Paying People the Syntropy Way

At Kalungi, we’ve always believed that how you pay people says more about your company than any values statement ever could. Compensation isn’t just a financial system—it’s a signal system. It communicates what we value, how we define contribution, and what kind of organization we want to build.

Over the past months, we’ve begun to evolve our thinking about pay to better align with the principles of Syntropy—creating order, clarity, and fairness in an increasingly borderless and AI-augmented world. This model isn’t fully implemented yet. It represents where we’re heading: a framework we’re now testing with every new hire, promotion, and pay adjustment.

This is our philosophy for how we aspire to pay the Syntropy way.

1. The Shift We’re Making

Traditional pay systems are often distorted by geography and legacy conventions. Two people doing the same work can earn vastly different salaries simply because they live in different places. AI will only magnify these distortions, as output becomes cheaper and human signal—clarity, creativity, and judgment—becomes rarer and more valuable.

Our goal is to move toward a model that rewards that signal. Over the next year, as we make compensation adjustments and hire new people, we’ll be using this framework to guide those decisions.

We’re not there yet, but this is the compass we’re following.

2. Base Pay: Time as Irreplaceable Signal

Base pay should honor what is finite—time. It’s the guaranteed compensation for someone committing their time and attention to our shared mission.

We’re designing a structure where base pay reflects the features a person brings to that time: their skills, experience, presence, and ability to generate clarity. These features include both technical expertise and human qualities such as communication, cultural fluency, and reliability with clients.

The aspiration is to anchor pay to global market value for these features—not to local cost of living. A marketing strategist in Lisbon or Lagos who performs at the same level as one in Seattle should eventually be recognized within the same pay band.

We’ll continue to evolve benefits and flexibility within this base framework—allowing people to customize how their compensation supports their stage of life, priorities, and location.

3. Variable Pay: Outcomes Without Entropy

As we refine our pay systems, variable compensation will move toward measuring only realized outcomes—the value the business has already received in the bank.

No forecasts, no theoretical metrics. Just verified value creation.

• Sales and delivery bonuses will be tied to revenue collected, not pipeline or promises.

• Team-based incentives will reflect measurable OKRs, client retention, and utilization.

• Individual bonuses will align with impact that exceeds baseline expectations.

We’re still tuning the mechanics of this, but the principle is clear: variable pay should amplify order, not add noise.

4. Equity: Sharing in Lasting Value

Equity represents belief in long-term impact.
When someone builds something that compounds—frameworks, systems, culture, talent pipelines—they create syntropy that endures.

Our aspiration is to extend equity participation beyond senior leadership to those who consistently create lasting value. As this model matures, we’ll align equity more tightly with durable contributions rather than tenure or title.

5. The Syntropy Merit Framework

We’re piloting a new system to bring structure and transparency to how merit translates into pay. Each team member will eventually be evaluated across ten measurable dimensions of value. The goal isn’t bureaucracy—it’s clarity. Everyone should understand what drives their progression.

Maximum Score: 200

Each score will eventually map to a global pay band, providing a clear range of what each level of contribution is worth in the market.

We’ll use these bands as a reference when hiring, promoting, and conducting reviews—starting immediately for new team members and evolving across the rest of the company as we make adjustments over time.

We are testing the weight factors, the pay bands and the things we use and track. We'll keep adding new insights to this article as we learn together.

6. The Complexities of Paying Across Borders

One of the realities we face in implementing this model is that paying people in multiple countries isn’t simple. It comes with a wide range of financial and administrative implications—for both the employer and the employee.

Every payment method and jurisdiction adds layers of cost: transaction fees, currency conversions, local taxes, and compliance requirements that can vary dramatically from country to country. The time and effort needed for administration can also be significant.

Sometimes these complexities result in additional benefits for team members—such as localized health or retirement coverage. Other times, they don’t. In some countries, taxes are higher but benefits are richer; in others, the opposite is true.

We currently have team members in more than ten countries, and each context is unique. These differences are one of the reasons we’re approaching this transition as a test—experimenting with different mechanisms to see how we can make this work fairly and sustainably for everyone involved.

The challenge is real, but it’s worth solving. A truly global, merit-based pay model must balance fairness with feasibility—and that takes thoughtful experimentation.

7. Testing the Model

This framework is now part of how we learn. Every hire, promotion, and pay adjustment will serve as a data point. We’re tracking what works, where it creates alignment, and where it needs refinement.

Our goal is to gradually transition everyone into this model over the next year—without disruption, and with as much transparency as possible.

This isn’t a top-down policy; it’s a living experiment. We’ll test it, measure its fairness, and keep evolving it until it becomes the foundation of how we pay and grow together.

8. The Signal We Want to Send

This model isn’t about cost optimization. It’s about coherence.

We want to send a clear message—to our team, our clients, and ourselves—that Kalungi pays for signal: for focus, clarity, and contribution that compounds.

We pay for human value, not human location.
We reward those who make the system stronger, cleaner, and more ordered.
We share ownership with those who help us build something that lasts.

Over the coming year, we’ll continue to refine, test, and expand this framework—until the way we pay perfectly reflects the way we work.

That’s the aspiration. That’s paying the syntropy way.