Eugen Rochko, CEO and founder of decentralized social network Mastodon, is stepping down after nearly a decade at the helm and walking away with a sizable exit payment.
“Mastodon grew beyond any of my expectations,” he said. “The past two years especially have been overwhelming, and my mental and physical health have taken a dip.”
Rochko’s move has, by his own admission, been a while coming. In April 2024, the establishment of a US nonprofit was announced with a governing board of directors that included Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. Rochko also announced that his ownership of the trademark and other assets were headed to the nonprofit.
I know nothing about the European software market, but translating this in American, $100,000/year for a principal developer and lead of a project of this scale is like paying him 33%-50% of a US salary for those 10 years.
I’m a firm believer that people - including open source contributors - should be compensated for their time when an avenue exists that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the project. Mastodon an amazing platform and I wish him, and the project, nothing but the best.
us software salaries are insanely high compared to the rest of the world, because the cost of living in SV is insanely high.
with a €60k a year salary i’m in the 90th percentile of earners in my country and it took me about two years to have enough to finance my own three-bedroom apartment on one income.
Is the housing market in Sweden less crazy than other places?
It took me almost 10 years to save for my home and I had to move out of my city (Barcelona) to a small town since there was no way I could afford anything decent, even with a good Senior Software Engineer salary.
sweden is so sparsely populated that some places have more empty houses than people. population density is about a quarter that of spain. the big cities are closer to the rest of europe, with homes going for three to four times the price of something an hour away and the rent queue being dominated by people who have been there since the 90s.
i bought a 70ish sqm apartment for about €100k two-ish hours from stockholm. in the city that would probably go for 5-20x the cost (depending on area) and have at least double the monthly cost.
That’s great, good for you!
Can I ask what country?
as evidenced by the instance i’m on, sweden.
which of course also means that i did the normal stupid we do here and gave the amount before taxes. the take-home from that is more like €40k.
I moved from Australia to the San Francisco Bay Area. My starting income was maybe 3x what I was getting paid in Australia, but the cost of living definitely wasn’t 3x higher. Major Australian cities are considered HCOL (high cost of living) areas too. Some things like electronics and food were cheaper in the USA too, at least until inflation and tariffs made everything go up.
what about insurance and healthcare?
The healthcare system in the US isn’t great, but you do get a decent experience if you have an employer that offers good insurance. My employer pays most of the cost of my health insurance. I pay around $200/month for my wife and I, but that’s pre-tax money, and the plan is great for US standards. $15 for doctor visits and $100 maximum for ER visits.
In Australia we pay a 1.5% tax to fund the public health care system, so for a $60k salary that’s $900/year.