Just curious...were there stocks involved? 4x/5x over the course of a year is a huge chunk of money for a regular Joe. Like $30k vs 120k/150k. That's a whole different level.
Yes, everyone gets options! And the salaries (both then received and outside offers) were higher, as in more than $30k being paid and much more than $150k being offered, but that's just the nature of the field (machine/deep learning analytics). Partly also a regional disparity, as in Google trying to poach, and in one case, a guy left Apple down in Silicon Valley and moved his family to Vancouver to join us.
So there's just no way we'd be competing with SV pay packages and people know that coming in, so we have to compete in other ways, partly the potential of upside (though we always remind people not to get too obsessed with stock options as objectively speaking there's a greater chance a start-up will be a smoking crater than the next unicorn), partly the industry we're in is one that people like to be a part of, partly working on some exciting projects/technology, and partly (as much as it sounds corny) it's a tight-knit team (we take the team on vacation together, last year was Hawaii, the year before Barcelona).
So yes, some key differences as others have pointed out with the Canucks (as in future pay upside if this works out), but aside from pay, I think there is some overlap that whether it be cash or the Stanley Cup, if you think your future will be better with a team and you enjoy what that team offers aside from cash, you can make a compelling offer.
