Back when we were thriving (as recently as 2015) my top engineers made about $400K/year in salary, bonus, & 401K. That does not include health insurance, we footed the bill for 100% of the health insurance and we covered the whole family.
Truth in advertising though. I'm the founder, I'm weird, I ran that company much more like a cooperative than just about anyone else would have. So I don't expect that comp to be that commonplace.
I also tracked salaries at the big companies and made sure we were competitive. In general, we were very competitive but it is possible to get a better package, not common, but possible. One of my guys went to Saleforce or Linkedin, and I could not beat their package (well I could but then I'd have to bump everyone else up to that and we all agreed that didn't make sense for us).
I know a tiny handful of founders who are this kind of "weird" just on moral principle. They often get criticized as naive idealists, for actually valuing employees, including by paying them. All I can say is thank you for doing it your way.
Well I didn't get to where I had hoped, I really wanted to get each person who stuck it out some serious retirement money, like a couple million after tax. I really regret not getting to that but it is what it is.
On the other hand, I treated people really well, much better than most people would have. So I don't agonize over the retirement part.
And one of my guys, as we were winding it down, said something really nice: he pointed out that yeah, we didn't get to the retirement part, everyone got to work from home. He got to be there with his kids, watching them grow up. His best friend is out the door at 6am, 1.5 hour commute, rarely makes it back in time for dinner. The contrast is pretty stunning and I made that possible.
Hearing that was very cool. He's right, there are other rewards besides money.
Truth in advertising though. I'm the founder, I'm weird, I ran that company much more like a cooperative than just about anyone else would have. So I don't expect that comp to be that commonplace.
I also tracked salaries at the big companies and made sure we were competitive. In general, we were very competitive but it is possible to get a better package, not common, but possible. One of my guys went to Saleforce or Linkedin, and I could not beat their package (well I could but then I'd have to bump everyone else up to that and we all agreed that didn't make sense for us).