Compensation Key Employees and Officers Base Related Other
Jim O'leary (Vp, Engineering) $666,909 $0 $33,343
Ehren Kret (Chief Technology Officer) $665,909 $0 $8,557
Aruna Harder (Chief Operating Officer) $444,606 $0 $20,500
Graeme Connell (Software Developer) $444,606 $0 $35,208
Greyson Parrelli (Software Developer) $422,972 $0 $35,668
Jonathan Chambers (Software Developer) $420,595 $0 $28,346
Meredith Whittaker (Director / Pres Of Signal Messenger) $191,229 $0 $6,032
Moxie Marlinspike (Dir / Ceo Of Sig Msgr Through 2/2022) $80,567 $0 $1,104
Brian Acton (Pres/Sec/Tr/Ceo Sig Msgr As Of 2/2022) $0 $0 $0
> We use third-party services to send a registration code via SMS or voice call in order to verify that the person in possession of a given phone number actually intended to sign up for a Signal account. Simple solution, go distributed.
6M $ for that. Stop doing that. What do dictators control? Mobile phone networks and other infrastructure. And, yes, they really do go after people any way they can.
This "cost" puts people into danger. Coupling identity and operator infrastructure is a critical privacy flaw. And a costly one too apparently. If your #1 goal is to be the most private solution, this cannot be tolerated to continue to be the case. Get rid of it. Your identity should be your cryptographic key.
Are they? These salaries are much lower than most tech competitors. I know we like to call out "high" salaries when a useful service is struggling - but they'll struggle even more if they can't retain good talent because their pay is too low. There's a reason tech skill in government is generally lower than that in industry, for instance.
That really depends on the location these people are working from. In most of the world, those are insanely high salaries.
A company like this doesn't need to be based in SV.
Why didn't this start from say Mexico? Or Singapore or Vietnam? Or at least Germany which has a good record of freedom conscious tech scene .
My bet is in something related to the "maslow pyramid": people in SV have so much money that have everything solved in their lives, so they have the luxury of spending their time in this sort of problems.
• Telegram - Founded: Russia, Headquartered: Dubai, Users: 500M+
• WeChat - Founded: China, Headquartered: Shenzhen, Users: 1.2B+
• LINE - Founded: Japan, Headquartered: Tokyo, Users: 84M (Japan)
• Viber - Founded: Israel, Headquartered: Luxembourg, Users: 1B+
• KakaoTalk - Founded: South Korea, Headquartered: Jeju City, Users: 52M+
• Zalo - Founded: Vietnam, Headquartered: Ho Chi Minh City, Users: 100M+
• ICQ - Founded: Israel, Headquartered: Cyprus, used to have big market share
• Skype - Founded: Estonia, Headquartered: Luxembourg/USA, Users: 40M daily