It means all of the previous sacrifices the good employees made were for nothing in the eyes of management. Therefore, there is no reason to work hard at all. It is better to go leave for a competitor that knows how to treat their hard working employees.

But if you were getting compensated fairly before, why are you no longer getting compensated fairly because other people got a raise? The most rational action would be simply to match your work output to your peers.

I mean if the market rate for the job you were doing is $70k, and all of a sudden fresh college grads are getting paid that at your company, it doesn't mean that you'll now get $100k elsewhere if you leave. If that is the case, you should have already left.

Now if you were already being underpaid and you were staying at the company for some other reason I could see bailing when others got a pay bump regardless of their contribution.

> If that is the case, you should have already left.

It's interesting how disingenuous conversations can become on HN. Where in one thread everyone will happily acknowledge that lots of developers work extremely long hours at startups for peanuts (in hopes of a possible big future payday) compared to what they could make guaranteed going to work at a larger established company, in another thread the mentality is that everyone is always optimizing for short term earnings.

You got it right at the beginning. People weren't being paid fairly before.

To the point the person you responded to brought up though:

Those years of sacrifice could have been compensated through equity grants instead.

> you'd switch to a more balanced lifestyle?

Don't force your value system on others.

I personally am happiest when I'm working 70-80 hours a week and appreciate being compensated for my hard work. Just because that doesn't describe you doesn't mean I should be forced to attain an artificial "balance."

So, other people make more, and you'd make yourself unhappy in retaliation?

> So, other people make more, and you'd make yourself unhappy in retaliation?

No, but I would start looking for another job. If the company has the excess profit to be giving out huge raises, I'd be upset that those raises were allocated only to low performers.

His value system is consistent with the cultural norm (higher pay for longer harder work). In my opinion you shouldn't act like he is the one acting strange.

He's not acting strangely, just irrationally. The two, unfortunately, are unrelated.

First, I'm not forcing anyone, my opinion is completely inconsequential to your professional life.

Secondly, Ensorceled specifically said (s)he would start "enjoying the weekends", which implies the long hours were, unlike for you, not being particularly enjoyable.

The part he left out is he's only doing that until his job search pans out.

The downside is that the company innovation dies way down because you've killed the meritocracy. Good people will either slack or leave.

I'd love to see the empirical data that allows you to make the inference that company innovation depends on having wide-ranging salary levels.

Lol. That's actually very true. May not be a downside at all :-)

The downside is for the company

Let the company handle that.