Miss Dada  🏳️‍⚧️

If you get a similar stock grant the following year, even without a promotion, that’s another $25k and you’re suddenly right there on that list...with just a year of experience.

Of course, that’s a lot of “if”s. But you can see how it happens, at least, for folks that can play well in the system.

This structure, where everything compounds from your base salary, makes it really easy to see how pay gaps arise.

White women & people of color are statistically less successful at negotiating starting salary. That problem compounds over time, because bonus & stock grants (which make up more of TC over time) are calculated with that lower number.

If bonuses, promotions, and/or stock grants are based on performance review scores, the gap gets bigger - because then, the bias that created the depressed starting salaries also creates similar depressed review scores.

Google, by the way, is currently arguing with the federal government about whether it has a gender pay gap. Google says it does not, because everyone who gets the same review score gets the same raise.

The federal government disagrees, however, because it knows that gender bias contributes to women getting statistically lower review scores, which in turn leads to lower compensation. For a company full of smart people, Google seems a bit dense when it comes to statistics.

One final note because so many people have commented on it: yes, these are Bay Area-specific numbers. What’s more interesting to me though is that even within the Bay Area, there is a huge disparity in compensation between BigCos and other companies.