How Much Do You Get Paid?

Openly discussing compensation, equity and systemic economic disparity in the technology industry. 

This is the first in a series about small acts of rebellion, organization, and dissent that people in technology can employ against the existing power structure.

Inside Silicon Valley’s paternalistic work culture, companies are designed to feel like families, perks of all forms spring “magically” from a deliberately concealed service class, and there is a perpetual, conspiratorial sense that we’re all going to get rich.

Or at least, the people who are smart enough, work hard enough, long enough — they are all going to get rich. The meritocracy, after all, must be fed.

Within this economic system, functioning on the surface as a widely shared mythology, any specific, shared realization and acknowledgement of the unequal compensation earned by women and other marginalized groups in tech represents a significant threat.

I say “specific” because it is generally understood that women get paid less than men; that white women get paid more than black men and women and hispanic men and women (oh you didn’t know that last part?). However, recognizing this macrocosm functioning intimately, in the immediate, personal, local context — in our friend groups, in our teams, in our companies, and in our communities — remains massively taboo in the industry. It is also the context where people are most likely to truly recognize the system AND have agency to intervene in it.

People in tech — both members of the privileged groups and members of the marginalized groups — need to start talking about fucking money. And not in the sense of how much this company or that company sold for, but in the sense of how much fucking money are you making and why is that more or less than the people around you?

Towards a Broader Understanding of Compensation in Tech

In part because of the mainstream focus on “cents on the dollar,” comparing of marginalized people to the dominant class in terms of base salary, we are likely to adopt a similarly narrow conception of compensation in tech.

However, salary only tells one part of the compensation picture. For people within tech, a study of local / community inequalities must include:

• FUCKING EQUITY. How much equity do women and other marginalized groups in your company have relative to their total population in the company and the industry? How does this affect their long-term financial status? While men are squeezing billions of dollars out of their startup equity, why are women and members of marginalized groups being left behind? What are the long-term, systemic financial consequences when marginalized groups get left out of one of the primary wealth mechanisms of their own industry?
• Bonuses. Lots of people in tech, in addition to base salaries, get percentage bonuses at regular points throughout the year, and spot bonuses at other times, that can significantly affect an overall compensation package — ESPECIALLY for people in management and executive positions. What about signing bonuses?
• Company perks. Who is able to take advantage of company perks that occur outside of working hours — such as dinners, company housing, corporate transportation, and other perks that can significantly reduce overall living cost? Who ISN’T able to take advantage of these perks because they are caretakers, because they don’t have access, or because they don’t feel safe or comfortable in those spaces?

Between Friends

There are many reasons we don’t talk about compensation. For one, it is hard to land on the right side. Either one is making more than the other, and thus may feel guilty or be perceived as bragging; or one is making less, and thus may feel inferior, embarrassed, taken advantage of. There is always a vague sense of unease: can we get in trouble for sharing our own salary information, or hearing that of others? In the morass of legal paper you have to sign when taking a job in the Valley, it can be hard to know. Regardless, appearing to others as being a troublemaker, instigator,of cause of bad morale in the ranks can carry risk to your employment.

(Please note that talking about compensation is federally protected under section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, and that “Courts and the National Labor Relations Board have found that conversations about wages are necessary for collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and that rules that ensure that employees can never talk about their wages can be unfair labor practices because they can inhibit these protected labor practices.”)

Because of the taboo and potential discomfort that open discussions of salary invoke, compensation information is generally only shared within homogeneous groups — white men in similar roles at similar companies, for example. Unfortunately, while this is an utterly non-challenging way of examining how compensation functions, it also means we look at compensation through the lens of “like-like” comparisons- i.e., comparing salary between like people occupying the same positions.

This isn’t sufficient for seeing the entire economic system at play in the workforce. For one, women’s roles in tech are often gendered and undervalued/under-compensated compared to men’s roles. Women are often not provided the mentorship, training and benefit-of-the-doubt that men benefit from to try out new positions and roles. Women and other minorities in tech are less likely to be promoted to manager and executive positions, with only 3-5% of senior management positions in tech occupied by women.

This is not to say that “like-like” inequalities DO NOT happen because ohhhhhh they do. (I once discovered I was making at least $25,000 below market rate for my position) — but just that it is not complete, and that it erases many of the broader issues relevant to the economics of oppression in tech — including the long-term economic stability of minorities, access to a personal economic base that permits one to take big career risks, ability to start companies, ability/inability to access the most lucrative job positions, etc.

What Can Happen When We Talk About Compensation In Our Communities

• For members of marginalized groups, having unequal compensation be visible in the community means that we can better advocate for our own fair compensation, armed with better data and context.
• Open sharing of compensation information provides a basis for better community organization and advocacy — more than just individuals advocating for their own individual finances, but groups advocating for more equitable compensation at a team, company, even industry level.
• For members of privileged groups who are allies to oppressed people, illuminating how economic disparity is functioning in their own teams and communities gives them a site of intervention, a place to use their power and influence to enact positive change.
• Helping to shift the control of economic information from the existing patriarchal structure and into the province of workers removes a major source of power (via information asymmetry) from the structure.
• Openly discussing compensation works to dismantle the politeness politics around “gentlemen don’t discuss money” that only benefits the gentlemen — and works to move the practice of discussing economic systems into community consciousness.

Note: As with many things in tech, talking about compensation openly can be more risky for people in marginalized groups than those in privileged groups. You should always think about the potential risks and consequences of discussing comp in your specific situation. It’s also important to note that people in privileged positions can provide people in marginalized groups with important compensation information without requiring the same in return; and that talking within marginalized groups about comp may be safer than talking across power structures. Here is a great post discussing some of the issues around openness re: compensation in the workplace from Red Light Voices.

Ultimately, talking about compensation is taboo precisely because it means that we might actually realize what is going on right in front of us — not as abstract social constructs, but as a realized fact in our everyday environments. Compensation inequity continues to function in large part because of the deliberant silence and taboo around it.

Talking about compensation together, in our communities, with people within our economic, social, gender and racial groups, and with people outside of them, represents a small act of radical organization. It rejects the self-interested taboos of the ruling class within technology, dismantles the information asymmetry that helps it run, and gives us the data and community consciousness we need to make change happen.

Remember that just looking at salary through the dimensions of the gender binary (men and women) isn’t sufficient — please read my post on Analyzing Diversity in Your Workplace for a more complete (but not exhaustive) look at other relevant dimensions.

See part II on opening up community conversation about pay equity here.

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