How Much does a Software Engineer at Google really make?
"In the first forty-eight hours, our content grew ten times." co-founder and CEO of glassdoor.com, Robert Hohman
Robert Hohman
According to their web site, "Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs for specific employers all for free. Glassdoor was born to deliver new transparency to an incredibly important part of our lives — our work.”
Joining us today on Total Picture Radio is Robert Hohman, co-founder and chief executive officer of Glassdoor.com and member of the company's board of directors. Before creating Glassdoor, he was most recently president of Hotwire, a leading discount travel site and division of Expedia. (Click on Read More)
Your friend, Rich Barton, - of Expedia and Zillow.com fame - is part of the start-up - You became friends with Rich at Expedia?
As we know a big criticism of the blogosphere is accuracy. How do you know the information people are submitting is accurate?
Okay, Mr. Hohman, what you've created here is a web site where dissatisfied employees can go to vent or get revenge on their boss. Happy employees wouldn’t bother. So your statistics are obviously biased.
You’ve had lots of press -- WSJ, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Forbes, in an article titled "Workplace porn" -- and on your blog you’ve mentioned the deluge of submissions you’ve received. Give us some data points.
I can't imagine the HR departments at major companies are thrilled by this new level of transparency. How do you convince them this is a good idea?
So, the deal is: I'll share my salary information with you and then you’ll share what you’ve learned with me. Two questions - One: How do protect my privacy?
Two: "Well guess what Bob, I just got laid-off from xyz corp so I've got nothing to share, but I would love to have access to your site."
Someone posed this on Wired: I work for a small enough company I'm the only one with my title. Disclosing my salary is against policy. Therefore I cannot use this site without jeopardizing my employment.
I think a number of companies have employment contracts that forbid employees to discuss their compensation. What can they do?
What has surprised you so far?
How are you going to make money?
Do you think glassdoor.com will have as much value outside of major metro areas and large corporations?
What would you like to add to the discussion?
Official Press Release:
Glassdoor.Com Launches Public Beta, Opening Doors To Employee Salaries, Bonuses, Reviews And Ratings At Any Company For Free
Employee-Generated Content Makes it Possible to Get an Inside Look at Any Job at Any Company
SAUSALITO, CALIF (June 11, 2008) – For as long as most
working Americans can remember, talk about salaries and compensation in
the workplace has been taboo, just as trying to figure out what it's
really like to work for a prospective employer has been next to
impossible. A new site launching in public beta today is addressing
these challenges head on. Glassdoor.com®
is a career and workplace community where anyone can go to find and
anonymously share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about
specific jobs in specific companies – all for free.
“Work matters a great deal to our daily lives, yet detailed information
about jobs and employers is still hard to find. We've built Glassdoor
to make it easier for anyone to peek inside the walls of a prospective
employer — or even the next cubicle — to get information that will
foster more productive conversations and lead to better career
decisions,” said Robert Hohman,
co-founder and chief executive officer of Glassdoor.com. “Glassdoor's
employee-generated content provides a level of transparency in the two
key drivers of employee motivation – compensation and culture – that
is not available from any other source. Our beta launch is just the
first step toward Glassdoor becoming the TripAdvisor of the workplace.”
Registration and access to all employee reviews and salary details on Glassdoor is free to anyone provided they first contribute a review and/or salary survey for their current employer or any position they have held within the last three years. Through this “give-to-get” model, Glassdoor is populated with anonymous employee-generated content, providing valuable information and perspective about workplaces that is otherwise hard to find, from the people who know best - employees.
Founded last year, Glassdoor has been collecting company reviews and salary reports from employees who work for targeted companies over the past several months. To date, Glassdoor has accumulated nearly 3,300 reviews and salary reports for more than 250 companies, primarily concentrated in the Silicon Valley high-tech and New York financial services arenas. As part of its debut, Glassdoor is allowing visitors to preview all available data for four “sneak peek” companies: Cisco; Google; Microsoft; and Yahoo!. Once a visitor completes a company review and/or salary survey, they are granted anonymous and unrestricted access to the equivalent data for all other companies within the Glassdoor dynamic community that includes:
* Detailed company reviews. Glassdoor encourages balanced feedback in its company reviews and asks respondents to provide “pros” and “cons,” along with “advice to senior management”. These unedited accounts provide insight into what employees on the inside really think, showing the good, the bad, and a lot more in between.
* Employee ratings on workplace and leadership, including CEO approval ratings. Through a series of questions, users are asked to rate the company and a range of workplace culture factors, including areas like work-life balance, fairness and respect, employee morale, and senior leadership. Glassdoor also features CEO approval ratings, providing a real-time pulse of how employees think the person in the top job is doing.
* Compensation information by company and position. Unlike most salary services that only report aggregated data by generic position type and industry, Glassdoor provides details of salary, bonuses, and other compensation for actual positions and titles at specific companies. For example, users can see exactly what a software engineer at Google makes, along with bonuses and types of equity grants, in comparison to a software development engineer at Microsoft.
Registered members may also anonymously comment on any review and elect to “watch an employer” to be alerted when there are new reviews or salaries posted for a specific company. Details for more than 40,000 companies are already pre-loaded in the system and if an employer is not in the community database, anyone can add it at any time with the contribution of a review or salary survey.
While a member's identity is never revealed to the Glassdoor community, the company requires a valid and verified e-mail address in order to register and submit survey data. Before being posted to the community, every review and salary survey is read by a Glassdoor team member to ensure the content adheres to its terms of service and community guidelines and does not compromise anonymity. The company estimates this review process could initially take between a few to 48 hours. However, once a submission is received, users may immediately access data for all companies.
Today's Workforce Still Uncomfortable Sharing Compensation Yet Wants More Transparency
Details about compensation and company information, including culture and other qualitative factors, are important for workers today yet traditionally difficult to access. Most workers are not comfortable openly discussing current compensation with people at work and the quantitative and qualitative information collected through annual employee surveys are rarely distributed widely. A recent survey(1) conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of Glassdoor.com illustrates the sentiment of today's workforce:
* Employed adults(2) are more comfortable talking to their spouse or significant other (64%) and best friend (34%) about their current compensation than their boss (24%), a human resources representative (17%), a recruiter (6%) or a direct report (2%).
* 59 percent of employed adults said they wished they had a better understanding of fair market compensation for their position and skill set at their company and in their local job market.
* Half (52%) of employed adults say they'd be more comfortable sharing details of their current compensation if they could do so anonymously although one out of 10 (11%) say they are not comfortable sharing compensation information with anyone.
* Less than 40 percent (38%) of employed adults say their company does a good job sharing internal employee satisfaction survey results with employees.
* It is hard to accurately assess a prospective employer from hiring interviews: about two out of three workers(3) (64%) say they've found the reality of a new job different than what they expected from the hiring process. The areas with the most notable gaps to reality include: job responsibilities (43%); hours expected to work (42%); employees treated with fairness and respect (42%); employee morale (41%); and; Boss's personality (40%).
Employers Stand to Benefit from Glassdoor
Glassdoor provides employers a real-time barometer of internal satisfaction and compensation in the competitive market. While many companies participate in annual salary reviews and internal employee surveys, reports from these assessments are expensive and results can lag several months. The ability to see current compensation data is extremely helpful, especially in markets where salaries for positions in high demand can fluctuate widely in the course of just a few months. For example, demand for many types of software engineering skills in the Bay Area has grown considerably during the past several months, increasing compensation packages.
“We've designed the Glassdoor community with both employees and employers in mind. Glassdoor provides an important forum to exchange information about the workplace that can also benefit employers by helping them stay on top of issues and compensation trends, giving them an edge in recruitment, retention and overall employee engagement,” said Hohman. “Employers tell us they see Glassdoor as a helpful supplement to costly annual surveys that can provide more current insight into employee sentiment and the competition. Glassdoor can help management quickly address issues and, most importantly, exploit areas of strength.”
To help ensure it is meeting the data and resource needs of employers around the country, Glassdoor is inviting them to get involved in the beta and site development process through its Employer Advisory Panel, which the company also kicked off today. Official company representatives from management, human resources and internal communications are encouraged to join the panel to preview new features and participate in periodic surveys and focus groups. Anyone interested who meets these criteria may join the panel by sending an email with contact details to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
For more information about Glassdoor, visit www.glassdoor.com. To receive regular updates about new and interesting data and reports, visit the Glassdoor blog.
(1) The Glassdoor.com study was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive May 15-19, 2008 among 2,505 adults ages 18+, of whom, 2,464 have ever had a job and 1,691 are currently employed. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
(2) For the purposes of this study, the term “employed adults” refers to U.S. adults ages 18+ who are currently employed full time, part time, and/or self employed (n= 1,691).
(3) For the purposes of this study, the term “workers” refers to U.S. adults ages 18+ who have ever had a job (n= 2,464).
The Investors
Glassdoor is backed by Benchmark Capital, a leading venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. Benchmark's portfolio includes high-profile consumer Internet start-ups like Zillow, Bebo, Yelp, Second Life, and franchise companies such as eBay and AOL.
Robert Hohman - Co-Founder, CEO & Director
Robert Hohman is co-founder and chief executive officer of Glassdoor.com and member of the company's board of directors. Before creating Glassdoor, Bob was most recently president of Hotwire, a leading discount travel site and division of Expedia, Inc. Bob was one of the original team members of Expedia, and was part of the executive team that took it public in 1999. During his Expedia tenure, Bob also served as president of Classic Custom Vacations and executive vice president of Cruise & Packages for Expedia North America. In Expedia's early stage, Bob led the engineering team that built the cruise, hotel, and package booking systems. Bob started his career at Microsoft and worked as a software developer in a range of areas from Windows 95 to interactive television to online games. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Stanford University.
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