I'm not the poster, but in my case, I don't plan to spend the Millions, I absolutely plan to work. You might have some folks working you worth >$20M if you work in Silicon Valley.
I think this somewhat speaks to the pay gap present on this platform. From my position I'd happily accept a 40k payout if you wanted to contract me to never say the word "are" for two years. It's all a balance - if you have 20million sitting in the bank then 40k sounds like nothing, but 40k is a lot of money to most people - enough that they'd be happy to agree to some terms that won't significantly affect their lives just to take home the cash and get, lets say, two months of vacation budgeting (a conservative estimate) to enjoy.
The article said they had revenue of 100M. Training generally doesn't lead to recurring revenue, so a huge multiplier is not justified. Doesn't seem too cheap to me.
No, seriously, I pretty damn well understand that projects fail, it is hard to guess how many resources will be needed, etc. But if you are not another scam artist you are probably to calculate in advance, what you will need, then add some risks, then dive into adventure. And the argument "they didn't have enough money, what 0.5M is nowadays, really!" seems to me completely invalid. For several reasons.
First off, the head of the project is Neal Stephenson. He is a public person, well known. It is important. If I'd back the project (I didn't) it probably would matter to me that it belongs to Neal Stephenson, not John Doe. Well known name is worth a lot. And as you know with great power comes great responsibility.
Second (actually, the first one, but I'm ordering then as they take into action), they asked for 500k, they got 500k and then some. It doesn't sound like a big money for such an ambitious project for me too, but if you ask for that you have to know already, how much will be spent on what, right? Planning shouldn't be payed by public. It isn't a backer to think if 500k is enough — ideally you should not only prove it for yourself, but for them too. Maybe you outsource to somewhere, where human resource aren't so expensive, how can I know? By the way 20k for 1 person for a month of work is pretty much hilarious. I mean, yeah, I know that somebody somewhere gets paid that well, but on the other hand I know others, who aren't paid even close that good and often happen to be much better specialists than that first one. So, anyway, as a project manager it's your job to plan right.
Third. Ok, 500k turned to be not enough, you failed. That happens, sometimes things are so complicated that it even isn't really fair to say it was your fault. But taking into account first 2 points it would be pretty natural to explain explicitly why you failed and how that money was spent. How many people worked for you, how much you paid them. What they managed to do over that time. Making it open source if possible, to show that money really weren't spent for nothing, it just wasn't enough, really.
So, I understand that it is always easier to talk sitting on the couch, but I'm trying to imagine myself on Neals place and I can't explain that kind of behavior. Especially because of my first point. For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something. Not just "sorry guys, it didn't work out, we tried; support us some other time, we'll do better, maybe".
Nobody's suggesting doing such though (yet the comment seemed to imply someone had). The suggestion was to save a meager $10K/year, which is tiny relative to the salaries of most people on here.
" Why do we need to pay $1M+ (with benefits) to a VP in Finance, Purchasing, Customer Service and IT? These services are available for 1/100th of the cost."
A comment from that article that proves your points.
$1.2 million seems so low of a dollar amount, for an multi year effort. Isn't that just like... 1 engineer's salary? $150k/year, 1.5x multiplier to account for benefits and other expenses of hiring somebody.
I didn't think salaries were in there, not if you look at the number of people who seem to be on the team. I was actually taking from point of view of the advise from Indigogo, which is to ask a fraction of the amount, meaning they would need much more.
I'm surprised that no one yet said anything about the 18M being a fake number. These guys do this all the time. They spend 10M and release to the press that it was 20M.
I work(ed) for more than one company that uses this strategy. The whole idea is to get everyone to think that you are bigger than you really are.
Of course one can spend 18M on a bad project, but you guys covered it already...
The heads of giant charity’s or government agencies have in similar jobs with vastly less compensation. The idea you can only find people at 50m/year because nobody would do it at 10m/year is ridiculous.
At 20 years, $2m means you can hire 3 people for $33k a year to do the job. At 30 years, you can only hire 2 people for $33k/year. That figure does not include benefits. That may or may not be viable for 19 schools (depending on how far apart they are, etc).
Yeah, it's not massive, but a few grand is nothing to sneeze at either. We're just trying to think differently, and act differently, from everybody else in the space.
And you're right, the real value lies in being offered a larger salary.
Is it the tactic or the price that is shocking people? The tactic is common - heck the same people probably got excited about NASA Climate department correcting people on Facebook. I would be happy to get a million dollars, but it doesn't seem that absurd when you would need a small team for the last year - computers, desks, office space, payroll, benefits, software, etc.
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