TL;DR; Yes it's bad, without understanding context.

Doing this, or any other organization rule needs to be considered based on the culture of the company and the goals. It's dangerous to take this one action out of context as to Buffer's purpose in building their organization.

Is it good? For some, that haven't been doing it from day 1 - I'm going to say no. My experience shows that most companies don't have a strict pay scale, and many would get upset by this.

Also, it's a personal thing - maybe your team don't want this. We do this internally at Clarity (everyone on the team knows what everyone else makes) but we don't publish this to the world.

I do agree that transparency helps teams focus on whats important, and can get ride of political issues, but it can also introduce other issues if it's not part of a bigger vision.

It's like assuming if you wear black turtle necks, blue jeans and new balance shoes like Steve Jobs, that you'll be a better designer. That's not how it works.

my2cents

I don't think it matters either way.

Put a number out there and it will attract some and repel others.

Some people will be comfortable working for a startup; others will be afraid of it. More than salary, that will limit who applies.

I have managed startups as well as mature companies. I personally have never been part of a business that has publicized salaries, except as required by law in the context of securities regulation. Publicizing salaries might serve the personal interests of certain kinds of founders-those who want to appear benign and generous in the case of high salaries, or those who want to appear mean and all-powerful in the case of low salaries. There does not appear to be any legitimate business purpose served or advantage gained by doing so however.

The salary part is for HR department but there must be a clear mission on why you are making the salaries public.
Many tech workers, especially engineers, find salary negotiations stressful. In past start-ups, he had sometimes been desperate to get an app finished and paid way too much to get workers on board quickly. Salary transparency is the single best protection against gender bias, racial bias, or orientation bias». That is why some states now require that government contractors report gender gaps in how they pay their employees. Although many governments make workers’ salary information available, fully transparent private-sector companies still are rare enough to garner headlines. A big challenge of implementing pay transparency is having to explain differences among salaries to head off perceptions of unfairness. As much as every company might want to be a model of consistency and equality, the reality is that people’s salaries can vary widely, and for reasons that may be difficult to explain. In addition, pay transparency does not always give the whole story.
You can read more here: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0914-salary-transparency.aspx
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath