LARGE technology firms used to hold on to their high-flying employees by agreeing not to poach them from each other. “If you hire a single one of these people, that means war,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s then boss, warned Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, in 2005. That was an illegal arrangement, and in 2015 Apple, Google, Adobe and Intel paid a $415 m settlement to engineers whose pay had been held down as a result.
大公司之间过去常常通过承诺不从彼此之间互相挖人来留住他们十分优秀的员工。[1]“如果你敢雇我这里的一个人，那就意味着战争”苹果公司前CEO史蒂夫乔布斯在2005年警告Sergey Brin，谷歌公司的创始人。这其实是一项非法的商议，并且在2015年，苹果、谷歌、Adobe和英特尔几家公司偿还给工程师415000000美元，他们的工资因为之前的商议而被拉低。
Today wage suppression in Silicon Valley is even more of a distant memory than dial-up internet and mainframe computers. Last year technology companies inAmerica recorded expenses of more than$40bn in stock-based compensation.
今天来看硅谷的工资压制是比拨号上网和大型机更为久远的记忆。去年美国科技公司在股权激励上投入的费用超过了400亿
*Exact comparisons are difficult, but to put that sum in perspective it is roughly 60% more than the bonus pool paid to the New York employees of Wall Street banks. *
很难进行精确的比较，客观分析一下总额，那比华尔街银行给雇员的奖金大约多出60%。
The money tech firms throw at employees has ballooned as competition to hire and hang on to top talent in engineering,data science, artificial intelligence and digital marketing has soared. Even entry-level engineers can easily earn $120,000 a year,more than most people their age can make on Wall Street; mid-career executives with technical expertise who choose to work at large public companies such as Apple,Google and Facebook will pocket several million, including stock grants. The boss of one startup complains that he cannot find a competent chief operating officer who will work for less than $500,000 a year.
随着雇佣和留住工程、数据科学、人工智能和数字营销等领域顶尖人才的竞争加剧，科技公司砸的钱增长了很多。甚至是初级工程师年薪也可以轻松达到12万美金。比大多数在华尔街的同龄人赚的多；拥有技术专长的职业生涯中期主管经理选择在苹果、谷歌、脸书这样的大公司工作可以年入几百万，包括期权[2]。一个创业公司的老板抱怨说年薪五十万以下已经找不到能力称职的首席运营官了。
*All this is driven by a number of elements. The price of housing plays a part in pushing up salaries. The cost of living in the Bay Area is now 41% higher than the national average and 7% higher than the next most expensive place, New York City, according to Brant Shelor of Mercer, a consultancy. But the biggest spur of change is the enormous appetite for talent. Unlike the best lawyers or doctors, who can see only a limited number of people each day, those with exceptional technical expertise can transform a company because they are capable of creating products that are many times more attractive and thus a lot more lucrative, explains Marco Zappacosta of Thumbtack, a digital marketplace. *
诸多因素造成了如今的局面。房价是推高工资的一个重要因素。在湾区(Bay Area)的生活成本比全国平均水平高出41%，比排名第二的纽约高出7%，根据Brant Shelor[3]所讲。造成这种变化的最主要原因是对人才的巨大需求。不像优秀的律师和医生那样一天只能见到有限的几个人，技术顶尖的程序员可以改变一个公司，因为他们创造的产品比其他的优秀好几倍，因此可以获利颇丰，：Marco Zappacosta解释说。
Come into my parlour
请君入坑
*Google, Facebook and Amazon alone probably hire around 30% of all American computer-science undergraduates, reckons Roelof Botha of Sequoia, a venturecapital firm. These big public companies not only pay handsomely, but also wield a hiring advantage with the huge amount of stock they are willing to hand to promising candidates. Last year Alphabet, Google’s parent company, issued around $5.3bn instock-based compensation, equivalent to a fifth of its gross profits. That amounts to anaverage of$85,000 in stock-based compensation per full-time employee. *
仅仅谷歌、脸书以及亚马逊就雇佣了美国30%的CS毕业生，风险投资公司Sequoia的Roelof Botha这样认为。大公司不仅薪水慷慨，而且他们愿意给有潜力的应聘者股票，因而手握巨大的招聘优势。去年Alphabet，谷歌的母公司，发放了大约53亿的股权激励，大约等于其毛利润的五分之一，平均每个全职员工可以拿到八万五千元的股权激励。
*Whereas non-tech companies in theS&P 500 give out, on average, the equivalent of less than 1% of their revenues in stock-based compensation, the norm for big technology firms is around five times that (see chart). Last year Facebook, for example, recorded stock-based compensation expenses equivalent to around 17% of its sales; Workday, a software firm, andTwitter had stock-based charges of some 20% and 31% of their revenues, respectively *
然而标普500上的非技术公司给出的数据，平均来看，在股权激励上的投入不足利润的1%，正常的大公司比他们高出五倍。例如，去年脸书在股权激励上的投入等于销售额的17%。软件公司workday和twitter在股权激励上依次投入了20%和31%
*Stock-based compensation has its roots in the early days of Silicon Valley, when startups could not afford to pay employees much, if anything, and asked them instead to take a small piece of the company that might rise in value later. What is different today is that many of the Valley’s firms are mature with proven track records, so their stock is already valuable and can be used to greater effect. It is being deployed to“strategically hoard” the best talent, says Patrick Moloney of Willis Towers Watson,
a consultancy. Once locked in, that talent is then assigned to important projects. This
deters people from going to rivals or launching their own startups. *
股权激励有他的渊源，在硅谷早些年的时候创业公司无法支付员工工资，让他们拿公司的一些日后可能升值的股权作为替代。与今天不同的是，硅谷的很多公司都已成熟，有着骄人的业绩，所以他们的股票很值钱，拿出来份量也很重。股权被利用来跑马圈地(战略性地囤积顶尖员工)，Willis Towers Watson 公司的Patrick Moloney说。一旦入坑，那些天才就被分配一些重要的项目。这将会防止他们去对手的公司或者自己创业。
*To maintain their grip on top employees, the tech giants use several tactics in addition to handing out stock. Some provide generous signing-on bonuses that can be clawed back if an employee leaves within three years. Amazon heavily weights stockgrants to an employee’s third and fourth year with the company, as an incentive for them to stay and continue to work hard.Another common practice is to offer a “retention” bonus to make employees who are considering going elsewhere reconsider. Apple, Google and Facebook are rumoured to keep a list of companies they donot want to lose talent to, and supervisors are empowered to offer large bonuses to prevent people moving in that direction. A famous example of this occurred in 2011,when Neal Mohan, a senior Google executive, was considering leaving for Twitter.Some say he was offered a bonus of$100min stock to stay at Google. *
为了维持对人才的把控，除了给股权，这些科技巨鳄还使用了一些策略。一些公司给了丰厚的签约奖金，在三年以内离职奖金会被收回。亚马逊在员工第三年和第四年增加很多股权作为他们留在公司并且持续努力的奖励。另一种惯例是提供留任奖金让那些想跳槽的人重新考虑。传闻指出，苹果、谷歌和脸书有一系列企业他们不想让跳槽的员工到那里去。主管被授权提供大量的奖金防止员工走那条路。很有名的例子出现在2011年，当时谷歌高级主管Neal Mohan考虑跳槽到twitter，有人说他被给了100000000股票的奖金才留下来。
The top ten
*“It’s gone too far,” says one venture capitalist among the many bemoaning how large public technology companies suck up so much talent with their lucrative equity packages. The munificence of the large tech firms raises the stakes for others. Word of lavish offers spreads among colleagues.As a result, the top 10% of talent are getting paid what only the top 2% would otherwise fetch, says Richard Lear of VantagePartners, a consultancy. *
“走的太远了(失掉本心)，”一位风险投资者，许多风险投资者都抱怨大的科技公司用他们利润丰厚的股本跪舔人才。公司的慷慨相赠拉高了其他人的股份[^keyword4]
Even companies that are not doing well offer financial incentives to keep people.
Twitter, whose stock is languishing as it struggles to make money from its socialmedia platform, has seen many talented people depart. The firm isbelieved to be offering bonuses of up to $1m to persuade its top engineers to stay foranotherfew years.
*Not surprisingly, startups find it hard tocompete in the war for talent. The best positioned are high-flying “unicorns”, Valleyspeak for private companies valued over$1bn. These companies, such as Uber andAirbnb, have raised lots of money and arewilling to use it lavishly to lure people outof the large public firms. They can offerhigh cash salaries, but also try to attractemployees by suggesting their stock willlook better when they finally go public.After someone has been at a unicorn foraround four years, they can receive “refresher” grants of stock to give them an additional incentive to remain. *
*Lacking the same resources, smallerstartups blame the giants for distorting themarket for high-flyers. “I get the feeling thatI can’t compete for objectively proven, brilliant talent,” says Mike Driscoll, the boss ofMetamarkets, an analytics startup. “All I can do is hire diamonds in the rough, whowill almost certainly get poached away bylarger companies when they start toemerge as very talented.” Smaller fry try tofind employees with a different temperament, perhaps those willing to take greaterrisks or others who find working at a largecompany dispiriting. *
The rising cost oftalent has also pushedup the level of funding startups need toraise. The idea that it is cheap to launch afirm is a myth, says Evan Williams, who cofounded Twitter and set up Medium, anonline-publishing platform. “It’s harderand more expensive than ever to make astartup successful.” The more moneyyoung companies raise from investors topay their employees, the harder it is for them to breakeven or become profitable .
*The tactics employed by the large techfirms carry risks. One is to the entire ecosystem of Silicon Valley. In the future, entrepreneurswith a world-beatingidea for astartup may recoil at the price ofa garage tolaunch it in. Some startups are alreadymoving elsewhere to hire cheaper engineers and reduce other costs. They don’thave to go very far from the Bay Area, perhaps to southern California (see box) orother states. In the long term, there is a riskthat the Valley could resemble South Korea: dominated by a handful of giant chaebol-like companies that soak up all the talent and squeeze out smaller startups. *
*Another risk is the wrath of investorsand the public. Under generally accepted accounting principles, companies are required to deduct stock-based compensation to calculate profits, but many emphasise alternative measures, and as a resultplenty of shareholders have not been paying attention to the vast amounts beingdoled out. Spencer Rascoff, the boss of Zillow Group, an online property firm, thinksthat stock-based compensation should bepaid a lot more attention. “When it’s ignored by companies and investors it givescompanies the opportunity to use stockcompensation like funny money,” he says.“It’s not. It’s dilutive to shareholders.” *
*Few shareholders question expenseswhen firms are flying high, but the moodcould change swiftly if the stockmarketplunged, or a company’s performancewere to falter, as happened this year atTwitter and LinkedIn. Tech bosses maythink that because they deliver productsand services people like, even adore, theydo not have to worry about the kind ofbacklash against high pay that Wall Streetsuffered. They shouldn’t count on it. *
