The CEO then went on to explain, “We raised base salaries in Japan by 10 percent in April 2023,” adding, “Since then, we have continued to review our compensation system to ensure that remuneration aligns with employees’ demonstrated capabilities, and in April 2026 we implemented further salary increases, including for starting pay.”
If their last raise was 3-4 years ago, this is a simple inflation adjustment, amazing they get good vibe front page Hacker News credit for this.
Still way better than what many companies do in the US regarding inflation adjustment...
You compared “companies in the US” to this 1 thing that 1 company did in Japan.
Why don’t you cherry pick the compensation at 1 company, maybe nvidia or openai, and do the comparison.
A lot of companies seem to not do consistent raises for inflation
In Sweden, there's a fundamental agreement between companies, the state and unions to not have raises follow inflation (as it becomes reinforcing and hurting the rack economy).
Now, there's always discussion (you can guess who's arguing what if inflation is high and low...), but overall it seems to work pretty good.