He pays every one of his 150 employees the exact same salary. Here's how he built a $6B startup. | Steve Tuck, Co-Founder & CEO of Oxide

Steve pays every one of his 150 employees the exact same salary. Support, finance and engineering all earn the same. Back in 2019, VCs only wanted SaaS, and it took dozens of meetings to fund his hardware bet. Then came four and a half years of near-death experiences. Today Oxide is sold out six months ahead and valued at $6B.

In this episode, Steve breaks down how a podcast recorded in a garage brought in key engineers and future customers, why Oxide pays every employee the same salary, and why hiring sales before product market fit is the most common way startups die.

Why You Should Listen

• Why being sold out is the clearest sign of product market fit.
• How sharing every high and low built trust with buyers years before launch.
• Why one salary for everyone kills politics and attracts top talent.
• How to pick investors who back the long road over the short-term fix.

Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, Oxide, Steve Tuck, on-prem cloud computing, hardware startups, building in public, equal pay, deep tech fundraising, go-to-market timing, founder-led content, startup culture

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:02:18 Sold Out for Six Months
• 00:04:55 Pitching Hardware in a SaaS World
• 00:10:25 From Dell to Joyent to Samsung
• 00:17:40 Why Big Companies Stay On-Prem
• 00:22:36 Don't Hire Sales Too Early
• 00:27:00 Building in Public From a Garage
• 00:39:03 Everyone Gets the Same Salary
• 00:50:35 300 Conversations a Month

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