[im_down_w_otp]

Define "smaller company". Because half-a-million a year is not likely to resemble anything you'll get from anywhere outside the companies who are known to pay comparatively very, very high IC and mid-tier management salaries (Google, LinkedIn, Netflix, VMWare, etc.).

I know a lot of people working at a lot of very successful "smaller companies" (for my definition of smaller), and none of them make as much as that. This includes many VP's, SVP's, and the like.