It so happened that one way or another over the last half a year I’ve been…

It so happened that one way or another over the last half a year I’ve been running into a lot of different companies and cases, and especially Russian-speaking startups (in different locations).
Noticed an interesting thing. I’ll call it the “low tax base effect.” Specialists (more often managers) who decided to move (doesn’t really matter when), really want to keep their standard of living, or even improve it. And here a moment comes that’s kinda weird to me.

Let’s say a good manager with experience at, say, Yandex gets $5k a month net. And when he moves to work somewhere in Europe or I don’t know where else, he wants to both keep his standard of living and raise his salary. And after a quick napkin calc he ends up with, like, $10k+ net (I’m counting in bucks for convenience). And you know, that’s, well, a lot.

Salaries at the $10k+ net per month level (I generally forgot people are used to thinking per month; everywhere it’s per year, because taxes are per year too) — that’s the US or FAANG (Facebook, Google etc, where everything’s in options). But for a manager to get 10k in a startup — that’s, uuuuh, a very крутой dude or the founder. Or better yet, don’t pay anyone that much in a startup at all. Too expensive.

Meaning:
- I want to raise my standard of living
- and live the good life where taxes are pushing 40%
- and preferably the company is Russian-speaking
- and housing just as cool (count that as x2 in price)

No offense. But it’s easier to hire a Stanford intern for $50k a year than an “successful” manager for $200k.