from word of mouth by close people? How do you find this kind of place?

Not that I'm interested in finding it, I don't care, it's pure curiosity now.

<comment><USER15> I've already said too much.

<comment><USER17> That sounds like something a movie character would say before seeing a red dot on their body and being executed :)

Don't worry about it, I'll take your word for it. The world is more interesting than I thought!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Prepaid a 1 year gym membership. Returns will be non-monetary.

<comment><USER19> Awesome! True the returns wont be in money, but they'll be in GAINS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 1,000 BTC at 0.70 in 2011...

<comment><USER21> do I have that right? if you held your bitcoin they'd be worth 14M today?

<comment><USER22> $16M

<comment><USER23> $17M

<comment><USER24> Which at conservative returns is nearly $700k/yr in recurring revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I bought $1000 worth of Ford stock at its all time low after the market crashed. Incidentally, I also bought $1000 of TSLA when it was in the double digits per share. Too bad I sold it for like a $100 gain (edit: total $100 gain, not per share - I figured 10% was a nice gain and to not get greedy).

I've made enough bad stock calls that I don't regret putting only $1000 in those, though. Those just happen to be my winners. We might need an Ask HN on our worst $1000 developments :)

</comment><comment><USER26> When I was younger, I was frugal about everything. I scrutinized every purchase with "do I REALLY need it?" Sometime later I figured out that if the thing is going to help me get closer to my goals (books, productivity enhancers, computers...etc) and was affordable, then just buy it. Or if it will save me time such that I can work on something else (i.e. Pay someone to mow the lawn), also worth it. This thinking has substantially changed my life for the better.

</comment><comment><USER27> Probably my iPhone SE. Bitcoin made me richer, but I didn't get on early enough for it to have made any real difference, where as the smartphone changed my life.

That or my cat.

<comment><USER28> What breed ? Why consider it a good investment when you could have one for free ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Under 1000$ I did a life design workshop in Montreal for 40$. In just 3 hours I figured out what I really wanted in my life. Thanks to the workshop I now make 300$ more a month on a side project, moved to a house with a jacuzzi where I can rent the basement out (about 400$ a month and communal life which I love), and negotiated a 5 hours a week reduction in work.

The reduction of hours might cost more than 1000$ though... but it is well worth it!

</comment><comment><USER30> I bought a round-trip plane ticket to Shanghai China for $900 to attend the Ethereum developers conference when I was completely broke. The conference inspired me to get involved with Ethereum development. Even though it was a lot of money for me to spend at the time, it ended up as one of the most rewarding decisions of my life.

</comment><comment><USER31> AAPL at ~$12/share in 2000 (price not adjusted for splits).

</comment><comment><USER32> I bought a 1992 Subaru Legacy for $700 cash. I put some parts in it and drove it for 4 years. Survived a couple fender benders during that time too. I gave it to a friend who was hard-up who drove it for 2 more years, and hit a deer with it. It wasn't really phased, but I had to rig the mirror back on. I took it back when he was done and finally scrapped it for $200. It was still a fully working car when they took it away. 10/10, would buy again.

</comment><comment><USER33> engagement ring :) better than my bitcoin investment...

<comment><USER34> An engagement ring is not an investment and, furthermore, its not even a requirement marriage - you can get married without one (I did).

The subtext is more unpleasant...

<comment><USER33> For me it is an investment in life, future and love - why should everything be about money. I really like the ring, it is beautiful. And she loves the ring!

<comment><USER34> The unpleasant subtext here being that you're basically saying your girlfriend's love and commitment are dependant on receiving an expensive trinket.

At least that's unpleasant to me.

<comment><USER33> no - it is just a sign... a nice one

<comment><USER34> If it's just a nice trinket that has sentimental value then it's most certainly not an " _investment_ in life, future and love."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My 1 year Krav Maga membership, a self defence system. Went from heavy smoker, no-cardio-at-all-person to feeling confident because I know how to defend myself, picked up running, swimming and regular body weight exercise on the side. Looking and feeling pretty good nowadays. More energy, brain activity, focus. Defo most bang for the buck.

<comment><USER36> Similar, I put down a $1000 for a year of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Doing something like that is a lot more fun and life changing than just lifting weights at a gym.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Technically it was around $1800 but bought in two $900 lots, but my first 5000 shares in a promising mining company. Bought in at $0.33, sold at $1.12 two days before the CEO got caught being rather naughty and the whole thing tanked.

Monetarily, not massive returns, but as a percentage that was by far my biggest return on any investment.

</comment><comment><USER38> Saving in a savings account at DCU - Digital Federal Credit Union. They give 5.1% interest rate for the first $1000

Risk free investment:-)

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess it was quite a good investment to adopt my dog. But I think by now it cost me over $1000 so it does not qualify anymore.

This question is actually quite hard because so many things cost <=$1000, but it is hard to pick one that is the _best_.

</comment><comment><USER40> 10 shares of $GOOG in 2004.

<comment><USER4> Still have it?

<comment><USER40> yup!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> not me but somebody made a lot of money in the last month with alt coins.

[https://bitscreener.com/top-screeners/1-month- gainers](https://bitscreener.com/top-screeners/1-month-gainers)

</comment><comment><USER42> I bought 1000$ worth of ETF in Stash app and am planning to hold it for 10 years.

<comment><USER43> Which ETF?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A Neato vacuum robot and a ScanSnap scanner. Automate your chores.

</comment><comment><USER45> A Pentium III 450mhz and an NVIdia TNT2 in the year 1999

<comment><USER33> I can imagine that - we had a Pentium II 400Mhz with an onboard Nvidia riva TNT - the onboard part made it fast... And outcast, C&C 3 and AoE II came out that time

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My beloved book. My kids books. My cat.

</comment><comment><USER47> I bought Amazon Stocks many years ago.

</comment><comment><USER48> A round-the-World travel ticket.

</comment><comment><USER49> bitcoin

</comment><comment><USER50> ether

</comment><comment><USER51> Probably my first PC.

</comment><comment><USER52> Bought and scalped 4 Hamilton tickets.

</comment><comment><USER53> the first $1000 we saved for the down payment on our house

</comment><comment><USER54> ETH

</comment><comment><USER55> bitcoin obv

</comment><comment><USER56> Winter tires + wheels. Driving in the winter used to freak me out and it was so worrisome to feel as though I was at the mercy of all sorts of yahoos. Now, I feel in control and I don't have to pay more for an AWD/4WD vehicle.</comment>


Do you believe we will ever find missing flight MH370? - <AUTHOR> http://mh370.meteor.com/

<comment><USER2> I believe this page was made with Meteor framework. The weight of the page is more than 1.1M:

300K 21cb1a4eff53b27fda8706ea8f838321e5c9a856.js 600K format+en,default+en,ui+en,corechart+en.I.js

Too much for this simple functionality.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes i used meteor

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> transparency:

No</comment>


Manhattan Project National Historical Park - <AUTHOR> http://www.energy.gov/management/office-management/operational-management/history/manhattan-project/manhattan-project-0 <comment><USER2> "Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico"

They couldn't get access to the original site at the University of Chicago and Soldier Field, of course.

It's interesting that nuclear weapons have been re-invented about ten times in various nations around the world, sometimes just with public information and sometimes with American materials and instructions. Still, the original Manhattan Project is the fastest and cheapest of all the successful efforts to build a bomb. That's the value of hiring the best people in the world in your field.

<comment><USER3> There isn't really much to see at UofC, and you can go to a monument at the site now.

Most of the sites in the secret cities are decaying, cut off to the public or at extremely limited access, and the goal of the park is to preserve and help open them up. The graphite reactor (X-10) in Oak Ridge, for example, is a fairly tourist friendly site (one of the pics on the site), but it is right on the campus of ORNL, and it requires access to the lab or a rare tour to actually visit it. Hopefully the park can get security right and get the funds in place for frequent visits.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See Also (it's a work in progress):

The Manhattan Project: an interactive history

[https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project- history/index...](https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project- history/index.htm)</comment>


Ask Reddit: What is Haskell good for? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bxc1/ask_reddit_what_is_haskell_good_for <comment><USER2> Haskell is the academics coming out of the ivory tower to discover if their theories work in the real world, being joined by some more academically- inclined programmers trying to help them.

It's been a learning experience all around. Interesting things have happened and are happening. Not quite ready to call it "practical" but it sure is interesting.

IMHO, the most interesting confluence to date is a relatively practical Software Transactional Memory. There's a lot of good Haskell concurrency but it says something that for STM to really, really work, you pretty much seem to need Haskell. (It is a characteristic of STM that once you allow even a relatively small escape hatch, the guarantees it provides go flying out the window and it explodes in complexity beyond usefulness.) I'm still not sure exactly what this says, but I'm having fun learning. And note I'm not saying I even necessarily use STM all the time; I specifically find interesting the idea that it doesn't seem to work anywhere else because the temptation to impurity is too strong and it's the impurity that causes the complexity detonation; it's a good exemplar of the sort of interesting things going on, not the only such thing.

It may be the most genuinely innovative area of programming research going on right now. Most other communities seem to just be shuffling the same ideas around over and over again. (Or are so straight-up academic as to be impractically useless with no real chance of escaping that designation.) That does mean it is still full of rather sharp pointy bits, whereas even a brand new Algol-derived language now has so many decades of experience behind it that even its warts can start out well-polished. If Haskell does intrigue you, you should probably be aware that even though there are ten calendar years of Haskell history it still feels rather like a promising three-year-old language, with things like large library gaps, distressing amounts of "best practices" living in oral history and obscure mailing list posts, and some questions about "how I do this" not really having good answers. But it's improving.

<comment><USER3> Thats the most accurate and balanced description of the haskell community I've ever heard. Such honesty does more to convince people to check out haskell than any amount of advocacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Turning programmers into mathematicians and mathematicians into programmers.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://xmonad.org/>

Not only is it a real-world Haskell project, it's the only one I can think of where the co-founders are from the UK _and_...Nebraska!

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm considering doing a project in Haskell. I've used a functional language before (Standard ML), but that was in university and I didn't really like it much.

Reading "Real World Haskell" makes me understand why Haskell is such a great language, and while it may take me a bit longer to learn it, it will be well worth the effort.

</comment><comment><USER7> Programming.</comment>